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?
9 comments:
Whoa, you beat me to this. I watched DTPH 28 times - 164 times less than you - and they used to say, Irfan toh Pagal hai! And poof, now, I can't watch it myself. Though I don't hate it as you do now! It worked 12 years back; now, it could well be a disaster. Just like our thinking: now, we feel mature, but that wasn't the case 12 years back,was it? :-)
That was awesome....!!!! every word u wrote is sooooo true.....I wudnt say that i 'hate' the movie...coz it still wud be a good time pass for me....but then...dats it...nothing more than timepass....for some comic relief thru melodrama..;-)
What surprises me is that everybody agrees with what I say, yet none can really do away with this film...that's the magic of Yash Raj...my friend Dheeman was mad at me saying I should not have butchered such a wonderfully magical film, and you can see what my other two very close friends say above! And here is what my Kutti Pishi has to say:
"You must have been a child when this movie was released. The multiplex culture was yet to be launched and the first PVR of the country was still under construction. I was still in college or just out of it and our souls where dipped in romance. The movie engulfed us all. Though I agree with every thing you say, I still watch the movie and others of the same genre (all Yashraj and Karan Johar stuff) and admire their extend of imagination in building up an absolute fantasy world and making us believe in it for at least for 3 hours."
Who constructed Yash Raj? The audeince like us? Or is it they who constructed us,the audience?
Well, I will have to say I most loved the film for its song and dance routines and I found Shiamak Davar's choreography just amazing then! I have not watched it in recent times and after the way you put it (to which I do not disagree at all)I do not think I want to watch it again!! But why are you getting so worked up about this one film? Most films churned out of Bollywood are extremely regressive for the very reasons you have begun to hate this film, don't you think?
No, no...I am getting worked out for this film in particular because I have never watched it so objectively in the last 12 years as I did on that fateful Sunday afternoon. I was inhabiting one of my more rational selves on that day, may be...and therefore, could not enjoy the film as I had always enjoyed it. However, though I agree with you that most Bollywood films are regressive, who can afford to do away with them? Not me, at least! I revel in such regressiveness, and criticize it as well...sounds contradictory? But, where's the fun in life without glaring contradictions?
My initial reaction after reading this blog was like, "OH!why DTPH??how can sum1 write such things abt DTPH?"..But it soon changed..well..y would sum1 react like this after watching it 192 times??I read it once again only to find it is indeed agreeable..yes..life is not that easy..but dont u believe like Madhuri n SRK(in the film),that sum1 sumwhere is made for u??we all do..and films r films..all of them can't b like CORPORATE..films like DTPH refresh our minds to get out of the harsh reality we face in our everyday lyf..n the word PAGAL in the title suggests all..also..think it in another way..there were several things which were very dear to us in our childhood..like chocolates, icecreams,cartoon stickers, etc...but now??do we even care??..When we saw DTPH we were all kids..jst beginning to understand all emotional stuffs n so we loved the movie..let us keep DTPH like dat only..(my) best film..instead of butchering it..and wat more..i bet..after writing all these u will watch it again..193,4,5...tyms..after all..who does not want to c such a wonderful dream..with such melodious tracks n dialogues..its total masti..just 3 hrs..:)
da utterance of DTPH races my pulse beat even after so many yrs..n to see the word 'hate' attached to it..did hurt a lot..even if i agree dat da setting is unreal..the heroine's activities may b unpractical..but wasn't dat a time when our lives were not crippled by so much practicality,reality n complexity???2day we hav surrendered ourselves to so much reasoning dat little do we realise dat we actually hav stopped living 4 ourselves.u hd sd madhuri did nyakamo..bt she actually lives life on her own terms..she may not b a corporate honcho lik bipasha or priyanka in da muvi..bt she dreams..she dances n is thinkin of marryin da man of her dreams so much a fault??each person does da same at 1 stage of life..its dat da muvi has highlighted tis particular stage of life..wen we r in search of our life partners..wat will u say about da innumerable matrimonial sites who hav made 'this' their business?hw can we forget dat she ws da 1 to bring da concept of valentine's day in vogue n made business 4 'archies'..so wat if it is dramatised by da 'puranmashi'..its a muvi aftr all..dis muvi is like da 'I' text..it's a dream we wish wud cum true sum day..dont u feel the effect of the unspoken words dat exist between rahul n pooja??it's a trendsetter in many ways n it marked da makeover of karisma kapoor..a great relief frm her 'prem kaidi'n'anari' looks..dats da magic of da designer clothes...so..nxt time when u watch it..i hope u wud c it da way u used to n do away with all ur reasonings 4 at least 3 hrs..DTPH wil always remain rite their..amidst our'pagal' 'dil'-s....
Well, both Chitralekha and Sunmana, two of my very dear students, seem to be all tooth and claw! They can't even imagine someone attaching the word 'hate' with 'Dil to Pagal Hai'! At one point of life, even I would have reacted the same way...but I guess I ahve come a long way of from my "chocolate, limejuice" days, and candy floss romances do get on my nerves these days. Yet, I like what Chaitralekha says...the word "pagal" in the title! It makes me rethink...well, could that suggest that the film was portraying another reality with which rational people cannot connect? Is this madness something many do find reprehensible, while it is absolutely dear to others? May be! But after all these comments and counter-comments, one thing comes clear...that Dil To Pagal Hai is a landmark film...it ushered a new generation of youngsters into the arena of seductive consumerism and the cult of celebrating good-looks, which is now the order of the day! Gone are the days of shabby clothes, of vices associated with wealth and the pursuit of pleasure...it's the beginning of a new era! And Dil to Pagal Hai will always remain a remarkable sociol document of changing times!
Post a Comment