Bollywood loves the manic pixie dream girl trope, where the woman exists solely for the man, giving his life a greater purpose. Bollywood directors are masters at introducing us to strong, independent female leads and then turning them into just another love interest. As soon as the man enters, her personality rushes out the door. I mean, who needs a personality when you can have a man? Right? Ughhh. Female characters in Bollywood are not individual characters with their own arcs. They are channels of growth and stepping stones for the male leads. 

Tinni from Tu Jhoothi Main Makkar

Tinni, at first glance, seems independent, fierce and, of course, an anti-joint family girl. She wants to live life on her own terms, but only until she falls in love. By the end of the movie, she becomes this joint family-loving girl, ready to give up her idea of “life” for love. From her boss-babe vibes, she goes straight to I-don’t-even-know-what-to-say girl. All that independence that we were promised? Well, who wants freedom when you can just do a 180-degree personality shift for a man?

Jazz from Namaste London

What Jazz turned into by the end of the movie makes me want to cry. She started as a modern, unapologetic woman who wanted the freedom to choose her life partner. She doesn’t want to marry a full-on desi boy as she was raised in London (fair enough, I guess). But guess what? She is treated as a villain for doing so. Excusez-moi? And then, by the end of the movie, as expected, she marries the desi boy, leaves London and starts living in a village in Punjab. Hey, but at least the desi boy can speak English!

Naina from Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani

Naina was a doctor, but throughout the movie, we have never seen her in a hospital or stressed about how hard MBBS is. We saw her crying over only one thing – Bunny. While we saw so much of Bunny’s life, we had no clue what Naina was doing. Well, for all those years, she was only trying to move on from Bunny, and he wasn’t even worthy of that much attention. You don’t need to worry about your career when you can have a full-time job trying to make a man settle down, I guess.

Akira from Jab Tak Hai Jaan

I watched the movie some time back, and honestly, my blood boiled after looking at what the directors did to Akira. She wanted to be a war journalist. Akira had the kind of motivation and dedication we all want. She was bold, independent and fierce until she met Samar Anand. All her motivation and passion went down the drain, and she only cared about Samar’s tragic love story. Behen itni motivation toh meri bhi kam nahi hui kabhi. From almost getting her dream come true to never getting to see what actually happened, the movie ended. What happened to Akira? Nobody knows!

Tara from Tamasha

Directors actually made a tamasha out of Tara’s character. She was a successful businesswoman who expanded her father’s business. Then re-enters Ved into her life, and all the purpose that Tara was left with is to fix Ved. Her career took a backseat when she became obsessed with fixing a man with a mid-life crisis. What about the business crisis you’ll have, Tara?

Aisha from Ek Villain

Aisha could have been the inspiring game-changer of the movie. She was so full of life that maybe she could have played the part of making us fall in love with life. But unfortunately, she had to die so that Guru could have a dramatic transformation. Directors could have kept her alive so the audience could witness both of their stories intertwining, but how can a man’s emotional growth be shown if he doesn’t have a woman to save? In this case, avenges her death to become a hero. Aisha is the true pixie dream girl.

Dear directors, women and men in your stories can co-exist. Both can have ambitions and personalities without one engulfing the other. I am a big fan of love, but trust me, dreams, personalities, and careers are great too. You need love for sure, but you also need a life of your own. So please, stop turning female characters in Bollywood into mere love interests. Let their free spirits stay free.

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