From Ae Ajnabi to Ae Dil Hai Mushkil: Where’s the heartbreak in heartbreak?

This was the only scene in the movie I liked. Not the dialogue in the image but this particular scene.

I watched Rockstar. I watched Tamasha and I also somehow managed to sit through an apology of a romantic movie called Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. Oh yes, the movie has been sweeping award shows but those are also the same award shows in which Jacqueline Fernandes is winning double nominations and Fawad Khan’s performance in Kapoor and Sons is being shamelessly ignored. So, do I need to say more?

So why do I list these three movies among the so many I have watched between 2011 (11^th November was when Rockstar released) and 2016 (28^th October was when Ae Dil Hai Mushkil released)? Well, apart from the fact that all these movies are Ranbir Kapoor starrer, there is also a little similarity that I find in the way falling in love and the subsequent heartbreak is depicted in these movies. Probably, not the most explicit of similarities because of very different plots, yet I do find some.

In Rockstar, that was praised for its close to reality portrayal of heartbreak, I failed to understand what really broke Jordan’s heart so bad that the story panned out the way it did after it all began as a desperate stupid attempt to get his heart broken. Probably, I need to go back and watch the movie again to understand but sadly, I don’t have the patience for it. In Tamasha, the protagonists met in a different setting altogether, promised to not reveal each other their real identity and part ways. Obviously, that didn’t happen. After a few days of conning French people for fun in Corsica, they realize they felt love for each other and the girl tries to connect back and fresh romance blooms.

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil started on a note similar to Tamasha where two expats meet in London, develop a friendship at a pace which happens only in Bollywood movies. They then proceed to get rid of their trophy beaus before heading to a short Paris trip where the boy begins to feel for the girl, who, by the way tells how heart-broken she is because of someone who she accidentally meets at a Paris nightclub. And boom, she goes back to the man and our hero is left heart-broken. But the point is, where did this love happen? This question really bothered me long after I had ended torturing myself with the movie. And it was while thinking about it that I chanced upon a song that I once was a big fan of and upon listening to it after the title track of ADHM, it did seem somewhat similar too (only somewhat). Although it didn’t quite answer my questions, what it did was that it took me back to the movie which made me understand what exactly bothered me with these new age romance stories of Bollywood. 

The song was Ae Ajnabi Tu Bhi Kabhi and the movie was Dil Se, one of my all time favorites. Although I was quite young when I first watched this SRK starrer, I vividly remember that by the time the song Ae Ajnabi Tu bhi Kabhi started in the movie, I felt for the protagonists. In the movie, the song comes when Shahrukh's character Amar is about to get married and yet he can't get the woman he fell in love with out of his mind, which, of course, isn’t the woman he is getting married to. On the other hand, listening to the song on a radio is Manisha's character Meghna, for whom the song comes as a reminder to the door she had shut to give her all to the greater mission. And as Udit Narayan's voice serenades us with the words Main Adhura tu adhuri jee rahe hai and Meghna turns off the radio in a futile attempt to forget her tryst with Amar, you hopelessly want the two to meet somehow.

So what brought the viewer to this precipice of emotional overflow? The seeds of these emotions lie in the treatment of the story before this song. Here are two people of opposite sex who are as different as chalk and cheese - he a loquacious AIR executive producer, she a mystery. The attraction that follows between the two characters owes majorly to this difference. As it so happens in real life, the initial attraction is followed by the man trying to explore the woman he thinks he is attracted to. In fact he is more intrigued than attracted. But the first step he takes in that direction results in him slipping deeper into her for she is a mystery wrapped in layers. This journey of exploration of the mystery cum falling in love with her meets with multiple endings. Yet, at every separation he doesn't know if he is going to see that face again or not. And that stokes the love further inside him for her. And that's why by the time Ae Ajnabi starts playing, you really begin to connect with his anguish. It’s the depth of the back story that brings me to this precipice of emotional overflow every time the movie reaches the song.

Cut to Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and it befuddles me totally as to what made Ayan feel so deeply for Alizeh? And it's not merely about Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, but a slew of recent movies that have hit the theatres over the last few years whose depiction of love and heartbreak borders on trivialising it. A week or two of clubbing or tripping with the woman and the guy's crying buckets when she leaves..seriously? I unfailingly fail to find any depth in the story of Ayan and Alizeh which could have made me feel on listening to ADHM the way I did when I heard Ae Ajnabi. People who have heard this proposition of mine often respond by saying that probably the makers didn't have so much time to deal with that aspect of the story. But how can you not when it's the backbone of your movie’s plot?

As I think more about it, I begin to wonder if that's the way attraction works in the tinder century. The ridiculous pace at which characters in ADHM fall in love and fall out of it maybe mirrors our fast paced society. I don’t know if that’s how it is out there in the real world but I would always find Amar’s heartbreak in Dil Se more beautiful and relatable. I loved the title track of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and the hurt and anguish are beautifully captured in the lyrics and Arijit Singh does an equally brilliant job with the vocals, but when it comes to feeling what the song wants to convey, I simply can't after watching what is, actually, an apology of a love story.

P.S – For trivia lovers, Amar’s character in Dil Se is shown to have made the journey through seven shades of love as found in ancient Arabic literature. Hub (Attraction), Uns (Infatuation), Ishq (Love), Aquidat (Reverence), Ibaadat (Worship), Junoon (Obsession) and finally Maut (Death). Now, that’s how you make a great heartbreak story!