O Kadhal Kanmani is the third of Maniratnam’s trilogy, post Mounaragam and Alaipayuthey exploring the evolving nature of love, in urban India of 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s. The movie revolves around the live-in relationship of a young couple in Mumbai, Aadhi and Taara, as it changes course with the passage of time. Though in foreground, OK Kanmani, explores the complexities of live-in relationships, the background subtext is a deeper reflection on two forms of love – a kind of love that is more spontaneous and transactional and the kind that is more covenantal and endearing. This is evident in the parallels to the modern love with the rooted, old-fashioned, commitment – driven love between an elderly couple, Ganapathi Uncle and Bhavani Aunty, whom they move in with. The kind of love which is a sacrificial commitment to the good of the other. A love which is fundamentally more about action than emotion. The promises couples make to each other are never a declaration of present love but a mutually binding promise of future love. This is why in the climax of OK Kanmani, Tara asks Aadi: Will you be able to love me the way Ganapathi Uncle love’s Bhavani aunty ?As W. H. Auden wrote in one of his last books, A Certain World (1970) – “Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate