One more in the “autonomous female protagonist suffers a heartbreak” category – a rare find in Bollywood. This movie is a remake of a Hollywood film, titled French Kiss, but has been heavily Indianised.

Plot summary

Sanjana is an Indian woman who has no family of her own, and lives and works in Paris. She is engaged to Rahul, and dreams of settling down in a large Parisian villa and building the family she never had with him. She invests her life savings in her dream house shortly before their wedding.

Rahul is required to go to India on a business trip, and Sanjana insists on accompanying him. But she is terrified of flying, and makes a scene when she gets on the flight to India. She gets off, and Rahul leaves without her. Soon after, she receives a call from an inebriated Rahul, who tells her he has fallen in love with a local woman named Nisha, and that he plans to stay on in India and marry her. She is heartbroken, and decides to travel to India, despite her fear of flying, to win Rahul back.

On the flight, she is seated next to Shekhar, a seemingly rude, cocky man. He realises she is scared of flying, and distracts her with an argument while the flight takes off. The journey is marred by turbulence, but the flight finally lands safely.

While deboarding, Shekhar, who has stolen a valuable diamond necklace, sees a police officer looking for him. He hides the necklace in Sanjana’s bag so that the inspector does not find it when he searches his (Shekhar’s) luggage. Sanjana leaves the airport before Shekhar can retrieve the necklace. She goes to the hotel where she knows Rahul is staying. There, she witnesses Rahul making out with his new girlfriend and is so shocked that she faints. A thief takes advantage of this to steal all of her luggage.

Shekhar follows Sanjana to the hotel, only to realise that her luggage, and the necklace along with it, has been stolen. He tracks down the thief and retrieves the luggage, but finds the necklace is missing. The thief pleads ignorance when Shekhar confronts him, and suggests that it may still be in Sanjana’s bag.

Sanjana is still pursuing Rahul, and on finding he has gone to Palam, decides to follow him there by train. Shekhar follows her, claiming that he wants to change her mind and prove that not all Indians are as bad as she thinks. Sanjana comes down with an upset stomach on the train journey, and misses the train while she is in the toilet of a station the train has briefly halted at. Incidentally, the station is Shekhar’s hometown. The station master recognises him and alerts his family members. His brother arrives to pick him up, and takes both Shekhar and Sanjana to their native village.

Here, Sanjana grows acquainted with Shekhar’s large family and the many pressures Shekhar is under – he has to raise enough money to ensure his nephew can get a lifesaving heart surgery, and also save his ancestral house and fields from being reclaimed by moneylenders, to whom the family is heavily in debt. Sanjana reveals she has had the diamond necklace with her all along, and tries to persuade him to stay back with his family instead of trying to earn money in the city.

Shekhar has fallen for Sanjana, but offers to help her win back Rahul. The two travel to Palam, and concoct multiple plans to get Rahul’s attention, including Sanjana and Shekhar pretending to be a couple and recruiting someone to act as Sanjana’s rich grandfather who wants to bequeath property to her. Rahul’s interest is piqued after learning that Sanjana is poised to inherit substantial wealth.

Meanwhile, Nisha is threatened by Rahul’s growing interest in Sanjana, and arranges to get engaged to him at her birthday party, to which Sanjana is also invited. Sanjana is devastated after Rahul gets engaged to Nisha, and begins packing, telling Shekhar that she has lost, and that she intends to never dream again, because when the heartbreak which ensues when dreams don’t come true is too great to bear. Shekhar persuades her not to give up on her dreams, telling her to visualise her dream house, and Rahul waiting for her there. When Sanjana closes her eyes to visualise this, however, she realises that she sees Shekhar instead, and that she has fallen in love with Shekhar.

Just then, Rahul calls her and asks her to meet him. Shekhar urges her to go. Rahul, who is under the impression that Sanjana is a rich heiress, begs her to get back with him, but she refuses, telling him she has realised her true love is Shekhar. She adds that she isn’t really a heiress, and it was a ploy to win him back.

Leaving a shocked Rahul behind, Sanjana is returning to Shekhar when she is accosted by the police inspector. He tells her that the necklace is stolen, and that he can spare Shekhar from arrest if it is returned by the next day. Sanjana persuades Shekhar to let her sell the necklace, to evade suspicion, and secretly it hands over to the inspector. She arranges for her life savings to be transferred to India, and gives the money to Shekhar, telling him that she has sold the necklace. The two then make preparations to depart, each unaware that their love is mutual.

Shekhar sees Sanjana off at the airport, believing that she has left with Rahul. He is accosted by the inspector, who informs him of what Sanjana has done for him. Shekhar also sees Rahul trying to get back with Nisha, and realises Sanjana has fallen in love with him too. He races to the airport and manages to stop Sanjana’s flight from leaving. He confesses his love for her, and Sanjana happily stays behind, reunited with the one she loves and finally having a family of her own.

