Many amongst us chug along in life somewhat dissatisfied with our life partners. A neighbour’s wife always looks smarter. A friend’s husband sounds more dashing and practical. Our own spouse invariably sounds duller and listless in comparison. We are never quite satisfied with what we have. We often yearn for what we do not have.
What do we expect from a soul-mate? An unqualified acceptance by the party of the other part, perhaps? A companionship which comforts and soothes? A fulfillment of some of our basic needs?
At a deeper level, the illusory search for a perfect soul-mate, The One, begins with a realization that we cannot become more perfect all by ourselves. We need another person’s help to chisel ourselves better. To do so, we search for a person who is perfect in more ways than one.
Some Bollywood movies have dealt with this aspect of our relationships in a poignant manner. Here is a quick recapitulation of some such offerings which come to one’s mind.
Navrang
(1959, V. Shantaram)
A poet struggling for recognition starts fantasizing about a dancing diva cast in the mould of his own wife. Whereas the wife is busy with mundane affairs of life, the poet is happy to remain in an imaginary world inhabited by the make-believe seductress. The harsh slings and arrows of life eventually make him realize his folly and accept his wife whole-heartedly.
Satyam Shivam Sundaram
(1978, Raj Kapoor)
A young engineer who abhors ugliness falls in love with a vivacious young woman whose face is partially scarred. Besotted by her mellifluous voice and religiosity, he does not notice her facial disfigurement and marries her. Rejected by her husband, the woman keeps meeting him at nights, making him believe that he is spending time with a mistress instead. Eventually, events make him realize his folly. He gives up his shallow perception of beauty and understands the value of inner beauty in life.
Maya Memsaab
(1993, Ketan Mehta)
Based on Gustave Flaubert’s ‘Madame Bovary’, the film captures the quest of a perfect mate by a young, beautiful and intelligent woman. After a failed marriage with a busy doctor, affairs follow. Her search for The One remains elusive. She remains dissatisfied and eventually dies.
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
(2008, Aditya Chopra)
A diffident and introverted male ends up marrying a beautiful and vivacious young woman who claims her inability to love him. She loves the dashing heroes of Bollywood and enters a dancing competition, where she runs into a breezy character who is none other than her husband, duly remodeled by a friend of his. Romance blossoms. Eventually, she realizes the value of true love that her otherwise boring husband possesses for her.
7 Khoon Maaf
(2011, Vishal Bhardwaj)
The film narrates the story of an Anglo-Indian woman who murders her seven husbands in an unending quest for love. Eventually, she finds true love and solace in Jesus – at Pondicherry. It is based on a short story by Ruskin Bond: “Susanna’s Seven Husbands”.
All these movies portray an important facet of life. Our quest for The One is all about the search for our own true self. The desire to search for a mate is not about finding the right person. It is about becoming the right person.
A perfect spouse cannot make us complete. He/she can only help us in discovering ourselves and in becoming the right person. The partners only supplement each other’s strengths and weaknesses and tackle the challenges of life together, as a team.
This realization is a humble new beginning and a part of our own process of perfection; our evolution to a higher plane of consciousness.
PS: If you liked this post, you may perhaps also like https://ashokbhatia.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/a-mature-shade-of-love-in-movies.
ashokbhatia 
This is so true! In fact, I was just thinking about it an hour ago that the search for the perfect partner means looking for those qualities that we would personally like to have but have never developed them and then I just came across your post in my Reader’s feed! Great read and selection of films. Rab ne Bana di jodi is a fun movie to watch and I just love Satyam Shivam Sundaram’s melodious songs. Cheers. 🙂
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When it comes to classical music and dances, Navrang stands apart!
Thank you.
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You’re right. I just went online and saw that a couple of my old classic favourite songs (Aa jaare natkhat and Aadha hai Chandrama) are from Navrang (I haven’t seen the film yet). Thanks. 🙂
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…not to forget ‘Tu chhupi hai kahaan…..!’
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Aah yes, I hadn’t realized it’s from this film! Listening to some of these gems now. 🙂
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Well written.
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Thank you.
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The last lines are true. Everyone is in search of their soulmate yet they are unaware of their own soul.
Every age of Indian cinema clearly shown.
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You are right that down the decades, this is one of the themes Bollywood keeps touching upon. Thank you for adding value.
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The search of a perfect soul mates is the most common theme in our Bollywood movies, but the ones that you have enlisted in this post actually deal with the fact that ‘perfect’ itself is illusory in nature.
Sir, you have summed it up very well in the lines.
‘A perfect spouse cannot make us complete. He/she can only help us in discovering ourselves and in becoming the right person.’
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Thank you, Somali. Yes, perfection in itself is illusory, but it does set a benchmark which keeps propelling us, much like the way Gurudev Tagore describes in Gitanjali – as a ‘tireless striving’ of the soul.
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Reblogged this on ashokbhatia.
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Needless to say, as ussual, this is a great write up. Rgrds
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Thank you. There is a lovely song in the movie Razia Sultan: ‘Ae dile naadaan…..’ which sums up yet another facet of life – our endless quest of finding our purpose! I believe the search for a perfect soul-mate is merely a subset of the overall quest of ours.
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Awesome sir. Loved it !
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Thanks for going through and commenting.
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Beautifully written sir, my humble mentions, Rajnigandha – A confused woman searching for her soulmate.
Chhoti si baat – How a young man not sure how to approach his soulmate ultimately becomes successful.
Rgrds
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The main idea here was to showcase married couples where one of the partners is imagining the party of the other part to be perfect, The One. A sense of despondency then sets in. Howsoever hard one tries, he/she fails to be good enough for the other. The alliance may not get mummified, to use an expression from P G Wodehouse, but it goes into a coma of sorts. Sparks cease to fly.
Both the movies mentioned by you, though my favourites, would not fall in this category!
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Ah, I got it sir. Apologies, for mentioning the movies that are out of context. I know they are favourites of yours too. Rgrds
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Thank you. No apologies are necessary!
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What an interesting and offbeat theme this is. I can think of a few more films which have a similar element – in this case, of someone marrying (against their wishes) and then immediately after being separated from this new spouse, often sight unseen. They go off on that quest of searching for the One, only to discover that the One is their spouse. Choti si Mulaqat, Doli and Pyaar ka Sapna are the films I have in mind, and this song from Pyaar ka Sapna pretty much encapsulates the idea of the One:
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Thank you. All of the three mentioned are interesting additions, though Chhoti Si Mulaqat does not quite make the cut. I think there are a few other movies (with a My Fair Lady touch, if I may say so) which have a similar theme, though, at the moment, my memory fails me.
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