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Age no bar, but love baar-baar?
The typical Mills and Boon romance between a grey-haired man and a PYT has set many readers' heart racing.
But on screen adaptations of the older guy-younger woman love stories have not got a thumbs up at the Bollywood BO.
While Anil Kapoor and Sridevi in "Lamhe" had the critics all agog, the film failed to make a mark at the box office. Much later, the Amitabh Bachchan-Jiah Khan starrer, "Nishabd", even failed to impress the critics. But on TV, it's a theme that's found favour time and again. From "Astitva...Ek Prem Kahani" to the soon-to-be-aired "Kuchh Toh Log Kahengey" (KTLK), which stars the young Kirti Kamra and the much older Mohnish Behl, television viewers bridge the generation gap with ease.
Ditto for young men pursuing much older female love interests. While an "Astitva" was appreciated on TV, "Leela" did not garner a positive response at the BO.
Rajan Shahi, who's directed a serial on the theme in the past, "Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin", and is now producing "KTLK", reasons that while the entertainment industry finds love between couples of disparate ages an exciting theme, television as a medium is better suited to explore the complexities of such love stories. "It is because this subject requires a lot of detailing and needs to be handled with a lot of sensitivity. To build up the interest of the viewers for such a subject in just three hours is not possible. So, while television shows on the theme have surprised viewers, the movies on the subject have shocked them. Most of the films have been quite over the top and bold for viewers," he says.
Even a big star cast cannot rescue a movie if the subject is not treated well, avers Ajai Sinha, director of "Astitiva...Ek Prem Kahani", which was among the first Indian TV serials to be made on the theme. "Amitabh Bachchan couldn't ensure the success of "Nishabd"... Yeh koi aam topic nahi hai, it needs to be dealt with the heart and not the mind," he adds. Sinha also emphasises that while TV makes such romances seem "real and believable", movies add too much drama to it.
A point that's reiterated by film critic Taran Adarsh. "The movies failed to appeal to the audience because they didn't merit to be box office hits. The subject was not dealt with in the way it should have been. It is very unfortunate that no film director has so far been able to come out with a movie on the theme with the potential to be a BO hit," he says.
Of course, there are exceptions such as the Akshaye Khanna and Dimple Kapadia romance in "Dil Chahta Hai", which did not become a speed-breaker for the film's success. The subtle age difference between Ranbir Kapoor and Konkona Sen Sharma in "Wake Up Sid" also did not raise too many eyebrows.
But film critic Komal Nahata reasons, "The subject does not have mass appeal, and works for only a certain class of movie-goers. For the rest, this kind of romance does not appeal."
While Saurabh Tewari, fiction head of Imagine TV, feels that a "Lamhe" was probably made ahead of its time, he attributes the success of the "Cheeni Kum" variety of romances on TV on the viewership base: "Women make up the chunk of TV viewers, and they love to see such stories," he says.
And why not? For one, such topics are a welcome relief from the run-of-the-mill saas-bahu soaps that have come to typify content on Indian TV channels. Exactly why actor Ram Kapoor readily agreed to do "Kasamh Se", a serial in which he played the older love interest of Prachi Desai. "When Ekta came up with this theme of a love story between an old guy and a very young girl, I immediately said yes. Not even for a second had I any apprehensions about doing the role nor was I unsure of its success. Such themes give a different dimension to television programming and so, work well," he points out.
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