Sanjana’s navigation of heartbreak

In a way, Sanjana’s view of Rahul is similar to Geet‘s, in the sense that when her beloved leaves her, he does not just end a relationship; he also demolishes the entire conception of her future, because he is the foundation it was built on.

Sanjana’s despair is heightened, however, because Rahul is also where she thinks herself as belonging. Geet comes from a populous, loving family, who she loves back equally, and is by no means an orphan. As Sanjana puts it, she has no one to call her own apart from Rahul. She is spared the sense of shame that haunts Geet when her relationship fails; there is no one who will judge her for her bad decisions. When she first hears of Rahul breaking things off with her, she is crushed. But she battens down her despair and grief by replacing it with an outrage-fuelled sense of purpose, arising from what she feels is owed to her by the world – a family. Everyone has a family; people who care for them. How can she have no one? It is impossible; she therefore must retrieve what is rightfully hers. She does not once question Rahul’s rights or accountability – she is convinced that Rahul cannot have acted of his own volition; he has been led astray by the Indian girl.

Her breakdown happens when she comes face to face with the realisation that her ownership over Rahul has lapsed, after witnessing his engagement. It is interesting that she thinks she has a chance as long as his relationship with Nisha is merely a relationship; the moment it becomes official, she decides to back off. I may, of course, be reading too much into it. So many of us are faced with situations where we willingly delude ourselves, half knowing what we are doing, only to be eventually confronted with one pivotal incident, conversation, Instagram post, which forces the blinkers off.

Sanjana’s behaviour is surprisingly mature after this incident. She is clearly heartbroken – defeat marks her dialogue and body language, and she cannot stop crying. She tells Shekhar that she intends to never dream again, because the pain of not having dreams come true is simply too crushing to go through repeatedly in one lifetime – again, most of us have said/heard a version of this after a crushing heartbreak. But she also says she had a life before Rahul; she was happy even before him, and she can go on living and even be happy after he has left. All true, but not easy to realise when the pain of a heartbreak is still fresh (for Sanjana, it is only the next morning!). Perhaps this maturity and clearheadedness is a result of her having to fend for herself emotionally for most of her life, something Geet and other female protagonists in Bollywood do not have to do.

The takeaway

I watched this movie yesterday, and a lot of it was silly and very 90s.

I am quite impressed, though, by Sanjana’s measured reaction to realising she will never have Rahul back, as is obvious by the earlier paragraph. I relate emotionally to her saying she never wants to dream again. I do not want to ever invite another man into my life again either. My rational self tells me this is silly and that I will feel differently after I have worked through this…but I don’t know if I ever will. I simply do not have love or passion or energy to give to another man; I feel exhausted, used up, and above all, claimed. All of this belonged to a certain person, and it feels wrong to give it to anyone else.

Am I able to be like Sanjana and say I was happy before this relationship even began, and can be happy again? Again, rationally, yes. I am happy even now – I am happy when I am talking to my friends, I am happy when I see the trees fairly exploding with spring flowers, I am happy that the evenings are longer and it is still light when I leave work. But I don’t know if I can ever go back to what I was. It feels like having a sharp object buried beneath the skin for a long, long time… it is almost part of the body now, but it is still foreign. Everything seems okay…but then you turn a certain way, and suddenly, pain radiates throughout your body. That is how it is… I am going through the day, and suddenly, missing him washes over me like a wave… 9 AM in rush hour traffic, 3 PM as I am peering at an incomprehensible Excel sheet, 7 PM when I’m stirring my dinner over the stove…

They say “Give it time”, that’s what all the advice out there says. But it has been a long time now. And I still love him; I am still anguished and lost without him. And I don’t know if there is ever a going back to what I was. I’ve said this before…he was the foundation on which my future was built. Now I am in the future, and he is not there, and I don’t know what to do anymore.

 

This movie gave us an iconic heartbreak song. When we first heard KK’s “Tadap tadap ke”, we were most likely children and only cried vicarious tears, imagining the great thrill of having your heart broken and being so utterly and completely devastated. We are older now, and have actually experienced what it feels like to have hearts ripped out by the loss of a lover. I, for one, would love to go back in time and give my younger self a good smack for the frisson of thrill I felt when I heard the song and hoping I’d get to feel this grand grief one day. Many 90s kids can probably relate, and I felt this was a good place to start.

Plot summary

Nandini lives a cosseted life as the beloved only daughter of a famous Hindustani vocalist, Pt. Durbar. Her life is limited to her sprawling haveli in a remote village in Rajasthan, where she lives in a large joint family. The milieu is deeply patriarchal, but Nandini enjoys a few privileges, on account of being her father’s favourite. She is allowed the use of her own room, and is also shown walking about the village making purchases for herself and playing a very physical outdoor sport.

