Love stories that burn you, make you. Your viscera screams with fervour and passion. You rise like a phoenix—and if you are blessed enough, your love survives and rises along with you. In the adornment of the love that you pursue, however, comes with intense emotional bites. If you get to surpass that, you win the moment. Love that doesn’t destroy you, rebuilds you, awakens you and makes you a fighter—becomes a dead duck. We could sense this as we watched Tere Ishk Mein’s title track recently, featuring Dhanush and Kriti Sanon. The fury that you can’t unsee, once you see it.
Passionate love stories, however, aren’t new to cinema. We had Devdas (2002), which pronounced tragedy in its absolute reckoning, derived from ego, social status, and, eventually, separation. We see Devdas surrender to intemperance after being denied the right to marry his preadolescent love. Ishaqzaade (2012) painted that very madness—two souls bred to despise each other, yet drawn together by a force that neither politics nor pride could tame. Their journey was raw, soaked in rebellion and betrayal, where love wasn’t gentle—it was war. Rockstar (2011) bruised and bled. A man’s yearning turned him into a legend. The film was a reminder that sometimes, the very thing that breaks you, also makes you eternal. Speaking of Dhanush, Raanjhanaa (2013) is a must-mention. A narrative so uncompromising, so consuming, that it obfuscated the lines between devotion and destruction. The film teaches you how crucial reciprocity is in any connection.
Debates happened. Misogyny came into question multiple times. I still remember, right after Kabir Singh’s release, an acquaintance (woman) said, and I quoted, “Someone who has never fallen in love, can never understand the passion Kabir and Preeti had for each other.” It is contradictory to many contemporary theories and ideas, with good reason. But we can’t let go of what we hear from the people dealing with realities every day.
And that makes us return to Tere Ishk Mein. Because love—however we choose to define, dissect, or debate it—remains the most volatile, most primal emotion that governs human existence. It refuses to be domesticated by logic or morality; it breathes in chaos and thrives in contradiction. When a story dares to capture that unfiltered, unsettling pulse of passion, it doesn’t merely entertain—it exposes. Tere Ishk Mein, in that sense, becomes not just a film, but a mirror reflecting the dangerous beauty of surrender.
Tere Ishk Mein looks feral. You see a collision of two souls grasping you. The kind of love that scorches everything it touches. That’s that, stories like Tere Ishk Mein must continue to be told. Because even after our constant evolution, we still crave the kind of love that shakes us to the core.
The kind that hurts, howls and heals too.
