Dil Aale Dul Annie Le Jange

by Shivangi Ramachandran – University of Oregon

I spent this last weekend at home with a good friend of mine. Over drinks, we talked about a variety of different things, from school to our jobs to our mutually reclusive dating lives. We lingered over that last one for a while there. We’re good enough friends for him to ask me about things openly and he did, bringing up my dating history, or uh, lack thereof and asking me why it was so.

Before I could come up with a good enough answer, he provided me with one, declaring righteously, “You don’t seem to open up to people, Shiva!”

I conceded reluctantly to his observation. It wasn’t often that I was attracted to people.

On most days, I revel in the joy of being what other people call ‘multicultural’.  My father grew up in a small, conservative village in South India and then later, migrated to the crazy, metropolitan liberal Delhi life. I grew up in Delhi, clearly a misfit – browner skinned that most people around, with a thick accent that was a mixture of what was considered opposites – my parents’ South Indian-ness and their great command of the English language (my father published English books and my mother was a high school English teacher). I was a misfit right from kindergarten, with my unusually long name, curly hair and very dark skin. At the age of 18, I decided to make this ‘misfit’ label permanent by moving to the US, without much thought really. Surprisingly, I haven’t ever really second guessed that decision.

The effect of this acquired multiculturalism has creeped into most areas of my life and for the most part, made it better. I work better in social situations now that I’ve experienced different kinds. The only area that my life has maybe suffered a tiny little bit, is my dating life.

I’ve had this conversation a bunch of time before where I’ve lamented to my friends about how every guy that I’m approached by is either not Indian enough or not American enough, which basically means Sendhil Ramamurthy is the guy for me (get on your phone, Sendhil, and call me already!). Anyway, during this specific conversation with my friend this last weekend, he pushing his point as if trying to wiggle out of me a satisfactory answer.

“Why do you think that is?” he asked.

“I need somebody to be able to watch Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge…”

He looked confused.

“Bollywood” I said, “Someone to watch Bollywood and love it and then go onto read Socrates and appreciate it just the same amount, and then have intense conversations with me about both of those.”

“Conversations about… people running around trees dancing?” he said

“Yes” I said unhesitatingly.

We stared at each other.

Is it possible to expose yourself to too many good things and then never be able to find anything good enough ever again? Exposing yourself to different cultures is kind of like exposing yourself to different footwear. Let me elaborate.

The first pair of shoes I remember owning, were the ones I needed as part of my uniform for when I started school. I remember looking at them and hating them with their zig zag laces and fancy ways to tie them. I could never tie my own laces and they used to come open halfway through school and many a times I found myself tripping over them and hurting myself before I reached home. I hated them at first, but slowly as I learned to tie the laces, I appreciated how fast they made me when I was running, how my feet hurt a lot less when I wore them instead of my flip flops. Eventually, I grew to love them. Then came, my first pair of flats, that did not feel as comfortable as my sneakers, but again, I grew to love them because of how pretty my feet looked and how I could actually feel the ground when I walked in them. Last but definitely not the least, came my first pair of heels, that I’m still working on loving.

It’s the same with different cultures. When I first moved to Delhi, and found how liberal it was as opposed to South India, I disliked it tremendously. I fell and was awkward, much like I was with my first pair of sneakers, but I found my group of best friends and settled down to like it, just as much as I did South India. Then I moved here, again shocked by how liberal everything was. I wasn’t quite comfortable for the longest time, but then I found sushi and cheesecake, my favorite theatre and art cinema, hiking trails and most importantly, some of the greatest people I will ever know, and found myself getting comfortable.  While, being constantly uncomfortable in one’s shoes can get tiring, I don’t think you can really grow and figure out the best path until you’ve tried walking in as many shoes as possible.

And then there comes that time when you’ve worn so many different shoes and liked so many of them, for different reasons, that when it comes time to pick a favorite, you just can’t do it.

“So this, uh, Dil.. uh, Dil..”

“Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge?” I finished for him

“Yes. That. What is that about?” he asked.

“A guy and a girl fall in love. Then they dance in snow-covered mountains.

“Oh. Do you have it?”

“Yes”

“Do you want to watch it?”

I stared at him, a little bit confused.

“Uh, sure.”

“Let’s watch it.”

I put the DVD in the player, suspicious of my friend’s motives. Was there going to be a lot of pointing and laughing involved, after? I could hear him talking to our other mutual friends – “Look at Shiva. So intelligent in her daily life but then watches crap like this secretly.”

I soon forgot about my friend or anyone else as I watched Raj pulled Simran onto the train and start their perfect romance.

He didn’t whine about the length of the movie which pleasantly surprised me and we got through the three hours without the usual “can we fast forward through this song?” comment that I now expected from all of my American friends.

We finished the movie and I sighed in pure contentment.

“Raj is the perfect man.” I said with finality.

“Uh, except he’s fictional and kind of like a jackass.” my friend said.

I stared at him. “He is not. He went all the way to India for Simran!”

“Yeeaaah, but he didn’t tell her that he liked her and then was mean to her the entire trip and then came to India, just assuming that she would want him at all.”

I glared. “You don’t know anything about romance.”

“No. Uh, I think I can say that because I do.”

For the next few minutes, we argued about Raj’s intentions and women loving bad boys. He argued that movies like DDLJ work to provide little girls with fantasies about their Prince Charming and the wrong message about bad boys being really actually good at heart. I argued that he didn’t understand romance and it would be better if he stayed out of it.

We never really reached a conclusion but before we knew, it was pretty late, and he needed to get back home.

He grabbed his jacket out of the closet and we argued heatedly all the way to the door.

“Raj is an idiot but this was fun, Shiv” he said smiling “We should do it again.”

“Whatever.” I said, shaking my head and smiling “Raj is amazing.”

He laughed and opened the door and then stopped.

He turned around with a grin on his face.

“You know what we just did, right?”

I shook my head, confused.

“Dil…Dil…”

“Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge?” I supplied helpfully.

“Yes. We just had an intense conversation about Dil Aale Dul Annie Le Jange.”

I looked at him, confused.

“And…?”

“And. And..” He paused. “Do you want to read some Socrates together on Thursday?”

He grinned, staring at my shocked face, and bounded down the stairs.

I shut my door slowly behind him, trying to process what had just happened.

A smile found its way onto my face.

Then, I put my feet in the brand new shoes, wiggled my toes a little bit, and finally got comfortable.