Her life changes forever when Sameer, an NRI musician, shows up to learn music from her father. Initially, she is hostile to him, as her room is taken away from her and given to him. But the two soon fall passionately in love. When their relationship is discovered by the rest of the family, Pt. Durbar is furious, and demands that Sameer leave his house at once. Sameer complies, and Nandini is shattered.

Her marriage is arranged to a man from the same community, Vanraj. Nandini remains reduced to a shell of her former sparkling self even after the wedding, unable to forget her love. Vanraj finds out, and decides to unite her with Sameer. The two take a trip to Italy, where Sameer lives. Over the course of the trip, Nandini realises that Vanraj’s steady selfless affection is what she really wants in life, and finally ends her relationship with Sameer.

So what does Nandini do with her toota dil?

The circumstances of Nandini’s heartbreak are all summed up in this one song.

 

 

She doesn’t break up; it is done for her. Pt. Durbar tells Sameer that the only payment he needs for teaching him all these days is for him to leave both his daughter and his haveli. The dutiful student complies, stopping Nandini from leaving the house to follow him using a game of “Statue”, an inside joke in their relationship.

This is how Nandini’s role as a heartbroken Bollywood heroine begins. She freezes instantly, unwilling to break a relationship covenant even when at this crucial juncture.  She remains frozen in the “Statue” position as she watches the love of her life walk away from her forever, and long after he has gone, as her mother leads her away while mocking family members watch.

Only her tears are mobile, escaping her absolute stasis, symbolising how grief cannot be checked, even by the strongest dams we put up.

Too quickly, however, Nandini has no tears left to cry either. Eyes are, as the overused cliche goes, the window to the soul. While Sameer’s presence still lingers, Nandini’s eyes convey her grief, even as the rest of her freezes. But after he departs and all remnants of his presence are removed, Nandini’s eyes freeze over as well, and we understand that her soul has died inside her.

The first visual we see of this change in her eyes is when we see her lying on a parapet of the haveli‘s terrace. A vast blue sky stretches over her; the same sky which stretches over Sameer as he walks through the desert. But we know it is not the same sky. Nandini can only go as far as lying on a parapet, still very much confined to her house; neither land nor sky is open to her like it is for Sameer.

Nandini is still, so very still. She is still in the same clothes she was when Sameer left. She never moves, except from one location to another in the haveli. An empty terrace. A chandelier affixed firmly to a wall, able to swing, but not fall. A small pool of water, the waves gently lapping in the severely confined space. It is hard not to see the parallels.

Images of Nandini’s absolute stasis are juxtaposed with Sameer’s movement. He is tramping through the desert, and as he walks, he is screaming and crying at the heavens. Sameer may be alone, but he still has the luxuries of free movement, activity and public venting—the privilege of the hero. Though apparently alone, he still has an audience—his departed father, who he regularly talks to facing the sky, and is shown to “respond” through natural phenomena like thunder. When Sameer raves about his loss, he still gets an acknowledgment, in the form of a rumbling sky.

Nandini, on the other hand, is well and truly alone, and knows not to bother with an outward show of emotion. There is no sympathetic ear around. She turns her grief inward, until nothing is left of the vibrant person she once was. She blankly stares back at the camera, and slits her wrists.

The song does not show us what happens after this, but Nandini does not die. She is rescued in time, and forced into a marriage. Her dead stare remains throughout, apart from three scenes where her grief bursts out in screaming, crying outbursts. Her immense grief has turned into rage at this point—rage at being so brutally abandoned, rage at being used as a mere pawn in a man’s world, rage at not even being allowed to be sad.

The takeaway

It had been a while since I saw Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.  I was seeing it with a fresh pair of eyes now, and sadly, also a wiser, more experienced pair of eyes. This is what made Nandini’s situation so very relatable to me.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s films are not known for being realistic. But I think Nandini captured grief at a forced parting, one not of your own engineering, extremely well. I know what it is to feel like I cannot freely express the devastation I am feeling inside, and it may be an all too common “desi girl” experience. We cannot cry, we cannot talk,  we cannot ever show our anguish and desperation on our faces, because our parents and our families will be be “shamed” that we dared to be in a relationship in the first place. Sometimes, the breakup is engineered by the parents, because they disapprove of the partner being from a different community, or simply because they are opposed to the idea of a love match. Displaying how the loss has affected us is, in this, a safety concern.

Our grief turns inward, and we die. We die a little, every day, and we don’t know if, or when, we will live again. We don’t care. Because the beloved is gone, and though the world still continues to spin on its axis, what does it matter anymore?