Tu Hai Mera Sunday: Of Hope, Sunday Mornings and Coffee Beans

“It’s Okay, It’s Life”-Tasneem, Tu Hai Mera Sunday

Milind Dhaimade’s “Tu Hai Mera Sunday” is one of the most endearing films I have seen recently, a film that makes you realize the charm oozing out of a Sunday morning holds a very precious value in life and should be duly acknowledged. The film is about a group of friends looking to find a suitable and spacious place in Mumbai to play a game of football, a game so important in all of their lives that they are willing to even travel to a neighboring state so that they can have a decent game. The film takes the game of football and Sunday as two symbiotic metaphors and narrates us the tale of optimism filled with romance and happiness. There are talks of escapism, realization of being content and happy in our lives, importance of space (both physical and emotional) and an amusing quest of being a nice person.

What makes Sunday such a special day in a week? A brief stress buster compared to the busy schedule in our lives, a day which allows us a moment of isolation against the world, a period of procrastination where we aimlessly lie down in the bed and ponder about all the activities in our lives. I do not have an answer to that exactly, but after watching the film I did realized why Sunday marked a special event for Arjun, Jayesh Bhai, Mehernosh, Dominic and Rashid, the five-principle protagonist of the film. It allowed them to escape from their mundane schedule of life, and without worrying about any circumstance, they enjoyed a breathless game of football. A simple period of leisure on a bright sunny Sunday morning through a game of football is what all them simply desired. What chain of events happened in each one of their lives throughout the week after an eventful Sunday’s game formed the rest of the film. 

There are underlying strings of hopeful moments weaved all over the film, a girl is divorced because she gives birth to deaf kids, and with a shining smile tells the other person to not feel sorry, it’s alright because it’s life. It is delivered with utmost innocence, and for me becomes the soul of the story. This theme of this various unaltered moments of hope staged throughout the film is because of the fact that the backdrop of the story is Mumbai, where it is vital to place one’s dreams, and hopes with other feelings of despair together through a duct-tape and organically get habituated to its consumption in life. What the film did was made me recall most of the iconic moments from Hindi Cinema that originated (on-screen) from the land of opportunities. In a way, the film’s milieu of Mumbai is symbolic of the fact that now dreams, hopes, despair and survival of the thousands are overfilled into a tiny space way above it’s limit, and one is bound to change as a person when emotions are jammed together in a specified range of area, yet the driving force of hope amidst all the issues thrown in front of the characters makes them go fix those issues in their own way.

There is a mention of the word “Escapist”, where Mehernosh erupts at a certain point, and blames the other guys to be nothing but united in escaping their own individual lives. Well, he does make a very valid point. Escapism is the tendency to distract ourselves from any unpleasant, boring schedules of work and allying our minds into something else, be it movies, books, daydreaming, fantasy or any other form of entertainment. In a way, escapism can also be summoned up as a path where we run away from reality, just for that brief moment in our escapist cave, we feel more of ourselves, discover more about ourselves through our means of escapism, even in the context of the film, we do realize that yes they group of guys are running away from their realistic lives, and finding solace in a game of football on a Sunday morning, but only through this event in their lives, they discover a lot about themselves, and how they perceive their own individual relationships. Dominic earning his livelihood by being dressed as a joker at kid’s parties which is not going too well with him (ends up yelling at kids), Rashid discover old memories in his room, he is made to realize this sense through the presence of a rat in his room, Mehernosh wants to confess his feelings to a colleague yet had to see her suffer everyday through his boss, and Jayesh bhai trying to escape his noisy family to have a moment of peace of his own.    

The most charming scenes in the film happens between Arjun and Kavya, where both of them discover each other under an odd situation where Arjun acts as father-sitter for Kavya’s father who is suffering from dementia. Kavya narrates an incidence to Arjun, about how in her childhood she had a massive attack of pneumonia, and it was only her father who had not given up on her health. Another significant scenario of how beautifully and subtly director Milind Dhaimade brings the essence of hope into the scene. Arjun explains to Kavya about his decision to stay near his loved ones and be happy in his life. There is a very sincere honesty in the way Arjun tells us about how he did not want to enroll himself into the corporate culture after witnessing a bizarre incident that changed his ideology towards life. The moments between Kavya and Arjun at the beach reflected a state of hesitation on both ends, where each one of them expected the other person to make the move and initiate the real talk. They talk about how there is no space to enjoy little moments of joys in life, again a reference to space in the film, this time, perhaps it was being referred to an emotionally comfortable space of being with someone special, since the space in all the context of life has crammed up, leaving us vulnerable at times. At the climax point, they do meet at the terrace of a building, finally getting their desired emotional space to have a moment of intimacy. Kavya and Arjun’s chemistry in the film is quite equivalent to the coffee beans used in their relationship, it’s totally refreshing.   

