Are live-in relationships the flavour of the season?

Mumbai, Sep 9 (IANS) Trust Bollywood to latch on to any formula that can attract viewers. With "Pyaar Mein Twist", featuring Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia, Bollywood seems to have become more open about live-in relationships.

The film has the unorthodox pair of parents, Dimple and Rishi, running away together. Nothing wrong with that, except that the two are not married to each other.

This, in the context of Hindustani culture might seem sacrilegious except for the fact that the dialogues repeatedly stress the fact that the ageing pair seeks nothing but companionship. And their joint escape route is nothing like the Dimple-Rishi elopement in Bobby 30 years ago.

Oh damn! And to think a decade ago eyebrows shot up when Sridevi played a besotted teenager in Yash Chopra's "Lamhe" who has a crush on her guardian angel Anil Kapoor.

"How can you want to marry a man who lives under the same roof?" the prudes whined.

But look at the irony. In "Maine Pyar Kiya", three years earlier to "Lamhe", starring Bhagyashree and Salman Khan, ultra conservative Sooraj Barjatya allowed his totally traditional heroine to stay in the house as the sweetheart.

If in "Pyaar Mein Twist", the elderly couple live together away from their respective homes, debutant director Sidharth Raj Anand in "Salaam Namaste", which opens this week, has gone a step further.

In this eagerly awaited film, Preity Zinta and Saif Ali Khan share more than songs and barbs as they come together to play a couple who after a flash courtship decide to move in together, fall in love and fall out ... all done under the same roof.

This, in a society and a film industry that still believe in the coy balladry of "Kal ki haseen mulaqat ke liye, aaj raat ke liye hum tum juda ho jaate haain achcha chalo so jaate hain".

That's the love duet from Ramanand Sagar's "Charas" 30 years ago that still defines the early-to-bed-and-alone-to-rise demure duo's dictum for the shared sexual space between couples.

How would audiences react to two people actually living-in together to gauge the level of compatibility between them?

This is precisely what Rishi and Dimple do in "Pyaar Mein Twist". And now Saif and Preity are even more bohemian in their attitude to love and sex.

Coming from the characteristically adventurous Yashraj Films banner who've earlier done radically experimental subjects and formats including a Hindu-Muslim love story ("Dharmputra"), unwed motherhood ("Dhool Ka Phool"), a song-less courtroom drama ("Kanoon"), the leading lady as a murderess ("Ittefaq"), marital infidelity ("Silsila") and a generation-crossing love story ("Lahme") the ostensible audacity of the live-in situation in "Salaam Namaste" should come as no surprise.

The film's leading man Saif Ali Khan for one finds the film's domestic arrangement "pretty cool".

"Live-in relationships are quite prevalent in the metros, and cinema should reflect a reality that goes beyond just social sanction. I find the whole subject theme and treatment in 'Salaam Namaste' very refreshing and 'today'."

Whether subjects like "Pyar Mein Twist", which coincidentally featured Saif's sister Soha, and "Salaam Namaste" (Saif) strike a chord beyond the prime target of urban audiences remains to be seen.

The fact is we're living in a rapidly mutating milieu. These films reflect that reality.

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Pyaar Mein Twist