In a country where PDA continues to be taboo, Sanjay Mishra’s last release Angrezi Mein Kehte Hain is an endearing effort to make showing love to one another, especially for the older couples, more acceptable.
The actor says people have a skewed notion about the idea of love and romance and how it belongs only to the youth.
“Romance is not just for a boy and a girl, the romance which takes place around the trees and flowers... Some people have romance with food, so it’s different for different people. That’s how even Mira and Khusro came to be. We have very limited notion of romance. We have made it like that,” Mishra told PTI. “Love is beyond all this. It is ageless.
You see an older couple sitting in a cafe sharing coffee and you know that’s love when they look at you with those eyes. That’s romance.”
Directed by Harish Vyas, the film set in Varanasi tells the story of a couple, played by Mishra and Ekavali Khanna, who have been married for more than 30 years. They try to find love and spark back in their lives with the help of the young generation — Anshuman Jha and Shivani Raghuvanshi.
The film released on May 18.
Asked why love stories focus on the youth, the actor says it’s a question that needed to be asked.
He says: “Does it mean that after 20, life is over? Will all good things will happen below the age of 30? After that you’re done? Maybe someone wakes up late. They would want to achieve something at the age of 60.
Will you discourage them? How much of a struggle would that be? To establish oneself in one’s own society?”
In the film, Mishra plays Yashwant Batra, a conservative middle class man who tries re-igniting his romance with wife Kiran, whom he realises he had taken for granted since long.
“We need to add a little language in our daily lives to acknowledge these gestures, we have learnt so many cusswords, this is also possible. Why does ‘I love you’ have such a short shelf life?” he says.
“Language is necessary. We express through it. The language of love has become silent. The world would have been different had it been the other way.”
Mishra says it is unfortunate that the societal norms do not even let people freely express themselves to their mother.
“We don’t even feel the need to say it to mothers. This attitude that has been given to us by the society. For that language to emerge, we need to be in touch with ourselves. Then profess love to the other person,” the actor says.
In the end, Mishra, who is known for his impeccable comic timing, says: “But don’t go on saying ‘I love you’ to everyone!”
