Gauri Shinde Did Not Disappoint Me

SRK movie| "Love You Zindagi"| Alia Bhatt| Gauri Shinde.

Don’t do overacting| Some romanticised concept/ optimistic way of looking at life| Don’t disappoint me after Udta Punjab| Oh, she will make it look so good.

That’s how I reacted to the first trailer of Dear Zindagi. I was pretty sure that the story won’t be new. I was surer that Gauri Shinde will not disappoint me. I have watched English Vinglish a number of times. It’s in fact my go-to movie, if one may say so, when I am low. It is a movie, but it also reminds me that my understanding of the politics of a house is a general understanding, only unacknowledged by most. With that in mind, I wanted to watch Dear Zindagi, to have the feel of a Gauri Shinde film; a film which is unconventional at the most conventional points and somehow doesn’t go haywire.

Be it the outcome of the watching too many Bollywood movies, or my way of looking at things, I am quite embarrassed to accept that I did wish for the character of Sridevi in English Vinglish, Shashi, to end up with the French chef. I felt that by not doing so, Shinde is appropriating the idea of a perfect wife, a perfect homemaker who just wouldn’t ‘cross the line’. But in the end it feels so right when Shashi says that she isn’t looking for love outside, but respect inside the family. How can anyone put the ‘taken-for-granted attitude towards a wife, or a mother’ in a better way than it was shown in English Vinglish? And there, Gauri Shinde set her standards.

I was excited to watch Dear Zindagi, but then I was somewhere scared to watch it. 'What if', Gauri Shinde disappoints me? What if Alia Bhatt doesn’t ask for the Hindi newspaper at the end, what if she sticks to the  English one? Forgive me for using the English Vinglish reference, because it’s hard not to. As and when the trailer went on air, I heard many people being excited for an SRK movie after a long time. I said so too, but I also added not because of SRK but because it’s a Gauri Shinde film. But aren’t we just used to know films by their ‘heroes’, not actors or directors or anybody else for that matter? I mentioned this because knowing that the focus will be on the character of Alia Bhatt, I still kept saying that I am hoping it won’t be the recent crap from SRK. Just how our minds are programmed!

Source- Google Search

Coming to the movie, the story was nothing new, or at least a twenty-two year old woman like me was completely aware of it. There was nothing that story could have possibly ‘taught me’ that I already didn’t know. The beginning of the plot seemed forced, confusing and dragged a little bit to probably set the situation to place “Just Go To Hell Dil” which by the way has the lyrics that any woman with a heart break might relate to. (I cannot speak for men here because I honestly do not know. Discussing that would be an entirely different blog post.) The scenes of Kaira’s house were quite relatable too, for isn’t marriage the settlement of a woman’s life? Isn’t homosexuality the horror of any household? So, it is not absurd how things come up in the conversation of a family, but at least they could speak the words out loud (with hesitation). The desire to settle their daughter with an NRI ‘techie’ with the fakest accent and probably lakhs in the bank account, is again, quite familiar.

The damsel is in a lot of distress. But instead of a prince charming who comes to save her from the poison, she goes to an unconventional therapist who helps her find the roots to her problems, and solutions to it rather than imposing anything or taking her limelight. Shah Rukh Khan’s character remains a character that productively helps the protagonist in becoming a round character. The story is that of a girl in her early twenties, struggling for the dream job, struggling for the ‘perfect relationship’, struggling her present in the underbelly of the ghosts of her past. And it remains so, till the end when it finally takes a not so realistic happy ending, where things fall in place. But then, how much can a film show in 2.5 hours! And obviously, it had to give a hope that things can get better in life.

How aptly Dear Zindagi portrayed the resentments of childhood that affects the adulthood, the hurt six year old girl, still hurting in her adult life. How aptly it comes out in an outburst of ‘shhh-ing’ everything that is important, in an outburst for being judged as ‘someone’ by the people who were at the base of the process of becoming that ‘someone’. How much we glorify parenting without realising the deep scars it unconsciously leaves! And how aptly it shows the confusion and clarity of a woman, a woman uncertain of settling in a relationship, a woman who cannot decide between the personal and professional, a woman who is a ‘slut’ in the society, a woman who wants to be independent and yet is somewhere scared of what people might say.

I repeat, the story isn’t new. But sometimes we need to hear things that we already are aware of from a third person or agency to think about them. Like English Vinglish, Dear Zindagi did just that. It made me think, it made me feel, again, that the power politics between the individual and society that I have in my head is not wrong, but is 'shhhh-ed'. In a movie, it is quite easy to say that what people say do not matter, but for one person who believes or says so, there are hundreds other to remind you that you in fact live in the society, and cannot escape from it so easily.

So yes, the end was certainly quite romanticised with all the forgiveness and achievements. Maybe it is possible, but it isn’t as easy as it seemed. You can’t just play "Love You Zindagi" and forget all your miseries. But again, it was a film and it had all the elements of what I consider a ‘good’ film. Everyone of course is open to their interpretations. On so many levels I agreed with the dialogues that will definitely make way to some personal chats. On so many levels, I could feel the protagonist could have been a portrayal of someone more or less like me (not the rich lifestyle though).

It was such a relief when the film did not take a romantic turn with Jehangir Khan and Kaira (Refer to the French chef-Shashi instance earlier). As unconventional as he might be, Jug was after all her therapist. It was somehow obvious on her part to ‘really like’ someone who could help her, but also how much did she know Jug, the person and not the therapist, to 'really like' him? There is also the hint that Jug, who fixes the broken things, is helpless in finding a way to spend more time with his kid after his divorce. Also as he mentions that every relationship has its own speciality, it isn't fair to burden the 'romantic' one with the expectations of being the perfect one. (Though finding a therapist as friendly and unconventional as Jug might only be possible in a film. No experience with any kind of therapist though.)

Again, I might be blinded to some extent because of my extreme admiration for Gauri Shinde’s previous work. She definitely did not disappoint me. It was exactly what I expected, if not better. A woman as the central character, other characters, including the male ones, productively help her rather than being there just for the face value, a film beginning with its focus on the dilemma and ending with a hope of being able to solve it. (I can totally analyse the movie scene by scene and end up with numerous blog posts. But I will stop here.) Dear Zindagi was 'so much and just that', for me. To you, it might be better or worse and that’s completely okay.

Also, probably blinded by the love for Amit Trivedi, I totally loved the music.

Bonus marks for mentioning Tinkle,  an integral part of my childhood and the beginning of 'reading' as a hobby in my life.