Its all about loving your mental health - Dear Zindagi

It’s all about loving your friends. But then Gauri Shinde is not my friend in the conventional sense save for hurried message once on FB. But there is an innate desire to want her to succeed. She was fabulous in English Vinglish and her innocent heartwarming responses to messages makes you protective about her work.

Watching Dear Zindagi is like gingerly stepping into a forbidden area of the personal life of a young girl traipsing through a career pregnant with possibilities for her but she has no patience for the delivery of success. She wants it and now!  Alia is a cinematographer (Not photographer thank you she corrects with bruised indignity) who wraps up a Singapore shoot as a stand-in for a DOP and yes has a night over with a colleague. She is established as the bored urban lass who cares not for broken emotions of restaurateurs or chocolatey musicians and has modern values. She dares to break boring stereotypes of girls in love drooling over music or oozing happiness over candle lights and desperately wanting to stay away from people who propose.  May sound familiar traits and sufferings of a young  girl in her 20s. But it has always been sought to be clamped and hopefully calmed down with marriage, trusting that it never resurfaces. But this block of angst is never cleared. It sits there festering as an unresolvable wound and ending up as mental health issue.

Gauri decides to propel this festering wound of a psychiatric situation right into the faces of society and urges the reluctant related stakeholders in our life to accept that it is ok to approach a psychiatrist and resolve emotional issues that come in the way of complete fulfilment of life.

That is the setting then for our young lass to accidentally bump into and then seek out a charming psychiatrist who wears torn jeans to drive home his messages about living life to the fullest and repairs cycles for young kids. The divorced with a kid ( thought it is difficult to understand why he failed with his wisdom in his personal life), psychiatrist tries to bring semblance of order in the thoughts of the young girl and that for most makes up the rest of the movie and ends up in parts as a very smart witty docu-drama on understanding and reaching out and becoming aware of one’s own unresolved problems which apparently become the foundation of latent disturbed personality in the future.

There are really no high point markers towards which the movie speeds but looks like a leisurely unravelling of a slice of life of a disturbed young film creative. The movie is peppered with witty and genuinely impressive one liners and some stark reality checks on how youngsters today view well intentioned parenting, snapping at parents and generally taking things for granted. ( Don’t let the failures of the past blackmail to current and ruin your future – the psychiatrist pronounces with a twinkle in his eye and you cannot help but allow a wow to escape your lips)

Alia is simply stupendous more than measuring up to the expectation of the young brash impatient blunt young girl who almost falls for the charming solution dispenser. Therein lies an almost unresolved tale as the director knowingly teases the audience having the pulse on the fact that superstar plays a psychiatrist with a charisma that cannot be ignored, age gap be damned.

Gauri leads a movie that moves along an inverted peak starting on a high, dipping badly into banter that almost sounds aimless at times and induces boredom into audiences which happily start looking up their messages and then take a leap forward as it the movie and its protagonist find their footing. There are very few high points in the movie and one gasps with delights in rare scenes like the one where a dapper looking  SRK plays Kabaddi on the shore.( reminds you of his Swades looks )

Sadly despite a charming screenplay, genuine intention and a robust screen presence of the lead cast the movie fails to hold your uncompromising attention like the directors previous effort.

But that cannot take away from the fact that it will nobly contribute to people in society actually boldly and maybe even make it a style statement to seek out psychologists and psychiatrists contributing to dampening the increasing angst in our society. It hurts to say the movie will be a difficult watch for those who love a few hours of escapist cinema. But those who do, do applaud for Karan Johar for backing such clear winners on presenting social messages in commercial cinema and not expecting the box office to crackle. Bravo Karan and SRK and Alia can well look forward to sharing the awards at the year end with Anushka.

And in the meantime do love  your life.



***

Fighting the Rip Van Winkle critics

It has been a tumultuous historic period in the history of the country. Called a savage move by those probably bruised financially and an astute game changer by the majority which ironically is stoically bearing the brunt of the impact of having to expend quality time getting hold of small currency to keep the daily life smooth.

There are voluntary natural born naysayers and and then are some treading that path on a rebound from some unconnected bad experience. People’s nodding logical support is generally construed to be some sort of devotion to the current rock star of a PM and his increasing brood of unarguably talented ministers. Surprisingly the war of disagreements has now moved from the streets to the cyber highways as packets of opinion clash with each other.

So much has been said and written about the derailment of the currency with removal of two key high value notes that the clear partition of the population seems almost as stark as the one decades before except that this time happily it is revolving around those impacted and pretending to rally for imaginary poor people and the majority which senses while suffering the impact that this is the labour pain that may deliver them from the stigma of corruption.

You watch biased TV anchors struggling to get some negative abusive remarks out of the hordes struggling for hours to get hold of change. They force feed adjectives only to be rejected .

“ Are you sure you are not inconvenienced? “ “ Do you think this could have been done better by preparing the ATM s well in advance “ “ Perhaps the PM could have arranged for the marriage season to get over “

But the anchors and the premier English TV channels are stumped with the population refusing to give into their clamour for decrying the establishment.

Why on earth would the PM call up fathers of to be brides and warn them of an impending action to vanquish Black money. One is assured that this is the right step when you see the major nasty opposition leaders getting into rough panic and thrashing around while drowning in a water less hole.

