Imtiaz Ali’s films follow a known trajectory of boy meets girl, they separate and reunite, with the falling in love part either happening between meeting and separating or separating and reuniting, not to forget the resultant coming-of-age. While it is said that all stories have only seven versions and that all love stories are essentially the same, there is something uniquely Imtiaz Ali that is repetitive in his films.
An evolving loop of repetitions emerge in his repertoire of six films (as director) over a decade, from his debut Socha Na Tha (2005), a breath of fresh air but also quite a cheeky subversion of the grand old romance (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge for example) to Tamasha (2015). Every Imtiaz film borrows something from the previous film and brings something new for the next.
Love Is a Social Act But Oh So Much Fun!
Socha Na Tha (2005) & Jab We Met (2007)
It is 2005 and the millennium has brought in a clear shift in the way we view the world. Old world values however, still stick but unlike DDLJ of yore, in Socha Na Tha running away is the only option. Two years later, with Jab We Met (2007), love became even more fun. It was still social and old values still strong; running away still the only option.
Both Aditi (Socha Na Tha) and Geet (Jab We Met) are struggling to break free from their families and the repression they represent, (a thematic strain we see resurfacing two films and a few years later, in the lives of Veera (Highway, 2014) and Ved (Tamasha, 2015) but with far more darker undertones, but about that a little later.
Viren (Socha Na Tha), however, is new-age, confused and critical of love a-la Akash (Dil Chahta Hai, 2001). Yet, the obstacle to their love remains social norms and familial honour. The highly incompatible Geet and Aditya are similarly paired, both choosing to defy family for love. Love is still social, still emotional but a lot of fun!
Love Is a Personal Choice
Love, Aaj Kal (2009)
In 2007, Geet and Aditya travelled long distances together, much like Raj and Simran did 12 years earlier. In Love, Aaj Kal (2009), long-distance becomes the very conflict that drives the lovers apart.
An almost literal thesis on old world vs new age love, in Love, Aaj Kal, the world is no longer the problem, it is the people themselves. Love is no longer social, it is personal yet practical. It is Jai’s story of transformation, and the journey he makes is to a ‘whole new world’, just like Jordan, Veera and Ved. There are no families or an external obstacle involved and love is more personal.
Love as a Spiritual Act
Rockstar (2011)
This search for a distilled version of love seems to be the force behind the rawness of Rockstar (2011), an unlikely film from Imtiaz Ali, till then only known for cushy, feel-good romances. All the tropes - coming-of-age, long distance, confusion, other partners, familial repression find their way into an uncharacteristically dystopian landscape torn apart and redeemed by love at the same time.
The world and its ways are back as the villain, but this time as a monolith of oppression and primary subject of Jordan’s (and later, Veera and Ved’s) angst. The capitalist superstructure of the new millennium has eaten away into the familial structure and now holds sway on the lives of Jordan (and Veera and Ved) while love sets them free. Love now, is passionate and spiritual too, so timeless it no longer needs a ‘happy’ ending as a proof.
Love as an Existential Act
Highway (2014) & Tamasha (2015)
The dystopia of Rockstar was a far-cry from the innocence of Socha Na Tha or the exuberance of Jab We Met and the darkness looms large in Highway and Tamasha as well. Jordan’s borderline personality takes a more definite turn in Veera’s self-aware bewilderment at her transformation and accentuates a year later, with Ved’s schizophrenic outbursts.
If Viren, Geet and Jay merely wished to explore life as an adventure, with Jordan, Veera and Ved it is a more urgent exploration - of their inner identity. It is this quest Veera responds to when she sees Mahabeer perplexed, ‘par main tumhein jaanti hoon’, she says insistently. As insistently as Tara says the same lines to Ved in Tamasha. From spiritual (Rockstar), the struggle of love has taken an existential form (Tamasha and Highway).
Ved’s eccentricities are indubitable because he is not only a free spirit like Geet but also repressed like Veera and also an artist like Jordan, a stifled one at that. His relationship with his mercenary boss (Vivek Mushran) is as volatile as Jordan’s was with Dhingra (Piyush Mishra) both bosses themselves being prototypes of each other.
While the world Jordan was battling was faceless, Veera and Ved’s worlds are specific – the family is back into the picture, this time with its personal and not social sides overcome by brave confrontation. In Veera and Ved, the meek and unsure Aditi and Viren seem to have matured into more self-reliant individuals and the carefree Geet and Aditya seem to have found a deeper contentment.
Tamasha is predictably lending the exotica of its fancy-free-romance-in-a-foreign-tour exposition to Imtiaz’s next film Jab Harry Met Sejal, where a tourist guide shows the girl a new world in a foreign setting. There will be another question love is answering over long distance but hopefully with that throbbing, raw nerve Imtiaz Ali is known for infusing - very alive, very sensitive to touch, much like love itself.
(Fatema is a decade-long moonlighter as fiction/non-fiction writer, reviewer and currently enrolled in an adventure sports course called film editing at FTII.)
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