The movie Miss Shetty Mr Polishetty portrays Anvita, a competent and successful chef on the verge of losing her single mother, and Sidhu, a bored engineering graduate and IT professional who secretly dreams of becoming a successful stand-up comedian. Throughout the movie, Anvita is poised, restrained, and well-mannered, owing to her affluent lifestyle, while Sidhu has the opposite demeanor. Given his simple family upbringing, he is light-hearted yet brazen in his attitude, with larger-than-life ambitions.
The movie begins with Anivta losing her mother, and we soon understand that she is fearful of any romantic attachments, given that her parents divorced each other when she was still a child. She decides to remain unmarried but also become a mother through artificial insemination. When she finds Sidhu, she decides to tell him of her plans. She first befriends him to avoid awkwardness because of her plan’s unconventional nature, and they soon become good friends. Being oblivious to Anivtha’s real intentions, Sidhu falls in love with her. She immediately rejects his proposal and tells Sidhu what she wants from him.
Sidhu feels utterly taken aback by her proposal, as, at first, he does not even understand the artificial insemination process. He wrongly assumes she wants to have a baby through physical intimacy. He cannot accept Anvita’s proposal and confronts her about its wrongness. She explains to him that it is possible to become a mother through artificial insemination, and Sidhu fully grasps that Anvita never befriended him to marry him. He is left emotionally shattered by how things turned out and feels utterly deceived. He decides to break away from her, but because he genuinely loves her, he eventually supports her.
Even though Sidhu could not wholeheartedly affirm Anvita’s decision to become a single mother, he does show his commitment to support her. The movie captures this beautifully when Sidhu’s dad helps him realize that although Sidhu was expressing his love for Anvita, he did not assure her of his promise to be with her for life. Sidhu immediately decides to take the risk to pursue her despite the possibility that Anvita could reject him again. Meanwhile, Anivta remembers Sidhu’s kindness and recognizes the fear that led her to act selfishly. She realizes she has been foolish in rejecting his love for her. They marry each other, and the movie ends on a happy note.
Like Anvita, most of us make choices that could be selfish and expect everyone else to align their will with ours. We sometimes need to recognize that our individual choices can have ripple effects and inadvertently impact the people in our lives. We must consider how our choices can lead us to disregard other people’s emotional well-being. For the sake of being independent and individualistic, we must not overlook that we are, in essence, relational beings and that all our choices are inevitably intertwined with the lives of those around us.
But, like Sidhu, we can respond in love or contempt to other people’s unconventional choices. While we don’t always have to affirm or support other people’s choices, especially when we know they could only do them more harm than good, we could genuinely care for and commit to loving them. Although it involves the risk of rejection because we do not affirm their choices, genuine love can also cause them to respond in trust, even leading them to recognize their rash choices.
“Miss Shetty Mr. Polishetty” delves into the intertwined lives of Anvita and Sidhu, offering a compelling exploration of personal choices, misunderstandings, and love. Anvita’s unconventional path toward single motherhood compels us to reflect on the far-reaching consequences of our own decisions. It reminds us that we must not lose sight of our inherent relational nature in pursuing individualism.
The movie also beautifully illustrates that love can remarkably bridge divides, foster trust, and pave the way for personal growth and self-reflection. It reminds us that even when we cannot fully affirm or support someone’s choices, genuine love can help others get a glimpse into their fears, intentions, and moral choices.
Although the movie does not offer us a moral imperative on what choices we make and how we make them, it does take us on a journey of reflecting on the moral consequences of every decision we make and on the extraordinary power of love to heal our fears, create trust, and understand the profound impact that our choices can have on the lives of those we hold dear.
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Written by Roselina Vundi