The Finance minister has one simple remedy to all the emotional blackmail. Please use digital and non cash forms of payment. And as for the rural population which is being bandied about as the worst hit by the opposition surely they are the least affected as far as bigger notes are concerned.

The political parties sense that this outcry will attract some attention only in the first few days as the the ATMs race to align with new dimensions and dispensations of notes. Once the masses return to their daily routine with sufficient avenues of currency the first round will have been convincingly won and a huge nail driven into the coffin of Black unaccounted money.

The naysayers jump up and decry the efficiency of the move by announcing that the bigger new currency will make up for the renewed collection of unaccounted money. IT will but people are going to be very cautious having burnt their fingers. Besides new schemes of digitizing every transaction will only make that even more difficult.

The most worrying part for the political parties that sought to stump the general rural population into passive submission is that this population will be wary and make a beeline for the banks to ensure that they never run into a similar situation again. The digitized banking can be addictive with its resounding convenience which the masses are yet to experience. With the language of currency reducing and cyber paths trickling with electronic cash, unethical practices are going to be all the more challenging. The naysayers who did their Rip Van Vinkle act for the last few decades, urgently have become conscientious keepers of the country making one worry what exactly they have got to lose or the type of people they are in bed with.

By taking a difficult and risky stance the PM and his ministers have done well to weather all the criticism and also the risk of a sabotage of the national peace by its own naysayers. The bankers rose to the occasion and like soldiers on the frontline they have become a symbol of an emerging new country where participation in national activities is not restricted to watching the national day parades on Independence and Republic day but also actually feel party to a new vibrant emerging economy and cultural identity.

And yes never have the small change of 50 and 100 looked so beautiful to behold and hold ever before. So what if the wallet bulges.

Somewhere in the western sector

Parvati looked at her husband as he trundled in weary from work. We have been taken over. We have a new President. Suresh jerked out of his semi-conscious state. Parvati seemed to be staring at the Television.

“What? “He said all of his now well oxygenated blood rushing to his frontal lobe. This was more than he could handle in one day.

“Look that Indian lady anchor with all those Americans. She just said we have a new president and was smiling from ear to ear “

“Oh that she is not talking about our president. That is that western country’s new president”

“No there is some mistake, why would she have 10 of those panel members from outside on our TV channel. Besides she just played a clip of the new man saying he loved ‘Hindooos’”

“So? “

“She even used the word Gob smacked “Parvati told him with a twinkle in her eye.

“How does her using gob smacked make her different from us? Why cannot she interview foreigners? Why can she not have her channel offices abroad even if it is on a day of bleaching in India?”

“Bleaching?” Parvati’s turn now to be shocked

“Yeah you know that black turning into white stuff “Suresh said flopping into the sofa

“It’s good we don’t have anything in this sofa else we could have had to tear it apart and rush with it to the banks. You know that is how god repays us honest people”

Parvati turned silent. Suresh looked up at the unexpected silence from his mate.

“What now? “

“You know that Bleaching thing? “

“Bleach? “

“You just said it yourself. Well I have a bit of that problem myself “

Suresh jerked back again his frontal lobes readying itself for the rush

“What do you mean? You don’t even earn”

“Well you know I earn of you right? Sometimes in small little ways “
Suresh stared “You mean a few thousands right. Like when you inflate the grocery bills“

“Maybe something like 400 thousands types”

Suresh held on to the honestly purchased in white money table lamp and steadied himself.

“How? How? Did you manage that from my meagre salary? How dare you save so much? Do you know we should not save so much that it runs into so much cash? You cannot create so much of black money”

Parvati stood perplexed “But why black. This is your hard earned money which became mine due to my hide work. And besides bhaisaab has said no problem for naari”

Suresh eyes popped “Now who Bhaisaab?”

Parvati “The PM. You so conveniently forgot the man who has put the fear of god in all men with unbleached money. He said housewives do not fear. Your money is your money”

Suresh sighed. He did some quick calculations. “You know that we will have some difficulty explaining that to the banks right?”

Parvati “No I spoke to bhaisaab and he said should not be a problem for salaried people “

“Bhaisaab – You spoke to the PM? “

“Arre baba no our banker bhaisaab. They have a holiday today and they will be working extra for next 

few days. So we can put in our money the day after”

“And listen one more good news …The builder called up and said he wants us to visit him tomorrow. He is reducing the cost of the flat”

Suresh jerked up for the third time in the day “Really?”

“Yes he said something like take all the cash back and give me only 50% of that in cheque but he needs us to pick it up tomorrow.

He murmured something like rent of the warehouse is going to be more than the value of the money.”

Suresh smacked his head and as he sat down he noticed two new bean bags.

“Where in the heavens did you get this?”

“Oh that you know Sahajik our neighbor bhaisaab from the government office. He came and said he was distributing all the furniture in his house because he wanted to be a hermit now. So he gifted us these two bean bags and also this 50000 in cash because he had not gifted me anything on Rakhi as his sister”

Suresh wanted to comment on the new found Brotherliness but attention panned to the bean bag.

Suresh rushed to the bean bag turned them upside down and tore open the knotted stitch. Portions of shiny currency paper peeked at him through the holes.

On the TV the finance minister was now speaking and indicating that law will take its own course for people without a trace of income.

( pic courtesy - ET)