What lies in Dil Chahta Hai?

Subhash K Jha

From among the many tirelessly tender sequences that spill willy nilly out of Dil Chahta Hai, the one that’s most representative of debutant director Farhan Akhtar’s assumptions and motivations as a filmmaker occurs in the Sydney-half of the film.

We see the jaunty and roguish Akash (Aamir Khan) coming out of a theatre with Shalini (Preity Zinta) and her affable and rather embarrassingly young Uncle.

They’ve presumably seen the Michelle Pfeiffer-Harrison Ford starrer What Lies Beneath. That’s what the banner at the movie theatre announces.

As the Uncle (model Rajat Kapur), looks on with amusement, Akash dismisses all love stories as humbug. Shalini loses her cool completely. "I’m sorry I brought you to see this serious film. I think only flippant films with lots of action are suitable for you."

Shalini could be speaking for a lot of non-metropolitan viewers in the country who have rejected Dil Chahta Hai as elitist, escapist and insulated. Even a super-savvy filmmaker in Bombay (whom I won’t name) was hugely disappointed with the film.

After taking time off his busy schedule to see Dil Chahta Hai , he wondered what the fuss was about. "There're so many things that just don’t work for me. And I wonder how it works for others.

"For instance, the Akshaye Khanna-Dimple relationship. Even the way it starts, with Akshaye offering to carry her luggage to her apartment is selfconsciously casual. We needed a more focused initiative to the relationship. But all the characters are so busy being cool, they forget they’re part of a film."

Now is that a backhanded compliment or what?

Thanks to a script which doesn’t for a second flaunt its plumes, the characters acquire sharp shapes without trying to look like characters. For once, the camera doesn’t become an observer. It is part of the superbly written scenes, just sitting around being part of the, well, cool climate.

The ‘coolth’, of course, has to do not just with how Farhan shoots his film, but where. Goa and Sydney are ideal holiday spots where the three friends let their hair down -- though two of them don’t have much of it to let down. Once they do there’s no fear of them ‘letting down’ anything else.

Disappointments in the trajectory of existence are captured in such splendid loops and spirals that we feel we are part of a swathed and splendid ‘romantic tragedy’ rather than a straight and simple romantic comedy.

The ‘romantic tragedy’ spreads itself out into various unexpected articulate and extremely literate interpretations of art and culture.

Art, is, of course, a fundamental part of Sid’s attachment to the ravishing and ravaged Tara (Dimple Kapadia).

They become friends through his paintings. The sequence where he runs all the way to his house to get his painting equipment when Tara agrees to be portrayed, is emblematic of that strange feeling inside when one loves a person so much, only his or her happiness matters.

Then, there’s the ‘arrestingly’ crafted sequence where Tara visits Sid’s home to examine his paintings. Arresting because the camera doesn’t move. Only Dimple does, ever so slightly. And gracefully.

Her character is, in fact, as central to the astonishing script as Akash’s. It’s Tara's impending death that reunites the three friends in the corridor of the most unfilmi hospital I’ve seen since Chicago Hope.

If Akash goes from romantic flippancy and futility to sober self-consciousness, Tara represents the film’s one and only tragic dimension. Dimple's Tara Jaiswal, in Dil Chahta Hai, is a very distant, though very deeply bonded, cousin of Meena Kumari’s choti maalkin in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam.

Desolation shrouds both characters. An alcoholic haze endows their personality with a glazed grace. Like Meena Kumari in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Dimple's character moves closer every minute to doom with such dignity that we almost welcome the tragedy as a counterpoint to the ongoing bacchanalia that characterises the central relationship among the three friends.

When the ‘romantic tragedy’ moves to Australia in the second half, we fear for the film’s rare and cherishable equilibrium. Miraculously, Farhan Akhtar just overwhelms us with his enrapturing equipoise, his amazing control over the narrative.

Take the sequence at the opera where Akash’s dormant sensitivities as a romantic pounce awake while watching the tragedy of Troilus and Cressida unfold on stage. Farhan says he had no problem doing the sequence.

But imagine on how many levels and layers this tricky sequence could have gone wrong! Imagine, if Akash’s cynicism hadn’t melted at that precise moment when the audience felt the tremors of change.

There’s amazing timing at work in the film. Not since Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam have I seen a film where the opulent shots seem to be conceived for the eyes, heart and soul. Unlike Bhansali’s film, Dil Chahta Hai hasn’t been shot on elaborate sets.

Many of our most gifted directors make the fatal blunder of erecting intricately done-up stagey sets for the drama to unfold. Do the Sooraj Barjatyas and Subhash Ghais of show world realise how much of their intrinsic artistic vision is lost by projecting that vision on artficial sets?

Dil Chahta Hai is a lesson in naturalism. The authentic locations, characters, performances, lighting and, last but not the least, the sync sound favour the flavour of arcadian authenticity.

This is a product of Feelgood Cinema with a depth that defies the genre. It entertains us immensely, but also nourishes our senses beyond commonly acceptable definitions of sophisticated entertainment.

But for me the film ends when the three friends sit on the wall of Tara’s compound and watch her belongings being taken away.

There’s so much silent finality in that sequence that you wonder why Farhan extended it into a Goan reunion sequence where the grieving Sid suddenly rediscovers love just six months after Tara’s death in the form of a strange calendar-art model-like woman.

Yes, life goes on.

But we would rather remain frozen in the dreamscape of friendship, heartbreak, repentance and reunion that Farhan Akhtar has created in Dil Chahta Hai.

Also read:
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