What the heart wants once more

A decade after Farhan Akhtar’s directorial debut, his sister’s sophomore effort walks a parallel road with expectedly diminishing returns.

A decade ago three young men on the threshold of life packed their bags into the trunk of a Mercedes convertible and headed to Goa. They parked themselves quite firmly in the collective consciousness of the urban Indian yuppie and ten years later Hindi cinema (or may be just the director’s sister) is still paying tribute. Zoya Akhtar’s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara is destined to live in the shadow of her brother’s genre defining Dil Chahta Hai because its target demographic is largely the same. What has changed are the means of this target demographic and this is reflected in the locations and aesthetics of Zoya’s film. Where Akash, Samir and Sid went to Goa on vacation, Zoya’s trio take trips to Spain. They don’t rent scooters anymore; they rent vintage convertibles and live in villas that would entice the least materialistic among us. This enticement is, without a doubt, the true core of this film. Its cloying postcard splendor is a frosted glass cage that we must look past to see the characters inside. And in an initial daze that resembles a sugar-high, we are quite glad to make the effort.

Though the film never crosses the Atlantic, it is filled with Manhattan stereotypes. Kabir, a Clark Kent spectacles wearing Abhay Deol, is the Upper East side living, wealthy wasp equivalent among the three friends. The film begins with Kabir’s engagement to Natasha (a hilariously uptight Kalki Koechlin), a Park Avenue princess who may live in present day Mumbai but shops in London and has priorities from a past decade. Arjun, is the high power, high energy, Wall Street trader equivalent, only he lives closer to Savile Row than Park Avenue. Arjun (Hrithik Roshan), obviously over compensating for a financially disadvantaged background, is every executive cliché rolled into a single bite of Japanese speaking sushi. He nearly misses the trip (but of course doesn’t) because of work, constantly refers to retirement at forty and is fortuitously multi-lingual. But he is no ice king – of the three he is the one who wears his heart on his incredibly short, bicep-exposing sleeve. Imran (a sometimes hit sometimes miss Farhan Akhtar) is the Greenwich Village artist who sold his creative soul to the advertising industry and writes biscuit jingles that his friends mock. Imran is the class joker and remorseless cad, hiding the hurt that lurks beneath behind a veneer of inappropriate jokes and in unpublished poetry. The troika’s excuse to set off to Spain is a bachelor party for Kabir. But it is patently obvious that the road trip they embark on will become the most fundamental detour in their life’s journey. These child-men have much growing up to do and in the absence of a qualified shrink (Kabir who seems to have graduated from Pop-psychology University can be safely discounted), they use adventure sports to achieve the same results.

The film is not without its poignant moments. The titles, with Abhay flying first class, Arjun and his meticulously packed luggage flying business and Imran’s hurriedly thrown together rucksack in coach chatting up a stewardess, clearly segment and define the character types we are dealing with. The tension between Imran and Arjun when they first meet is palpable and Arjun makes a quip the slimness of Imran’s paycheck – a perfect example of an instance in which we inflict careless wounds on friends. The Arjun – Laila (a winsome and well cast Katrina Kaif) romance starts off on the right note as well – with Imran making the first move while Arjun watches in the background protesting silently. But with Laila the player seems to have met his match and she aptly takes the lead in her relationship with the Arjun who, despite his multilingual prowess, remains woefully inarticulate when it comes to wooing. When words leave Arjun’s mouth they fall, like most two-dimensional objects attempting stand straight, flat on the floor. The two most honest moments of the film belong to Imran – one in a post coital curl up where his partner has no clue what he is confessing and the other in a confrontation with his estranged father.

The camaraderie and in-jokes are easy to identify with but the gag that elicits the loudest laugh comes from outside the friendship – Saare Jahaan se achcha playing over the slow motion walk to a skydiving plane. It is a subversive dig at patriotism and an indication of what this film thinks about existing holy cows. This film, in all its beauty and splendor, worships at only one place – the temple of consumerism. One would not be remiss in imagining the scarf and shades wearing Hermes Bag, dubbed Bagvati by Imran, as the presiding deity of this temple. The characters in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara may tell you to follow your dreams and live in the moment, but what the film truly preaches is want. It is impossible not to want the lives that these characters live. Everything that they touch, perceive and experience (even sadness) is so beautiful that we are enticed into believing that we deserve the same. In reality these lives need to be bought and paid for and therefore the only thing this film is bound to create is more people who depress their dreams in pursuit of money – to draw from its on characters, more Arjuns. When Dil Chahta Hai first came out we accepted in with open arms because of our wide-eyed optimism. After a decade spent in a mostly capitalist boom, our generation is now slightly jaded. And as a result slightly more wary of the goods that Zoya Akhtar is truly selling in her sophomore effort. 

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of The New Indian Express. Link.