The Sky Is Pink - Film Review

My top three reasons for watching Shonali Bose’s The Sky Is Pink were: the title, Gulzar, and mainstream actors in a non-masala film. This Priyanka Chopra-Farhan Akhtar starrer film along with Rohit Saraf is based on the life of Aisha Chaudhary (played by Zaira Wasim). Despite being the story of Aisha, the film was promoted as a love story which added more curiosity to an expected inspiring story.

The narrator of the film is Aisha Chaudhary who is dead and this, she clearly states in the beginning, is not a spoiler. Her voice is that of quirky teenager who has had enough time to understand the circumstances of her birth and death. She is quick-witted, constantly uses Delhi-based puns and jokes, and is really concerned about her parents’ sex life which by the way isn’t okay to talk about even when one is dead.

Aisha is born with SCID – Severe Combined Immunodeficiency. She dies of pulmonary firbrosis. In case you have heard Aisha Chaudhary before, this information is not a spoiler. Even if you haven’t, it’s not a spoiler. The way this disease is explained from its name to its nature is scattered throughout the film. It doesn’t give all the information at once. Each detail is disclosed according to the need of the story, so there’s always something to look forward to.

This takes me to amazing use of non-linear timeline which keeps one or another bit of story as a mystery till the end. If one at all misses out the dates mentioned on screen, which is highly unlikely, s/he can make out the time differences by different hairstyles of Aditi Chaudhary (played by Priyanka Chopra), Aisha’s mother. Using the hairstyle for various stage of Aditi and Niren Chaudhary’s lives reminded me of the use of different hair dyes for Clementine (played by Kate Winslet) in Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) to portray the non-chronological sequence of events in the films.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anand (1971)and Nikhil Advani’s Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003) have shown the life of a person suffering from an incurable disease, trying to spread happiness everywhere before dying. In this line of inspiring stories, Shonali Bose’s film brings in a fresh and new perspective. The very change in the nature of disease changes a lot of things. The film doesn’t begin with Aisha being aware of the time she is left with and wanting to make the best of it. It describes the life of the people who are more aware of SCID than the person suffering. And, when we are introduced to the teenager-Aisha, we see her as someone tired of hospital visits and not quite excited about normal test results simply because she has been constantly kept away from normalcy.

Source: Cleavescene.com

In the very beginning, Aisha states the guilt that comes with suffering from such a disease, being the centre of everyone’s life. The film ends with her understanding of death yet not wanting to die knowing it’s not a matter of choice. It is not just the story of Aisha but the story from the point of view of Aisha. In most inspiring stories everyone sees the strong brave person who’s suffering. Seldom is shown the story from that person’s view. These stories are beyond the greatness or sacrifices that the patient makes in order to make other’s around him/her happy and comfortable. They are also about the struggle, suffering and determination of the people around, the family.

The title, as described in the film, is about different people having different stories. The circumstances, the events, and life in a broad sense cannot be the same for everyone. No one should have to accept something that s/he cannot relate to, that’s not his/her story. Everyone is entitled to their feelings and thoughts, and if they are different from the common notion, then that doesn’t mean they are wrong.

The film touches upon issues of woman's right on her own body, immigration, different religious beliefs and practices in one house, the struggle of the moral consciousness quite subtly yet strongly through well-written dialogues. There are times when one wonders 'Oh, so how did this happen!?' but that's answered by the narration again.The background scores and songs are on point.  In the end, ever piece of the puzzle fits perfectly. Bose’s The Sky is Pink is a film that melts hearts