Recently, while channel surfing, I stumbled upon one of my
all-time favorite Hindi movies “Dil Chahta Hai” (DCH) and while I was
re-watching it for the umpteenth time, I went on a nostalgic trip down memory
lane.
Can’t believe it’s been almost 15 years since this cult
movie came out? Time really flies, doesn’t it??
Anyway, DCH is one of the most important films to come out
of Bollywood and it came out at the perfect time too. The new millennium had
just started and it was a time of incredible change, for me and for all of us belonging to Gen X. Full of energy, enthusiasm and millions of dreams in our
eyes, fresh out of college, we were going to change the world.
The Internet had just made its advent in India and boy, was
it slowww!!
Only RICH people had mobile phones, which were really huge
“compass boxes” and charged Rs. 17 per minute for incoming calls.
The “pager”
was THE gadget of choice and most people who wanted to feel important carried one.
In the future, the cellular phone technology will
become cheaper and every person will own a mobile phone. The “pager” will die,
leaving no trace of its existence.
The first mall in Mumbai, Crossroads, had just come up in
the up-market Pedder Road/Haji Ali locality and McDonalds, KFC, Domino’s and
Pizza hut had exactly 1 outlet in the financial capital of India.
Multiplexes were unheard of and hence, I and my friends watched
“Dil Chahta Hai” in a regular single-screen theater.
I don’t believe 9/11 had happened yet. But it would in the
next few months and thus, change the course of the history of the world.
We were the new generation – Gen X - the first generation of
all these sweeping, mind-blowing changes happening in the world, the catalysts between the old world and the new world.
And that was
the time of “Dil Chahta Hai”, a movie which was made especially for us – the
Gen X’ers.
The feelings and ideas we lived by can be summed up by one of
the memorable quotes from the movie by Aakash (played brilliantly by Aamir
Khan). On the College graduation party, he gets up on stage and says “Now, I am
going to sing a song titled Naukari Paane
ke Sau Tareeke (100 ways to get a job)” There is dead silence on the
dance-floor and everyone starts murmuring, at which, he chuckles and says
“Relax Guys, I was just joking. Who the hell cares where we land up?”
There was loud applause from the young crowd in the theatre at
this dialogue and rightly so.
Our parents and the previous generation had been brought up
in the era of the License Raj in India, wide-spread corruption in the job market,
the horrors of the emergency still hanging low and the slow economic growth.
Finding a job after graduation was a biggest apprehension for them. Talented,
highly-educated students ended up working at lower end jobs as office
assistants and clerks. Some never got any jobs and languished; their talents
wasted.
We were the first generation for whom the jobs were already available, like a red carpet. We never had to go searching for them, they came searching for us.
This was primarily because of the advancements of the IT and BPO industry in
India, which provided employment and paid good money to the youth of the new
millennium. We were young. Life was cool. We worked hard on the weekdays and partied
harder on the weekends and danced through the night in the clubs and discos chanting our Anthem “Koi Kahe, Kehta Rahe,
Kitan bhi humko Diwana”!!
Anyway, back to DCH. The directorial Debut of the genius, Farhan
Akhtar (who would in the future reveal his talent as an actor, singer, music
composer, song-writer et al), DCH is the story of 3 friends - Akash, Sameer and Sid,
best buddies whose life changes as time passes. Interestingly, I saw the movie
with two of my best buddies and although we were too young to realize it at
that time, time really did move on and all of us did change in some small and big ways.
The movie is told in an extended flashback, where Sameer and
Sid are in the hospital, meeting each other after a few years and they start
sharing memories.
One of their earliest memory is where they spontaneously
start a Water / Color fight with each other. The scene shows the incredible
closeness they have as friends and we realize that they are childhood friends.
Such closeness can only be between childhood or school friends, because that is the only time when friendships were formed without any motives, compulsions,
biases or prejudices. We just become friends with random people and the friendship builds stronger as time passes. It is the first true form of friendship based on pure love. Just like the characters
in the movie, I am sure all of us have fooled around with our childhood friends,
throwing color, ink, water etc. on each other. In fact in the case of me and my friends, we
even threw each other. :-D
As the movie progresses, we see the characteristics of each
of the 3 friends. Akash is a practical, but happy-go-lucky, fun guy. He does
not have a girlfriend and does not believe in love. He wants to live life on
his own terms, without any hassles of girlfriends and such.
Sameer is the romantic but goofy guy. He falls with love
with every other girl he sees and ends up in difficult and often hilarious
situations.
