This chapter is a Foucauldian reading of Zoya Akhtar's 2015 film Dil Dhadakne Do. As Bollywood has continued to etch its presence indelibly on the global cultural platform, ‘attracting all kinds of new audiences for various reasons in its continuous quest to monopolise global cinema’ (Kaur and Sinha 2005: 29), Akhtar has been one of a cadre of young directors contributing to this growing prominence. While Akhtar has been part of this wave narrating the stories of a new India, her films still hold some of the stylistic and narrative techniques that appeal to the majority of the audience who seek their ticket’s worth of entertainment from their weekly sojourn to the mall multiplex. In all her works she has endeavoured to remain true to ‘real’ problems, even as her characters indulge in the box office-stipulated quota of songs and dances. In DDD, Akhtar delves into issues of marital discord and family fracas crystallised along the lines of class and gender.

The family in crisis has been an underlying theme that has taken on several forms in many of the most popular Bollywood films. Since the emergence of Bollywood as a culture industry and film form in the post-liberalisation 1990s, popular Hindi cinema has often resolved its anxieties about the tussle between traditional family values, Indian culture and westernised modernity by reaffirming the importance of the normative Indian family. Even as the family undergoes crisis in films such as Aditya Chopra's Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Sooraj Barjatya's Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! (1994) or Karan Johar's Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (2001), this is resolved by firmly adhering to family ties and values in order to achieve a wholesome conclusion that restores the status quo of a normative Indian family. Breaking from this ‘family knows best’ tradition, more recently the family in crisis has become a subject of more critical scrutiny. A diverse range of films has depicted themes ranging from the frustration of misunderstanding or consuming obligations between generations, Dear Zindagi (Gauri Shinde 2016) and Piku (Shoojit Sircar 2015), to the exposure of family abuse, Highway (Imtiaz Ali 2014), to the breakdown of marriages and the facade of the ‘perfect’ family in films like Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!