Hindi Cinema has evolved tremendously over the time regarding the fascination with the city of dreams called Mumbai. Earlier the filmmakers focused on telling the stories of outsiders coming into the city with nothing but aspirations to earn a livelihood. Be it the charming Raj from Raj Kapoor’s “Shree 420”, who is seduced by the glamour offered to him in the city.  Vijay and Ravi with their mother looking to start a new chapter in their lives post an unfortunate incident in Yash Chopra’s “Deewar” comes to Bombay. The legendary Velu Naicker’s moral compass from Mani Ratnam’s “Nayakan” that told the tale of man drawn towards the darker side of a city. Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s “Parinda” explored the darker side of the city more extensively through two brothers with the metaphor of flight of freedom that pigeons took around the city. The iconic dialogue from Ram Gopal Verma’s cult film “Satya” where Bhiku Mhatre proclaims to be the king of the Mumbai. Satya, in my opinion was one of the early films that went ahead and explored Mumbai more as a character than simply a background of the city. As the film goes on, the more we learned about the mood of Satya, there was a parallel narrative of the moods of Mumbai in the form of it’s monsoon period, how the city functioned during Ganesh Chaturthi.  Over the years, films based on Mumbai have undergone drastic transformations, as if the filmmakers are no longer fascinated with the idea of an outsider coming into Mumbai and trying to survive in the middle of the chaos, now the focus has shifted to the insiders, their tales of survival. Nishikanth Kamath’s 2008 directorial venture “Mumbai Meri Jaan” talks about the lives of common Mumbaikars post the horrific 2006 train blast, and ends the film with the song "Bombay Meri Jaan" from the 1956 film C.I.D. I remember a conversation from Vishal Bhardwaj’s “Kaminey” where Bhope Bhau (a native Mumbaikar) tells Guddu that migrants like you are chewing the city like termites, to which he replies a statement that his father used to tell him that if the city is a big glass of milk, people like us acts as sugar, if we leave, milk will be unaffected, but will turn bland. The whole political, social and economical dynamics of the city has changed, so has the stories around Mumbai. It’s as if the stories of outsider’s no longer interest filmmakers, whereas the stories of problems and survival of Mumbaikars gives them a far more better content to project it on screen.

There is a similar theme of Space related issues in Anand Tiwari’s “Love Per Square Foot”, where a young couple is on a quest to find a decent space which they can call their own and owning a piece of land of our own in a city like Mumbai appears to be a mammoth task. The contrast between Love Per Square Foot and Tu Hai Mera Sunday is like talking about day and night, and no it does not mean the former is a dark story, by the comparison I mean, one is set against a backdrop of a dream of owning one’s own house whereas the latter talks about the hope on a Sunday morning. One talks about love, the other talks about friendship both being affected by lack of space in a city. In both the films, the characters are in desperate need of space, again the need is of both physical and emotional space. Sanjay Chaturvedi who lives in a railway quarter desires to have his own place, whereas Karina D’Souza wants to get out of a forced relationship and start on her own. In a quite ironic situation considering the context of the film which is dealing with lack of space in Mumbai, both of them share a kiss on crowded local train.    

I really find Arjun’s portrayal of being a nice guy and focusing on being happy with himself rather than aimlessly chasing the corporate dreams quite amusing. The film does not exaggerate this idea with any philosophical concepts which might have made it appear a bit pretentious on Arjun’s part but it appears simple and straightforward. He helps an old man without any motive, drops his plans of settling in either Europe or Brazil, because he realizes the value of happiness and being content in our lives, it’s a tricky thing to present in a character and not sound ostentatious, but the way Arjun’s character explains his idea of happiness, we are convinced of his decision.  

Tu Hai Mera Sunday is a warm, sincere film, which makes it a perfect watch on a Sunday or any other day, do watch it and you’ll end up the with a big smile on your face. 

Love Aaj Kal: The Parallel Connotations of Love

“Tu Hamesha Correct Baat Bol Deti Hai Jaaneman”- Jai Vardhan Singh

In Imtiaz Ali’s 2009 film, Love Aaj Kal, there is a beautiful scene that highlights the conundrum that a majority of the people in contemporary times might have faced at some point in their life, the understanding of the feeling of love. Jo, the current romantic interest of Jai asks him “Do you love me?” to which Jai, a bit surprised by the question, and after a slight hesitation answers “Love? Who knows what that is, I haven’t figured that one out yet”. And just after the simple and what feels like a bit meaningless conversation, they both part their ways, wishing each other good luck. This is it for their romantic tale, both move on to their respective lives, without even for a second rethinking about the fragile nature of their relationship. This also, in a way defines the basic premise of the film, in which how the perspective, definition and the expression of love has evolved with time. The present situation of Jai Vardhan Singh and Meera Pandit, in London, parallel to the story of Veer Singh Panesar and Harleen Kaur from the early seventies in Delhi is narrated through a “bridge” of time connecting these two tales with the connotation of love as the theme. Jai and Meera are two independent, highly skilled people in their respective areas of work, as Jai says they are Normal Mango people, they don’t believe in immortal love, and they do not believe in making promises to be together for lifetimes to come ahead. Jai is absolutely right from his point of view, he doesn’t want to fall under the category of immortal lovers, because one, majority of them failed to live a happy life, the stories of their separation is probably what pushes the theory behind the immortality that those lovers have gained and second, is to run with the time to fulfill other internal desires that reserves their own individual importance in our lives.  These Mango people are practical in their approach towards everything and love unfortunately falls under that group. On the other side, we have our quintessential romantic couple from the notebooks of Hindi cinema, Veer Singh and Harleen Kaur who are trying to connect the ends between them to be able to live with each other. Love for them is a crucial aspect of life.

