Review of Love Storiyaan: An Exceptionally Entertaining Celebration of Love Despite Human Divides

Review of Love Storiyaan: A new documentary series on Amazon Prime Video focuses on six real-life married couples who describe the struggles they faced in trying to stay together in a traditional society that is not very tolerant of breaking convention

A good love story would have strife, after all. During his show, a well-known radio jockey from Shillong humorously asks his life partner, a reputable radio jockey, the same question. According to Love Storiyaan, there are many thorns in the path of love.
Love Storiyaan, a new documentary series on Amazon Prime Video, is centered on six real-life married couples who talk about the struggles they had to endure to stay together in a traditional society that is not very forgiving of tradition-breaking. The series is produced by Dharmatic Entertainment and conceptualized by Somen Mishra.

The Valentine’s Day release is an appropriate and incredibly entertaining celebration of love that transcends all natural barriers, ethnic divisions, and geographic boundaries. The show’s relationships have challenged conventional wisdom, which has been made worse by the political narrative of “love jihad” that has acquired a lot of traction in India lately.

Love Storiyaan couples overcome great obstacles as they navigate roadblocks because they are determined to stay together no matter what. These genuinely touching and wise stories of love, resiliency, and self-affirmation are heartwarming, poignant, and always feel-good.

Directors Stories that testify to the all-conquering power of love in the face of intolerance and bigotry are retold with the individual sensibilities and concerns of Hardik Mehta, Vivek Soni, Shazia Iqbal, Akshay Indikar, Archana Phadke, and Collin D’Cunha in mind.

The India Love Project, a social media project by journalists Priya Ramani, Niloufer Venkatraman, and Samar Halarnkar, features stories from couples who have broken down barriers. These stories serve as the inspiration for Love Storiyaan.

The six couples that were chosen deal with a range of issues. Every episode revolves around a particular expression of love. The level of difficulty builds gradually until it reaches a point where one couple breaks through gender norms and declares their right to be who they want to be, while another pair overcomes not just caste and religion but even potentially fatal geopolitical realities.

The stories are cohesively styled, with talking heads and dialogue-free enactments that highlight key plot points in each episode. The directors use subtle, yet powerful, creative devices to inform the treatment, blending somber larger-picture insights with lighter, more intimate moments.

In the first episode of the series, “An Unsuitable Girl,” Hardik Mehta (Amdavad Ma Famous, Kaamyaab) stars as Delhi journalist and editor Aekta Kapoor, fresh from a messy marriage that was forced upon her, and Ullekh NP, a fellow journalist and author from Kerala, break down enormous barriers—the largest of which is the former’s younger daughter—in their pursuit of true love.

Aekta comes from a traditional Punjabi family in business. As the left-leaning politician’s son who passed away at the age of five, Ullekh was raised firmly in the Marxist tradition. Their paths meet under extraordinary circumstances; as bloggers with opposing perspectives on freedom, they are able to overcome their differences by finding enough points of agreement. However, they also have a lot of other issues to deal with.

Full of strife, In a scenario where inherent disparities threaten to undermine the union of hearts seeking happiness, An Unsuitable Girl is about seizing a second chance and making the most of it despite unavoidable doubts.

Next is filmmaker Vivek Soni (Meenakshi Sundareshwar), whose film Love on Air narrates the tale of two competitive radio presenters in Meghalaya who fall in love and are reunited against all odds by a visually challenged listener. Nicholas J. Kharnami and Rajani K. Chhetri have plenty of challenges ahead of them, but not as many as Aekta and Ullekh did when they made the decision to be married.

While the latter is Hindu, the former is Christian. Nicholas was previously wed. Rajani called it quits on a five-year romance. The former finds it difficult to dedicate himself to a fresh partnership. The parents of the latter are against Rajani’s relationship with Nicholas. Love on Air uses radio romance and poetry to create a lovely, heartfelt atmosphere for the Nick-Rajani love story.

Shazia Iqbal’s Homecoming gives song—Rabindranath Tagore is helpful here—and enduring love a new meaning. It tells the story of a septuagenarian interfaith couple, Sunit Kumar Saha and Sharmila ‘Farida’ Saha, who return to Bangladesh’s Dhaka and Chandpur, where they first met during the nation’s liberation struggle, before relocating to Kolkata in the early 1970s to live there after the war.

Sunit came from a wealthy family that ran mills for dal and oil. Farida came from a politically engaged and intellectually sound conservative Muslim family. They got together on the Dhaka University campus. Farida’s family vehemently opposed their affair, but like lovers blind to a plethora of obstacles, they persisted. They retrace the route after fifty years.

The tone dramatically changes in Raah Sangharsh Ki by Akshay Indikar. The story, which takes place in the interior of Madhya Pradesh, revolves around Dalit activist Subhadra Kaperde and wealthy Brahmin from Kolkata who graduated from IIT Rahul Banerjee. The two become friends because of their shared advocacy for tribal rights.

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Subhadra acknowledges that their relationship has endured numerous challenges, but it has persevered because the couple is committed to their social convictions as much as to one another. The couple’s activism serves as their binding agent.

The degree of isolation is even more pronounced in the instance of Wayanad resident Dhanya and engineer Homayan from Kabul, who serve as the protagonists of Archana Phadke’s Faasley. At St Petersburg University in Russia, where Dhanya was a senior, the man knew she was the one for him the first he laid eyes on her.

The two overcome all odds to get married after becoming close through Bollywood films. However, the Taliban regime’s excesses and the Afghan civil war have severely disrupted their lives and jeopardized their physical health. They persevere unfazed, and love wins.

The last episode, Collin D’Cunha’s Love Beyond Labels, tells the story of a transgender couple in Kolkata who marry each other after overcoming opposition from their individual families and settings.

Actor Tista Das is the founder of a charity that supports transgender people. The narrative of Dipan Chakraborty, a resident of Lumding, a tiny Assamese town, centers on his battles as a child with severe body dysphoria in a community that was seldom cognizant of the needs of those who looked like him. Their lives are forever changed when they meet at a Transgender Visibility Day celebration in Kolkata.

Though all six of the amazingly flawless episodes are set up for maximum effect, my personal favorite is Shazia Iqbal’s Homecoming, closely followed by Akshay Indikar’s Raah Sangharsh Ki.

Cast:
Aekta Kapoor, Homayon Khoram, Tista Das, Farida Saha, Sunit Kumar Saha, Rahul Banerjee, Subhadra Khaperde, Dhanya Ravindran, Ullekh NP, Nicholas Jonathan Kharnami, Rajani Karki Chhetri, and Dipan Chakraborty

Director:
Collin D’Cunha, Rahul Badwelkar, Akshay Indikar, Shazia Iqbal, Archana Phadke, Vivek Soni, and Hardik Mehta