The thing about our country is that it is knee-deep in a pool of stereotypes, orthodox traditions and customs most of which pull it decades back when it comes to being progressive. 

Which is why, on the rare occasion that someone tries to break past them and normalize what the society may have termed taboo, we are more than happy to cheer them on. 

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And even though the film at hand here, Chori Chori Chupke Chupke, promised to help educate as well normalize the society towards surrogacy, it ended up doing something else entirely. Which was to misinform and reduce women to baby-making machines.

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You see, back in 2001, the concept of using a surrogate mother in cases where the woman can’t conceive, would neither be understood nor entertained. But after the movie was released, nothing changed apart from the fact that people hated surrogacy more. 

Why, you ask? Read on...

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The movie starts with a basic introduction to Raj and Priya’s characters played by Salman Khan and Rani Mukherjee, respectively. The two are happily married and living in a joint family, one which inhabits a grandson-obsessed grandfather who can’t stop pestering Priya for a kid. 

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Being the ideal daughter in-law she is, she complies, gets pregnant, only to have a miscarriage and find out she cannot conceive. 

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The doctor advises the couple to opt for surrogacy and not tell the family about Priya not being able to conceive. Why? Because apparently an infertile woman = bad wife = bad daughter in law = shame on the family.

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Now at this point, you’d assume that the couple would go through a procedure of sorts to opt for surrogacy. 

But nope, not even caring to get their facts right about what it actually means - an assisted birth where the intended parents work with another woman who agrees to carry their child in her womb through means of artificial insemination, Raj and Priya assume it requires forming sexual relations instead and shake on it. How, or why? It’s beyond us...

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After Raj inappropriately asks every other woman he meets to become the surrogate, the desperate couple settles on a prostitute to become their surrogate because this movie is all about feeding into existing stereotypes anyway. 

Madhu aka Priety Zinta agrees to do it in exchange for money and is flown to Switzerland with the couple to be “groomed” which is code for being impregnated by Raj.

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After several failed attempts, Priya finally manages to isolate both Madhu and Raj in a room, drugs her own husband and leads him to have *** with Madhu in order to get her pregnant. 

Now, while the movie may call this surrogacy, we can only it a very weird fetish of wanting your husband to have *** with a woman of your choosing. 

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Madhu gets pregnant, Raj and Priya lie to their family to say Priya has gotten pregnant again and everything is going according to plan. 

At one point, Raj’s perverted friend nearly molests Madhu because he knows she was a prostitute and assumes that *** workers are DTF any second of any day, consent be damned. Of course Raj steps in, beats the friend, saves Madhu and in turn, Madhu falls in love with Raj. 

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Raj and Priya’s family, in the meantime, surprise them by coming to Switzerland and also finding a very pregnant Madhu living with them, who is introduced as their friend. The family decides to take care of Madhu as well as Priya, since both are pregnant and even decides to throw a baby shower for Priya back in India.

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Things hit the fan when Priya decides to send Madhu to the baby shower as herself by covering her face with a ghoonghat. 

The entire experience, hospitality, love, care and attention makes Madhu emotional, as she realises she can’t give up her baby anymore for she’s grown attached to it. The only emotion that ACTUALLY does occur during a lot of surrogacies and was shown right in the film. 

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Madhu flees from the house, dumping all of the money offered to her on the bed, only to be confronted by a very frantic Priya at a train station, where the climax takes place. 

As the women argue where Priya begs for the baby and Madhu refuses to give it up, Priya slaps Madhu as soon as she admits to having fallen in love with Raj. Because apparently, that was inappropriate and not forcing your husband to sleep with a hooker.

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By the time Raj arrives for damage control, Madhu has gone into labour and taken to the hospital where the doctor says only one out of the two can be saved - either the child or the mother. Priya chooses to save Madhu. 

But because it is a Bollywood film where happy endings are as important as having an item number, both the mother and the baby survive.

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Madhu is touched by Priya’s kindness and gives up her child to the couple, while the extended family is lied to again as they’re told Madhu’s child was stillborn. 

Madhu promises to not go back to prostitution and bids a happy goodbye to Raj, who sensed that she loved him. 

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All in all, people would call this movie an emotional roller-coaster and a crash course in surrogacy. But only in the way that it actually crashed and burned on the concept, because whatever the f**k it was, it wasn’t surrogacy. If anything, it was a rather weird and unusual case of throupling. 

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Not to forget the entire plot that furthered the problematic stereotype of deeming women good and ideal ONLY if they’re able to give the family a child. 

The End.

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