{"id":3495,"date":"2016-03-10T04:04:14","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T22:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3495"},"modified":"2016-03-10T04:04:14","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T22:34:14","slug":"badhaai-ho-review-sex-gajraj-rao-neena-gupta-ayushmann-khuranna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3495","title":{"rendered":"Badhaai Ho Review: Why Should the Sex Lives of Indian Parents Be a Secret?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A<\/span><\/p>rranged marriage<\/span><\/a> is an industry in India: The practice that was once an obligation for our parents\u2019 generation, is merely an option for ours. Even though, a lot has changed about how India looks at marriage, the archaic assumption that lovelessness accompanies every arranged marriage remains. Somehow, we believe that only love marriages can accommodate the kind of intimate tenderness that exists between a married couple. It\u2019s why the biggest reveal in Amit Sharma\u2019s <\/span>Badhaai Ho<\/span><\/i>, comes late in the second half: The film\u2019s leads \u2013 a middle-aged married couple \u2013 who are very much in love, are actually the product of an arranged marriage. <\/span>\n\nFor most of <\/span>Badhaai Ho<\/span><\/i>, Jitender Kaushik (Gajraj Rao) and his wife, Priyamvada (Neena Gupta) \u2013 parents to a 20-something Nakul (<\/span>Ayushmann Khurrana<\/span><\/a> in a<\/span> Vicky Donor<\/span><\/i>-meets-<\/span>Shubh Mangal Savdhan<\/span><\/i><\/a> comfort zone) and a 16-year-old \u2013 play against type. Neither is their relationship a formal partnership, nor are they on autopilot with each other. Instead, their scenes together bubble with warmth, typical of an intimate courtship. He puts his head on her lap. She listens to his poetry. He leaves everything to console her when she\u2019s upset. Her eyes immediately look out for him at a crowded wedding. He tells her how beautiful she looks when her hair isn\u2019t tied up and she leaves it open. It\u2019s easy to mistake them for young lovers. They are after all, an anomaly: a love story thriving amid the societal expectations of a responsible \u2013 and by extension \u2013 physically distant married couple. <\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s why the film\u2019s plot \u2013 Priyamvada\u2019s unplanned and \u201cembarrassing\u201d <\/span>pregnancy<\/span><\/a> in her late 40s \u2013 is hardly treated as<\/span> its<\/span> plot twist. Instead, it\u2019s exploited as a device to expose the hypocritical attitude we harbour toward <\/span>love and sex<\/span><\/a>. As the film underlines, for most of India, sex is merely a vehicle of reproduction and not an act of love. And it supposedly comes with an age limit \u2013 forbidden to couples the minute they become <\/span>parents<\/span><\/a>. It\u2019s why we don\u2019t think twice before urgently demanding \u201cgood news\u201d from newlyweds but balk at the idea of imagining our parents as sexual beings. <\/span>\n\nBadhaai Ho <\/span><\/i>cleverly<\/span> highlights this double standard in a song sequence, where the elder Kaushiks\u2019 being affectionate toward each other at a <\/span>public wedding<\/span><\/a> is juxtaposed with Nakul romancing his girlfriend Renee (a lacklustre Sanya Malhotra) in an empty house. And even though the two sets of lovebirds are essentially mirroring each other, it\u2019s the parents\u2019 expression of love that is frowned upon. Nakul reiterates this universal mindset when he stops mid-sex and goes, \u201cYeh bhi koi mummy papa ki karne wali cheez hai kya?\u201d <\/span>\n

Even though, a lot has changed about how India looks at marriage, the archaic assumption that lovelessness accompanies every arranged marriage remains.<\/blockquote>\nFor him, their friends and neighbours, the mere idea of Jitender and Priyamvada having <\/span>sex <\/span><\/a>\u2013 especially after they\u2019ve ticked off their responsibility to procreate \u2013 is revolting because it confirms that they derived pleasure out of it. That they refused to allow their roles as caregivers define their identities and instead thought about themselves. More importantly, that they shattered the traditional notion of an arranged marriage being a chore by making their <\/span>appetite for sex<\/span><\/a> public. (Although, it\u2019s ironic that a film which seeks to normalise sex is prudish in how it implies the act.) It\u2019s why the news of Priyamvada\u2019s pregnancy comes with a patina of shame \u2013 her mother-in-law lashes out at her for not having \u201csharam\u201d and the nosy neighbour links it to Jitendra\u2019s lack of \u201csharafat\u201d.<\/span>\n\nBadhaai Ho<\/span><\/i> does a delightful job of excavating how this orthodox tendency to rely on sex only for procreation ends up robbing a woman of her desires. It\u2019s evident in a neighbour\u2019s reaction toward Priyamvada\u2019s pregnancy. Instead of focusing on the unplanned kid, she chooses to highlight the fact that Priyamvada has had sex, with an envious, \u201cBahut jalan ho rahi hai\u201d. Renee does the same when she makes Nakul realise how unjust it is to expect a woman to forget her needs just because she is also a <\/span>mother<\/span><\/a>. It’s a brave exposition, although, I was half-expecting the film to delve deeper into the minds of married men and <\/span>women<\/span><\/a> and unpack their differing reactions to the pregnancy: Priyamvada is shamed for her bump while Jitender is allowed to brandish his studness.<\/span>\n\nBut <\/span>Badhaai Ho<\/span><\/i>, which attempts to ask, \u201cWhy do Indians acknowledge love and intimacy only when it is young?\u201d does justice to itself by casting two senior actors as the film\u2019s leads. It makes a statement against the ageism that pervades Hindi cinema, suppressing it from writing fascinating older characters. <\/span>Badhaai Ho<\/span><\/i> could change that: Both Gajraj Rao and Neena Gupta outperform their younger peers, delivering comic performances that are soaked in both sentimentality and empathy. If Seema Pahwa and Pankaj Tripathi were the de-facto Bollywood parents of last year, then Rao and Gupta are this year\u2019s revelations. Like their predecessors, they don\u2019t just normalise <\/span>sex<\/span><\/a>, but also go ahead and have it.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Badhaai Ho is a delightful comedy that exposes society\u2019s hypocrisy toward sex. It underlines our unwillingness to view our parents as sexual beings, effectively asking, \u201cCan Indians acknowledge love and intimacy only when it is young?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":3496,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3114],"tags":[6669,6670,6671,19,224,5350,1726,6523,408],"class_list":["post-3495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bollywood","tag-ayushmann-khuranna","tag-badhaai-ho","tag-gajraj-rao","tag-india","tag-love","tag-neena-gupta","tag-parents","tag-sanya-malhotra","tag-sex"],"yoast_head":"\nBadhaai Ho Review: Why Should the Sex Lives of Indian Parents Be a Secret?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Badhaai Ho is a delightful comedy that exposes society\u2019s hypocrisy toward sex. 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It underlines our unwillingness to view our parents as sexual beings, effectively asking, \u201cCan Indians acknowledge love and intimacy only when it is young?\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3495\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Arr\u00e9\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-09T22:34:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1539842953.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1520\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"850\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Poulomi Das\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Badhaai Ho Review: Why Should the Sex Lives of Indian Parents Be a Secret?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Badhaai Ho is a delightful comedy that exposes society\u2019s hypocrisy toward sex. 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