Machaan, antha ponnoda full details collect pandrom, naalailernthu follow pandrom.” Is there a Tamil film hero who has not said these words? Stalking has always featured prominently in our films but it is only recently (I’m guessing since social-media exploded in our midst) that it is earning itself some shrill outrage. When Sivakarthikeyan’s Remo released, many reviewers, especially the English-press, went to town with their outrage over the film’s unapologetic, stalker-hero. I must admit I face-palmed a few times, too. But dear critics and audience, let me give you a perspective of a filmmaker’s dilemma.Firstly, I think you will agree, stalking is an English word and largely, an American concept. Most of us learnt about it while consuming American fiction, either books, films or TV. I don’t think a Tamil word exists that captures the full sense of this term. Next, when we think of how Tamil cinema features/glorifies/rewards stalking, we tend to think of badly written, masala movies. Surely, good directors with classy scripts will never stoop to doing it, right? Umm...well…, Mouna Ragam Minnaley , Polladhavan, Aadukalam , Kaadhalan, Boys, 7/G, Rainbow Colony. In every case, the girl clearly rejects the hero’s first proposal, but then No does not mean No, right? So he keeps at it, keeps stalking her.Guess what? He gets the girl. Every time.In Mouna Ragam, Karthik, a thug, falls for the nice, middle-class girl, Revathy. She calls him out for being who he is, a degenerate no-gooder and points out that they have nothing in common (‘Econometricskum adi-othaikum romba thooram’). So he goes and stands outside her house, accosts her on the road and even goes to her college-library. If that’s not stalking, I don’t know what is. If this were happening in New York, Revathi would be getting a restraining order before you could say kambilipoochi.My point is that even our best, most sensitive, filmmakers have featured unapologetic stalking and have shown it being rewarded with the girl’s acceptance. So here, dear reader, is why.What we now call stalking has always been, in very practical terms, the only romance our young people have known and except in the top-tier cities is still very much true. We Indians know that there are two types of marriages, ‘Arranged’ and ‘Love’. Most of us, I would, assume dear progressive reader, consider the former an archaic custom that needs to go. It is the root of many evils, including dowry and caste. Young, independent people must be empowered to marry people of their choice based on love, shouldn’t they? Now that we have agreed on that, how do we propose a young man in the heartlands of Tamil Nadu go about his wooing?Does Muthupandi, studying in Barathiyar Polytechnic in Thiruchendur/Namakal/Krishnagiri go up to Kamala his crush and ask her out on a date? Best case: She asks him if he doesn’t have sisters? (Nee akka thangachi kooda perakala? What a hilarious question right? But believe me gets asked often enough!)Worst case: Kamala’s brothers are pounding on his face before the sun goes down.The more acceptable way would be for him to follow her on her bus-ride home, try to catch her eye when she visits the temple or in simple terms, stalk her. Once he gets a hint of approval, he can ask her for her phone number and then, boom! WhatsApp takes over and love is underway. ‘But that’s just in small towns and villages, not true for Chennai...’ you say. If you really said that, my friend, you have never been to a Chennai Engineering College! I studied in one. Boys and girls are carefully sequestered, there is an iron-chain (!) separating them in the buses and woe betide any boy seen talking to a girl on the corridors.Consider now our poor filmmaker who is making a film with a love story; he wants to be socially conscious, but he is not making a fantasy, he wants to set it in some kind of reality that his audience can identify with. What does he do?Until we become a more liberal society, it’s hardly fair to ask our filmmakers to entirely ban ‘stalking’ from our movies. I’m just glad I’m not making films in Uttar Pradesh right now. This article is in no way a defence of the sexist, misogynistic rubbish that is prevalent in our cinema, just a reminder that we shouldn’t look to define our cinema with an American term.