Sid is the sensitive, brooding artist. He is a thinker and a
philosopher. In one scene, he shows his paintings to his new neighbor, Tara,
who observes that all of his paintings have a theme of quite introspection. “All
the windows are closed. The eyes of the figure in the painting are shut. No one
knows what’s behind, what is hidden inside. You stay with all the people, all
your friends, but no one knows you who you really are” she says. Sid is blown
away. Tara is the first person who understands him and he promptly falls in
love with her. So what if she is a middle-aged divorcee. Love is blind, they say.
Then, one fine sunny day, they get up and go to Goa. Just
like that, no plans, no thought, no commitments and they have the time of their
lives. They are young, they are free and they have their whole life ahead of
them. They can do what they like, live how they like.
It’s just the thing that best friends do, isn't it?. There is a weird
thrill, an enchantment in just getting up and going where the road might lead. “Life
is what happens when you were busy making other plans”, John Lennon said and if you have your friends to share that life, those moments with, it’s
the icing on the cake.
While they are in Goa, at one time, they are silently
watching the faraway sea. Sid looks at a ship in a distance and starts speaking
aloud about the transient nature of time and life. “Someday”, he says “We will
drift apart. We meet everyday today, but in the future, we might not meet for
years. Just like the ship travelling on the waves of time.” Akash interrupts
him and says “Nothing is going to change. We are friends now and will always
remain so.”
This scene is the most poignant and iconic scenes in the
movie. It’s a scene that is the essence of DCH and is at the heart of the film.
It’s a scene that reflects reality to such a huge extent that it is a stroke of pure genius.
Well, let me explain. At the time when we first watched the
movie, this scene was just another one of the various interesting and nice
scene to look at. I don’t think I ever got into the philosophical
or metaphorical meaning of this scene, until I watched it again recently.
This time, I realized the importance of that scene. Life really
is transient. As life progresses second-by-second, minute-by-minute, month-by-month and year-by-year, we meet various people. If we are lucky, some of them become our friends and hold an important place in our lives. But as time passes, we drift apart from them. Work, responsibility, ambition and commitments take the front stage and friendship slowly slips into the background. Like the ship in that scene, we move on, away from the shore, but we still stay connected, in the words of Akash "we are friends and will always be". We miss those good times spent
together and cherish the memories in our hearts, like pearls in an oyster. Those times which will never come back, but remain etched in the corners of our mind and our soul.
Even in the movie, eventually, Akash, Sameer and Sid do fall
apart. Akash and Sid have a vicious fight, leaving Sameer in the midst. Akash
moves to Australia. Sid goes off for his future education to becomes a painter and
Sid remains in the city.
The movie now shifts focus to Akash and his life in
Australia, where he meets Shalini (Priety Zinta, looking so gorgeous, she instantly
became every guys dream girl).
Salini and Akash hit off instantly and Shalini tries to
change Akash’s views about love.
Another interesting scene is the one in the Sydney Opera House,
where Shalini and Akash go to watch the Opera “Troilus and Cressida” (the Bollywood version :-)). In
the Opera, Troilus is killed and when he goes to heaven, he asks the ‘Angel of Death’ for one last moment of life to see his lover, Cressida. At this point, Shalini
asks Akash to close his eyes and think of the person for whom he would want a moment of life, even after death. It’s an overwhelming moment and
Akash closes his eyes. In the next few seconds, his whole life flashes past him
and finally he sees Shalini standing in the empty theater, looking enchanting
and gorgeous. She is the person he will like to live for even after death. She
is the person he loves and the realization hits him like a brick.
This scene is one of the most brilliant scenes ever composed in any movie, in my humble opinion. The scene is not only brilliant technically, what with the opera music playing in the background, the camera-work etc., but it also beautifully shows the true meaning of love, of family, of your wife or girlfriend or lover and the most important things in life, which are not material things, but the people you love, for whom you would like to live on, even after death.
The movie veers towards a predictable finale, where both
Akash and Sameer get the girls that they fell in love with and eventually, even
Sid finds a true love. The movie ends with the catchy “Dil Chahta Hai” tune and
you end up feeling wonderful. Two and Half hours spent well!!
Re-watching DCH was like a trip back in time for me and that
is why it continues to be one of my favorite movies, even if I have seen it so
many times. I know I will watch it umpteen times more and always come back
feeling good and nostalgic. Maybe as time passes, the ideas and themes of the
movie will reveal new meaning to me and I will find newer ways to appreciate
it.
DCH is an ode to life, love and most of all to friendship. And isn’t it really friendship in any relationship that gives real meaning to that relationship?
