JC
There seem to be so many Indian man/White woman love stories lately! There was A Fond Kiss just recently, and SwirlNYC is going to see a play called India Awaiting, which I will definitely post more about soon. In both, there is definitely a sort of cultural tug-of-war for the Indian male to engage in with his family. The wanting to maintain close family ties, but the desire to break away from the traditional (e.g. “No, I will not have an arranged wedding.”). This film, Dil Jo Bhi Kahey, is about another such romance (thanks for the tip, Renu!).

This Romesh Sharma film is based on culture chaos with a contemporary Mauritian setting. Jai Sinha (Karan Sharma) falls in love with Sophie Besson (Annabelle Wallace) while both of them are studying in Stockholm. The pair finds itself clashing with their respective parents. She happens to be the daughter of a prominent white family.

While Jai’s father Shekhar Sinha (Amitabh Bachchan) has a liberal view on marriage and approves the relationship with zero hesitation, his mom Sandhya (Revathy) is of the orthodox breed who isn’t comfortable with the idea of having a foreign daughter-in-law. In the conflict, Jai is pressurized to marry an Indian girl (Bhoomika Chawla), who when realizes the real story backs out. The film underlines the cultural conflict that exists between societies, each trying to endorse their own culture.