From ‘Laapataa Ladies’ to ‘Student of the Year’, how do Bollywood utopias propel escapism?

A utopian world in Bollywood may not be as common as a dystopian one, but arguably, its fluffy escapism makes it more memorable, and perhaps even more impactful

Late at night, a newly-married man grabs his bride’s hand and rushes to get off at a railway station. Upon reaching home, when the bride unveils herself to her new family, everyone is aghast. There’s been a bride swap. This young woman is a stranger, while the family’s daughter in-law is actually stranded at another railway station.

“If Laapataa Ladies was a realistic film, then it would have been like NH10,” says screenwriter Ishita Moitra. “But they chose to tell this story in a utopic way because that’s what, I think, was in their heart. They wanted to see these things in a warm and fuzzy, sunshine-y way.” Moitra is talking about director Kiran Rao’s decision to set Laapataa Ladies in a place called “Nirmal Pradesh”. “We set the story in a fictional village and state so that we could create our own little world, where the culture and customs could be tweaked to suit our narrative requirements,” says Rao about Nirmal Pradesh. The result was a rural world where the men are gentle, even if they seem prickly at first; and where women find sisterhood and allies against all odds. 

The Indian hinterland has been a favourite setting for Bollywood films and television series in recent times, but the likes of Mirzapur, Gangs of Wasseypur and Khakee: The Bihar Chapter set their stories in the country’s badlands, creating worlds that verge on dystopia. Counterbalancing that darkness are fictional places like Nirmal Pradesh of Laapataa Ladies and the village of Phulera, where writer Chandan Kumar set the hit series Panchayat.

The creators of small-town utopias are not ignorant of the socio-political issues that characterise these spaces in the real world. Both Nirmal Pradesh and Phulera are rooted in the culture of rural north India, but they are informed by optimism and a determination to entertain. “I know the darkness of that world,” says Kumar of the village setting against which Panchayat unfolds. “Because it’s a rural background, of course there are a lot of negative things. The panchayat system is real, the injustice of local politics is real, people use proxies to run for election—these things are very real. But just because it’s dark, we don’t have to approach it this way. There should be a filter, so that all the ugliness that we associate with that world isn’t revealed.” 

Building utopias

The word “utopia” is derived from the Greek for “no place” (ou topos). First coined by English humanist Thomas More, it is, by definition, impossible to realise, and exists only in the imaginary. The power of a utopia lies in its ability to immerse an audience in a fantasy that makes change and alternatives to the status quo seem aspirational, rather than unsettling. The utopias of Bollywood are fewer than its many dystopias, but arguably, their fluffy escapism makes them more memorable, and perhaps even more impactful. Saturated with Technicolor optimism, Bollywood utopias are beloved escapist retreats and bubbles of wish fulfilment, like the red-bricked home of the liberal-minded Chatterjees in Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. 

In contrast to the stifling atmosphere of Randhawa Mansion (where Ranveer Singh’s character Rocky’s family resides), Rani Chatterjee’s (played by Alia Bhatt) family home is a place of acceptance. Even while the Chatterjees school Rocky, humiliating him on occasion, their home is where reconciliations happen. It makes space for Rani’s father’s gentle masculinity, and it is where Rani sets aside her ego to apologise to Rocky’s father (whose new, improved and more liberal avatar is first unveiled at the Chatterjee home). “Looking inwards is what makes it a utopia,” says Moitra, who is a co-writer of Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. “Self-awareness, actually being able to heal and transform—that is the utopia. It takes years and years in real life to be able to do it, but in a film, we can show it to you in a short span of time. All the characters are healed and changed at the end,” she elaborates. 

If there is a patron saint of utopias in mainstream Hindi cinema, it has to be Johar. Student of The Year (SOTY), co-written by Niranjan Iyengar, presented to audiences a college that followed a tradition of frothy frivolity set by the colleges of Yash Raj Films and Johar’s Dharma Productions around the turn of the millennium. “It was an extension of the same thing that Karan Johar did in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (KKHH),” says Iyengar. “The college in that film was a fantasy land, and by the time we got to SOTY, it had become aspirational.” Iyengar describes SOTY as “the 10x version of KKHH”. He adds, “There was no question of making it realistic. When you watch the film, you must feel, ‘If only this were real, how fun would it be.’” This sense of enjoyment has everything to do with these spaces being romanticised and idealised. Places like St. Teresa’s College in SOTY may not care much for formal education, but they do enrich the film’s characters (and audiences) with more than a few life lessons. 

Real cities as cinematic utopias

Bollywood has also imagined glimmers of utopia in the big, bad city. In Ayan Mukerji’s debut film Wake Up Sid—which was produced by Johar and for which Iyengar wrote the dialogues—it’s the city of Mumbai that holds equal space for the ambitious Aisha (Konkona Sen Sharma) and the spoilt Sid (Ranbir Kapoor), as well as their relationship with each other. “Mumbai is a city that gives you hope, no matter who you are or where you come from,” says Iyengar of the romanticisation of Mumbai. The spirit of the city in the film is one of bright-eyed optimism and opportunity. “Wake up Sid is a very young film,” remarks Iyengar. “It was born out of Ayan Mukerji, who had a very clear idea of what he wanted to say about Mumbai. I was able to look at Mumbai from the eyes of a 24-year-old, even though I was in my late 30s, because it was Ayan’s version of Mumbai. Everything was bright, everything was colourful, everything was joyful and hopeful.”

Iyengar says he wrote 12 or 13 versions of Aisha’s climactic voiceover, which culminates in the couple embracing at a rain-wrapped Marine Drive. “Ayan, as a director and as a screenplay writer, had such a precise idea of what emotions he wanted to evoke in that article that [Aisha] writes about Bombay. Because it was, in many ways, his own ode to Mumbai,” says Iyengar, pointing out how the city is a significant character in Wake Up Sid. Itnot only shapes the lives of the protagonists for the better, but also the supporting characters. “Supriya Pathak’s character learns English for the sake of her son,” mentions Iyengar. “Because she wants to hang out with her son and his friends. That’s something you can do in Mumbai. Every character’s graph has to do with the city. The fact that they are in Mumbai defines a lot about them in the film,” he says. “The city has various personalities. Every film that has depicted Mumbai has depicted Mumbai from the eyes of their characters.” 

Johar is similarly audacious in his imagination of Delhi—evident in Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham and Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani—as a city of extremes that ultimately celebrates harmony, a fantastical space where the power of love reigns supreme against all odds. Where Shootjit Sircar portrays his metropolises as safe havens coloured by acceptance (Vicky Donor) and buoyancy (Piku), Sooraj Barjatya’s filmography eschews conflict altogether in favour of presenting wholesome narratives set in idealised spaces like Hum Saath-Saath Hain’s Rampur.

Ultimately, a cinematic utopia is created by the characters who are shaped by the world around them, as well as the way they are able to shape their world. “We tell stories because when reality becomes unbearable, we have to find parts of it that are pretty, beautiful and hopeful,” says Iyengar. As Moitra puts it, “We all wish for happy endings.” When it becomes possible in a filmy utopia, in a strange way, that happy ending is perhaps a little closer to becoming reality. 

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