Why I suddenly hated "Dil to Pagal Hai" after a decade of loving it

Dil to Pagal Hai was released when I was still a school kid, naïve, unassuming, easily impressed by fairy tales from Bollywood, understanding everything with the heart and not with the head, and was unnaturally enamoured by the mesmerizing Madhuri Dixit, revelling in the post-Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! hangover that had eclipsed all other existing women, reel-life or real-life! Dil to Pagal Hai arrived at the theatres with a bang and set the box-office bells ringing from Day 1, sucking the audience into the whirlpool of ‘good life’ it celebrated, transposing them to a world levitating much above the ‘ground-reality’. Nursery-rhyme-inspired sets, pageants of abundance in the form of food, clothes, and money, extravagant shaadi ka rasm, dream-like dances, and a naïve heroine, clad in semi-transparent designer apparels, gyrating in lush European meadows, and inhabiting a world so formidably immune from the reality around it, coalesced together to create magic that took in its folds innocent kids like us, almost effortlessly. The impression the film had left on me, ‘I bore in my heart’ for a decade or so, almost deliberately overlooking the substantial hollowness at the very core of it; for, every time I have watched it, I have seen nothing beyond Madhuri Dixit who almost looked ethereal, lolling in the verdurous meadows, lip-syncing to romantic songs in milk-white designer salwar kameezes (the Manish Malhotra kind, which no one had seen ever before)! Her romantic philosophies, the platitudes she uttered were music to our ears, and we hardly ever thought how regressive those were!

Yesterday, I again glued myself to the sofa to watch Dil to Pagal Hai for the 192nd time, when, I was kind of shaken out of a waking dream, and realised, as if in an epiphanic moment, that “fled is that music”, and am really, wide awake now. A thing of beauty cannot be joy forever…Keats was wrong! I suddenly started hating Madhuri Dixit and all her designer nyakami (believe me ‘affectation’ is not a good translation of this adjective…), when it occurred to me that she actually DOES NOTHING in the film. I mean nothing meaningful! Her job is to look good, buy clothes from shopping malls, dance around the trees in the meadows without any sense of time, and LOOK FOR A LOVER! This last thing preoccupies every single moment of her day, like those 24*7 news channels which refuse to stop. How idiotic, my God! She behaves as if people are born to get married, and nothing else is meaningful in life, even if you’re a NASA astronomer, exploring the outer space. Everyday is Valentine’s celebration for her, and she is intolerable enough to Indianize this remarkably western festival (read, Archie’s one more excuse to sell cards and accessories and bamboozle unsuspecting emotionally downmarket lovers) by linking it up with Puranmashi! Sounds like one of those B-grade supernatural thrillers? Yes, it does! For, it’s indeed supernatural, for the even more irritating Shah Rukh Khan really bumps into her over the phone in a wrong connection, on that momentous night of Puranmashi melting into Valentine’s Day. Even more irritating is Aruna Irani, the veteran Godmother of lessons in love, who distributes designer Ganesha idols once things seem to have gone for a toss. And why forget the hideous Farida Jalal? The most excruciatingly painful scene is the one where Akshay Kumar tells her over the phone that he is tying the knot with Madhuri, and she walks into the latter’s room shedding a bucket of tears, and carrying with her an elaborate shaadi ka joda, and god knows, what other stupid accessories on a tray! I wonder did she have an instant-supply of these shaadi ka accessories. Like those instant-noodles and instant-coffee? May be! The world of Dil to Pagal Hai is clinically and incurably mad about getting married, and there’s every possibility that these mother-figures churn out marriage uniforms at the drop of a hat. How retro! How regressive! Awful! O my god, I had never imagined that I would view Dil to Pagal Hai with so much hatred and loathing! I almost surprised myself. I did not ever imagine that I was actually capable of such reactions to the film, which I have loved so much! Finally, I have grown up, I guess. Better late than never, what say?

‘Summer of ’42’: A Prequel to ‘The Reader’?

