There are many wonderful quotes about love and companionship that books, movies and television have given us over the years. One of my personal favourites is from the show Sex and the City. Carrie Bradshaw says in a voiceover as she stands with Mr. Big in a park at 2 am, “In a city of infinite options, sometimes there’s no better feeling than knowing you only have one.”

It’s a deceptively simple line in a show that many perceive as frivolous, but it perfectly articulates the human need to be wanted exclusively and unconditionally. Like Manhattan, Mumbai can be a city that both enthrals and intimidates almost simultaneously. Mumbai, like love, ‘is a many splendored thing’. It’s a city where people arrive to work, fulfil their dreams, improve their financial fortunes and try their luck at the great Indian dream.

Wake Up Sid explored Mumbai’s popular and lesser-known places.

But while it’s a city that allows you to dream, Mumbai is a hard taskmaster. We get shoved around in trains and crowded streets. There is dirt, noise, pollution, and small homes that can often leave one feeling claustrophobic. The excessive physical proximity between people is often juxtaposed with a lack of emotional intimacy. If there is one thing that helps us rise above the hustle and often dreariness of everyday life, it is having that someone special in your life. Knowing you have someone to come home to, to talk about your day with, or just share a cup of coffee with at Bandstand or Marine Drive.

Bollywood films also realised the redemptive, soothing, transformative power of love in a city like Mumbai where millions of strangers live, travel and work alongside each other every day. Over the decades, Mumbai has been the backdrop to many cinematic love stories. Some sweet, some badly timed, some tragic, and more than a few happily-ever-afters. In gangster films and crime dramas like Company, Satya and Shor in the City, love is what humanises men with criminal intent or problematic personalities. Quite like Jack Nicholson’s Melvin Udall, who tells the waitress Carol (Helen Hunt) in As Good As It Gets, “You make me want to be a better man”.

As a city linked to organised crime and the infamous underworld, Mumbai has been the setting of many crime dramas. It’s no surprise then that films like Company, Satya and Shootout at Lokhandwala are based in the city. But while poverty, lack of education, greed, or sectarian violence in the city forces men into lives of crime, love is often what humanises them. In the path-breaking film Satya, which became the benchmark for gangster films in India, Satya’s relationship with Vidya was not just a breather in an otherwise violent film. Vidya and a life with her was Satya’s only chance at escaping a world of crime he had been sucked into. While their love story ends tragically, the theme of love as a chance at redemption for an individual wronged by destiny and society, became a narrative trope that many Mumbai- based films in this genre have used.

Very often in Bollywood films based in Mumbai, love also has the capacity to ennoble a person. In a city where food, income, and chances at true happiness are all scarce, only true love can inspire you to put someone else’s happiness first. In Citylights, Deepak (Rajkummar Rao) puts his life on the line to ensure that his wife Rakhi (Patralekha) and their daughter Mahi return safely to their village. In Talaash, love redeems not just Suri (Aamir Khan), but also the supporting characters. The poignant love story between Taimur (Nawazzudin Siddiqui) and Nirmala (Sheeba Chaddha) and his sacrifice to help her escape a wretched life in a brothel, add a wonderful layer of emotional complexity to the narrative. In Mani Ratnam’s iconic film Bombay, love for each other and their children forces Arvind Swamy and Manisha Koirala’s characters to face rioters and become the face of hope and religious unity in the city.

While love can be the balm for a wounded soul or a means of ennoblement, in Mumbai, it can also be the link between two strangers who would have perhaps never met otherwise. Very often in Bollywood films, we see the city itself or an aspect of it play cupid between two people.

In The Lunchbox, a Mumbai dabbawalla accidentally delivers Ila’s (Nimrit Kaur) husband’s lunchbox to Sajjan Fernandes (Irrfan).

In The Lunchbox, a Mumbai dabbawalla accidentally delivers Ila’s (Nimrit Kaur) husband’s lunchbox to Sajjan Fernandes (Irrfan). Sajjan is a widower who lives alone, and Ila is lonely in her failing marriage. She writes a note to Sajjan when she realises the mistake, unknowingly beginning a correspondence that is transformative for both of them. Though they never meet in the film, the unlikely manner in which they form a connection, proves that miracles do happen amidst the madness of Mumbai.

Life in a Metro was another wonderful film that encapsulated just how hard it was to find true love in a city like Mumbai. The film’s ensemble cast included many fine actors like Dharmendra, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kangana Ranaut, Kaykay Menon, Sharman Joshi and of course the wonderful Irrfan. The film used the motif of local trains and railways platforms that are Mumbai’s lifeline to depict the human journey. While life here maybe like the Virar fast, crowded and often unbearable, it’s also filled with the hope of finding a co-passenger for life.

Wake up Sid, though told from a more privileged point of view, is also a heartfelt tale of two strangers who meet at a party and forge an unlikely bond. In a coming-of-age tale where two lost and seemingly disconnected individuals find love and purpose in Mumbai, Sid and Ayesha become friends, roommates and co- workers before they fall deeply in love. The two realise that as much as they enjoy adulting and being independent, having someone to share the journey with is what makes life truly special.

Ranveer Singh and Siddhant Chaturvedi in a still from Gully Boy.

Even in Gully Boy where the love story was not the central conflict of the film when Murad (Ranveer Singh) takes a giant step toward his dream, the person he wants to share the news with first is Safeena (Alia Bhatt), because seeing your happiness reflected in the eyes of someone you love, only magnifies it.

Love may make the world go around, but it makes life bearable in Mumbai. In a city that forces you to live life in the fast lane, love forces you to slow down and soak in little moments of joy with someone who wants to stand still with you. Mumbai may be the city that never sleeps, but the prospect of finding someone who shares your dreams can make it all worthwhile.

As part of our series on cities in cinema, we put the focus on Chennai next week. Watch out this space.