Dear Zindagi,
A film that can teach us a lot about life than our actual real-life experiences. Let’s say, you draw two exactly similar copies of a picture right now as I say this. I’ll leave the first picture to you for painting. And, I’ll take the other one with me. After years, let me give it back to you for coloring again. In that moment, you might be made to face two questions. First, to redraw the wrongs that you once did it while brushing the first. Now, comes an even deeper one. Even after restructuring it, would you still consider the drawing anew and embrace it? Well, that sums up the point of life. In other words, Dear Zindagi..
‘Dear Zindagi’ is literally a go-as-you-please two and half hours long therapy session that could bring you back from your usual routines and terrible traumas and let you take a fresh breath of life from the moment you get entirely boozy with it. The film also exuberantly enjoys some really, long interestingly meaningful conversations that I’d seen in cinema for a while.
If you truly understand this profound film, Jahangir Khan, played by Shah Rukh Khan, makes no drastic difference by altering any event in the life of Kaira, played by Alia Bhatt. But, he only interpolates anew way for Kaira to see her already existing life. When she’s so much to feel happy for and about, she still feels sad for what is not. Well, that’s all before she meets Jug aka Dr.Jahangir Khan.
Then, there are also some really peculiarly subtle moments about Dear Zindagi. Let’s dig Kaira’s character little deep. She’s free-spirited, messy and charming; yet, dependent, wannabe perfect and keeps falling for men, time and time again. There’s a scene in the first half where she friendly argues to her maid that a toy that’s tilt is still perfect. This characterization also resounds again in a scene in the latter half where she rotates a fridge decoration magnet upside down while talking to her mom. It’s all fine. So where does Dear Zindagi take its big leap from the flock of hollow films? Even after the resurrection, there’s no scene that actually focuses her in trying to put these little pieces in an orderly manner.
She’s still the same old, little, freaky free-spirited mess. And, her world did not change for her either. Yet, she started seeing the world like never before. Not by forgetting; not by forgiving. But, by seeing everyone in this world just as people who make mistakes and then, redeem from them. Nothing more; nothing less.
The another thing that I personally adored is the final conversation where Kaira kinda admits her likeness for Jug. And, Jug responds to her “When you see a pattern emerging in life, a habit, then, it’s time to think about it. Genius is knowing when to stop.” Whereas falling in love is ordinary for Kaira, it’s not for Jug as it creeks for the first time when he sits in his Kursi chair.
And by the end, even though, nothing has never really changed in Kaira’s life other than she finishing the longest project in history, everything else just seems to be well settled. Or did she?