Take a lie and wrap it with glitter.

She, the one with a big umbrella and dangerously high heels, overbalanced at a crossroad and came down in a heap. All the vehicles screeched to a halt and a flurry of colourful words was witnessed.

She looked sheepish but not mortified and tried to pull herself together while the street watched her.
The man in the black car came out, and amidst loud gasps, helped her up. He offered to hold her bag, a dull pink because they don’t make it any other colour, and her folder. She quietly followed him to his car and got in, nodding at the wonderful man who held open the door for her.

They fell in love, in the confines of his car that smelled of rosewood. He told her he knew that there was something rather special about this day and she smiled while it rained and perhaps little fairies in a parallel universe sang and had a tea party.

They then got married and went on to have two perfectly healthy children one of whom became a state level swimmer. The other became a realist and called out his  parents’ bluff and said this story was cooked up to cover up the fact that they had actually been set up by their own parents because they were getting older and nobody would want to marry them.

They looked like they were caught cheating on a test but they quickly covered that with an indignant tone and angry expressions.

The son smirked and walked away.

Popcorn. Caramel, usually.

The quintessential bad love story in Indian cinema should ideally have two or more people. In the situation that it doesn’t and we have only one person, it might get confusing; or it might be a psychological thriller where the protagonist has Schizophrenia; but we don’t want to explore that just yet.
For the sake of this piece: We have 3 people.
The girl is called something generic like Priya. She is then referred to as Pri or Cookie or some such nickname. She is a Philosophy major; she wears horn rimmed glasses and carries a thick book. We all know that those are the only characteristics of a Philosophy major. She flits in and out of college wearing summery clothing in the winters and with her face wrapped in woollen scarves in the summers. But because she studies Philosophy and is above everyone else, she isn’t bothered by inane things like the weather. She doesn’t have friends, only admirers: a bunch of other girls who look at her in awe. You can throw in a whole social activism angle too, but then she might really appear to be smart and we don’t want to digress.
The boy who falls for her has to be, what is loosely termed, stupid. He has to be muscular and self-centred. Efforts are made to display his lack of general knowledge and his general disregard to education. He has to have a rich father, a kitty party going mother and several servants, atleast one of whom is called Chotu. We can always throw in a lonely childhood (while the parents partied) to add some so-called character to our man so that the audience doesn’t begin to dislike him too much. He could be called any number of things because it doesn’t matter; but we’ll call him J. Yes, he is too cool for names with more than one letter.
He meets Priya at an airport, almost always. They could also meet at coffee shops, malls or movie theatres. They can never meet in nightclubs because she is a serious Philosophy major and doesn’t indulge in frivolous dancing in dark spaces. (Later of course, one could show her dancing in an inebriated fashion, to show the other side of her otherwise demure personality, but this is optional)
Against the background of a busy airport, she pretends to dislike him but is actually charmed by his pointless humour and carefree personality. He is moved by her concern for the world and society and her well rounded knowledge of things. (She knows who the President is and not too many people are as well read) They fall in love in a matter of a day, but she has a degree to pursue in another country and he is headed elsewhere to waste time. They decide to meet at a certain place on a certain day but find it beneath themselves to take down phone numbers or addresses. He never shows up, because on the same day that he is supposed to meet her, he finds his calling as a filmmaker and almost instantly makes a film, wins an award and has the power go straight to his head.
She is heartbroken, (insert nightclub scene here) does what she has to accept the facts and after failed attempts to find him (because without a phone number and address, one can’t track down one’s true love, after all) gives up on life for a while. Then she picks up the pieces of her shattered existence and starts doing volunteering work with the blind. Her interest in philosophy comes down to her sitting in her pink pajamas reading the same thick book.
She then meets our third character, let’s call him Ben (because we are in a different country now and we have to have a name that doesn’t sound too Indian) who is absolutely fabulous – he has 2 PhDs, a diploma in Thai cooking, another degree in music and can knock your socks off with how kind he is and how he helps out at old age homes.
Then of course, the night before she marries Ben, J comes to find her.
She says she is going to get married the next day yet has time to use the night before to show J around this new country. Then we have a series of apologies and lost love stories and general confusion. He says he has turned over a new leaf (this can be seen by the fact that he knows who the President is and now wears glasses too) and wants to marry her. She declines but still shares one last passionate kiss with him overlooking whichever famous river this country boasts of.
The next morning she goes away to marry Ben. After a while, J runs long distances in her general direction only to find her waiting for him, teary eyed. Ben is close at hand with a Zen look on his face. She hugs J and says that she isn’t marrying Ben anymore because she came clean about who she actually loves and Ben only wants her to be happy. (You may say "aww" at this point if you wish, but no pressure)
J and Priya get married in an airport because that’s where they first met.
PS: If you didn’t like this post, you may take this up with this friend of mine. She took me along to watch this masterpiece London Paris New York and I haven’t quite recovered.