‘There is a sense of freedom’

Kiran Rao on how today’s youth perceive romantic relationships

Filmmaker Kiran Rao shed light on how today's youth perceive romantic relationships compared to the previous generation.

She shared that there is a sense of being uninhibited in the young generation.

When asked about the characters in her short film in the anthology Lust Stories 3, and how she perceives the younger generation, she said that she would prefer the term free instead of frivolous to describe it. Kiran added that earlier people were expected to be in a certain kind of relationship, but that is not the case today.

‘Expectations have changed’

“I feel there is a sense of freedom. There is a sense of being uninhibited in the young generation as compared to, say, my generation. I mean, the world is a different place, and the ways of expressing yourself are very different, and so we wanted to explore that. Two young people, unattached, who are attracted to each other. What would be the next steps? And the unexpected things that happen when they make certain choices. I think there is fun in that. Because back in my time, the expectation was that you would only have a certain kind of relationship with a person. A physical relationship, or even being emotionally attached to a person after you had an arranged marriage with the person. Which is no longer the case,” she told IANS.

She added, “People have deep, intense, emotionally fulfilling, and physically fulfilling relationships without the need to be married first. Which is how the world is different today. We made this story in that world. And I think that we wanted something that represented the freshness, the freedom that there is in this new generation of people.”