While watching Robert Mulligan’s Summer of ’42, I was struck by its similarity to The Reader, released in 2008. It’s again a younger boy, the 15-year old Hermie falling in love with the 22-year Dorothy, in the backdrop of the World War II. The Holocaust, if you recall, is the major historical event informing The Reader. Summer of ’42 is as poetic as its title, bringing home to its viewers a tangible feel of a New England beach colony, a summer about which Shakespeare wouldn’t have cribbed! This summer does have a short lease too, but it’s the kind of summer every beloved would have loved himself (or herself) to be compared to. It’s so beautiful, so lyrical and so vibrantly lively. Three young boys, the ‘terrible trio’ as they call themselves, mature from childhood to adolescence through a pedantic knowledge of sex, followed by real life experiences. While these boys literally come of age, their crossing the threshold of innocence culminates in the loss of Hermie’s beloved, Dorothy. Having lost her husband in the war, she finds solace in the arms of Hermie, much to the boy’s surprise. He suddenly matures that night: a casual call turns into an experience of a lifetime when Dorothy melts into him, feeling the intense need of human touch, the very human soul which seems to have been buried beneath the humdrum of the global battle for power. But the next day she leaves, leaving a letter for Hermie, now an adult, overnight. Although he does not understand why she deserts him, the voice-over, the older Hermie seems to have comprehended her sudden disappearance.
The World War II was so cataclysmic that it had battered faith in humanity to death. The bonds of love had become fragile, and summers had turned bloodier than beautiful. Summer of ’42, or for that matter, The Reader, are few of those great sublime works of art that makes an attempt to re-establish faith in humanity, and celebrate love, the fundamental driving principle of life. When the real world is eating and sleeping violence, the responsibility of reaffirming life lies with the world of fiction. And once that responsibility is responsibly taken, you have such gems as Summer of ’42 or The Reader. Though, both the films end on a sad note, it is worth living each and every moment of the film. The war is always happening for us civilians in some place else…we needn’t bother. But every war changes our lives forever. Sometimes we realize it, sometimes we don’t. These films make you realise that in a beautiful way. It’s not just about leaning against the coppice gate and watching…it’s something more than that!

Of Loneliness

Had Francis Bacon been living at this hour, he would have certainly added to his long list of Essays, another having the same title. With the world becoming more and more crowded, loneliness has caught up like an incurable disease which has of late taken the proportion of an epidemic. However, the focus has been more or less on those who are visibly lonely: old people abandoned by their children, widows, a single child, a single man or woman, an expatriate (sometimes nuclear diasporic families), etc. And because people are usually afraid of being lonely, they have, in desperation, found ways to ward off their loneliness. For, frail old people we have old age homes; widows sometimes choose to remarry; a single child is sent to the playschool very early; single men or women are urged on to tie the knot; an expatriate takes no time in joining or sometimes forming communities abroad, and so on and so forth. We are all too ready to hold hands and form a sacred circle to keep away the demon called LONELINESS. But do we really overpower loneliness through bonding? Do we? Understandably, if we do not have anyone to share our deepest sorrows, or our biggest achievements, nothing could be more depressing than that. Remember Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner? Doesn’t his tragedy lie in being alienated from human community for an unforgivable sin? And doesn’t he desperately try to get himself reintegrated to the community by performing the act of penance through sharing his story with the wedding guest? That’s what everyone does. A criminal was often sent on exile or outlawed. The most heinous punishment one can think of! More terrifying, perhaps, than death! Remember Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim? We needn’t go that far! Consider Ramayana: Sita’s exile to the forest is perhaps the most severe punishment a husband has ever meted out to his wife. The punishment of being alone! Yet, isn’t it more depressing, even tragic, to realise one fine day that you are really alone in spite of company? Like Sita, who supposedly had the most adorable husband in the world (and therefore, she was conventionally, not lonely), we all come to realise some day or the other that we are really really lonely. No loyal friends, no doting lover, no loving relatives, no sympathetic colleagues, no caring spouse can ever embalm that pain, even if they are lying on the same bed with you or are just a phone call away.

Yet, we look for company! Recall those splendidly poetical line: Is ajnabi se seher me jana-pehchana dhunndta hai... (In this strange city, the lonesome soul keeps looknig for an acquaintance) It's so sadly true for all of us! We all need to talk. The moment we start talking, we barely realise, that the medium of conversation, that is language, is a construction, which more often than not fails to communicate the right kind of feelings or emotions, or has a very different or no impact on the listener, for its import is mostly lost on him. Hold on! Tell me, who would actually lend an ear to you? It’s easier to convert coal into diamond than to find a sympathetic listener. We do feel a heavy abhiman (No English synonym can actually bring out the implication of this very beautiful Sanskrit word) unbearably shrouding our hearts…for, friends appear selfish, spouses seem nonchalant, children too busy to pay attention, colleagues too competitive to feel for you…but, we are helpless. We are like Shelley’s Moon whose eyes are perpetually joyless, for she has not yet found a worthy companion who would love her forever. But don’t we feel secured at times by starting off a family? And initially it appears to us that we have found that worthy companion in our spouses? I mean, that’s what people generally do! But such illusion of security is short-lived…however, pitifully permanent for those who unwittingly turn such a relationship into a habit, and refuse to admit that they’ve actually become lonely all over again. May be such delusion saves one from facing a harsh reality head-on. But is that desirable? We continue to play this game until life teaches us the hard way that there is no other way to be than to be alone on the day we leave this world. So, my point is let’s not bewail being lonely…for, that is the norm. And let’s not be afraid…for, we can be gracefully lonely. For, hasn’t the veteran poet said, Jodi tor daak shune keu na ashe, tobey ekla cholo re (If no one answers your call, carry on with the journey, alone)?