Dear Zindagi – To a road less taken

Aye zindagi gale laga le

Aye zindagi gale laga le

Hum ne bhi tere har ek gham ko gale se lagaya hai, hai na?

Aye zindagi gale laga le

Aye zindagi…

Life. I call it a package deal of love, laughter and sadness. Almost every other emotion is intertwined to these three essential feelings.

While love and laughter has been discussed about, at lengths, in the world of Hindi cinema, what hasn’t been discussed properly just as yet is sadness. No, not the sadness that comes after you miss a train or after paying your monthly rent, but the one that is deep-rooted, within you. Within all of us, somewhere at the back of our mind.

What hasn’t been discussed properly is the challenges that one may face through several such experiences that we tend to keep within us, that we hide away from, at times from our own selves.

That brings about the topic of mental health, of how important, essential and normal it is. Your mental health shapes you up, in every which way. It is not something that can be romanticized about, but can only be understood when you listen to the person suffering from it, without adding labels or going all judgmental.

Dear Zindagi brings about that very important change — it talks, effortlessly, about problems that we face, but decide not to talk about.

As Jug aka Dr. Jehangir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) firmly puts it — If our body has a problem, it’s okay. But if our mind has a problem, we’re termed as mad. Is our mind not a part of our body? Why can’t it be normal?

Acceptance of a problem is the first way of dealing with it. Life comes with its own issues, but if we keep running away from them, thinking that it’s abnormal just because of certain stereotypes set by the fasaad-ki-jadh (root of the problem) society, then we’re doing it all wrong. Because it’s okay, it really is.

Hum ne bahane se, chhup ke jamane se

Palkon ke parde main ghar bhar liya

Tera sahara mil gaya hai zindagi,

Tera sahara mil gaya hai zindagi…

Life. We the people are a crazy bunch. We fall in love, we’re afraid to say. We fall out of love, we’re afraid to say.

We are annoying at times, over-annoying at times, without any reason. And most of the times, while we do have reasons, we choose to tell ourselves that we don’t.

Take for example Kiara’s (Alia Bhatt) colleague in the film who is gay, has come out in the open about it, and visits a DD (Dimaag ka doctor). When Alia asks him if he goes for therapy to get the courage to tell the world about his sexual orientation, he replies with a beautifully subtle — To gain enough courage to tell myself the truth.

There has been a saying that if you help yourself, life will help you too. Just be ready to be there for yourself too, though.

Acceptance.

Simplistically put, that’s the first thing that we need for life to be a little less complex than usual, don’t we all agree?

And if we need assistance or guidance for it, so be it. There’s nothing, and absolutely nothing wrong about it.

Chhota sa saya tha, aakhon main aaya tha,

Humne do boondon se mann bhar liya

Humko kinaara mil gaya hai zindagi,

Humko kinaara mil gaya hai zindagi…

Life. It makes you run away from your past — in a way that it not just affects your present, but your future too.

As Jug puts it aptly – Don’t let your past blackmail your present, and ruin a beautiful future.

Sigh. If only everyone had a Jug in their lives to put things into perspective, eh?

Anyways, the point is, noticing the littlest things keep you going. The times with your best friends — the handful of idiots who will always be there, despite your worst phases; watching that little dog on the street having a gala time eating fresh dog biscuits; trying out cycling or even playing kabaddi on the beach! These little moments, at the end of the day, give you the will to carry on.

Cherish them. You need to.

Live. In the moment. For the moment. Find a purpose, and live by it.

Jug stood by his purpose — of serving lives, of making them better — even when he had an option to go beyond it at the end of the film. But he stood firm on his stance as the mentor, showing his strength as a person who stands by his ethics.

Kiara found her purpose — to follow her passion, to have an open mind and a clearer heart.

I found mine too. To write this blog and thank the makers of Dear Zindagi for making something so valuable and different, and to stand by their belief of not just providing entertainment but to reach out to a larger audience about a topic less spoken, a road less taken.