Love Aaj Kal represents the two different beliefs from which love is viewed, both totally contrasting with each other, yet the common factor between them is the feeling of not being able to live without the presence of a certain individual. Love is totally different Aaj (today) than what it was Kal (yesterday).  Jai is Aaj, the present and Veer Singh was the Kal, the yesterday, Meera is Aaj and Harleen was the Kal. Despite the dichotomy of time between these four individuals, what remains relentless is the sense of love, and more importantly, the actual realization of that feeling deep down in their hearts that this is it. The reason why this Imtiaz Ali film has stayed with me all these years is unknown to me, perhaps because of the fact that the chronicle of two different ideologies that both Jai and Veer Singh narrates gives me another opportunity to get familiar with Imtiaz’s characters and dive into the story set against the milieu of ordinary people with ordinary problems resulting into an extraordinary journey of discovering love inside themselves. 

Yeh Dooriyan, the song forms the heart of the story, a song about distance, and subsequently its influence on us and the people around us. The delicacy of long distance relationships in the contemporary times, the angst of not seeing your loved ones’ face for months and traveling hundreds of miles just to see that face in the older times. The song talks about the role of distance in our lives in terms of how it changes us. In Imtiaz Ali’s films, we have always seen that journey is far important than the destination, and it has always been the journey that allows his characters to come out of their shell, and actually be the person what they actually are. Most of the characters that travel in his films are on metaphorically layered trip to find one’s true voice, and they actually end up exploring that part of life. The song covers up all the accumulated distance the characters go through in quest of discovering the feeling of love, the four major cities where the story centers around; London, Delhi, Calcutta, and San Francisco. Each of the mentioned cities have their own charm, and plays an important role in the narrative, the cool life in London where people are mostly concerned about the traffic situations of the city, the extra madness of Delhi, where one is made to think through their hearts, Calcutta’s architectural stability comforting the romance in the air, and the urbanization of the modern times in San Francisco. Distance will remain forever, the quest to go through them, making them witness to the journeys is what eventually determines the shape of the final experience. 

    

There are lot of metaphors for transformations used in the film delicately to highlight the divergence between the characters. Yet, these are actually not different characteristics, rather a more updated version compared to the other. Veer Singh likes drinking black tea, the kind which Britishers liked, whereas Jai drinks black coffee without sugar. The transformation of a black tea from the retro period to an urban and modernized version of the drink, black coffee without sugar is a simple example of the difference and in a way, similarity connecting these two people. These drinks symbolize the two characters, both aware of the bitterness surrounded with the feeling of love, in terms of longing, separations and pain, yet both cannot help but surrender to the addictiveness of the stimulation, the feeling of love brings with itself. One likes it in a mug, while the other likes it in an old-fashioned way cutting chai cup. The vessels might be different, but the taste of love have the same euphoric effect. Railways stations guarded by ear blasting honks of coal operated engines have turned into international airports, the iconic Howrah bridge has a companion in the beauty of the golden gate bridge, the dynamics of physical intimacy has drastically changed by differentiating into the paths of need and conducts.

There are two beautiful instances in the film, where Jai and Meera uses silence to reassemble their thoughts. At first glance, it resonates a sense that the characters are reconfirming their own feelings at that point, but I realized much later that it was germs of doubt that momentarily pauses them to rethink about the whole situation, a doubt that depicts their uneasiness in responding to the situation in front of them. Meera tells Jai, that his boss, Vikram asked him out for a dinner, Jai is perplexed on how to tackle the situation, and takes a moment out to reconfirm how he feels about the situation, similarly when Meera is about confront her feelings to Jai post her marriage with Vikram, Jai breaks the news of him going to San Francisco, Meera takes a moment out to figure out the appropriate response, should she tell him about her feelings or let Jai go way in pursuit of his dreams. This use of silence makes a scene feel much more important without any usage of sound, and dialogues. The gap between audience and what is depicted on screen feels drastically reduced once a scene is projected through silence. 

Moments of Silence

In Martin Scorsese’s 2006 film ’The Departed’ Billy and Collin come in front of each other (not literally but through phones) and there is momentarily silence, which I still remember very accurately because as an audience it gave me a fascinating experience of the theme of the film. Martin Scorsese, the legendary filmmaker is famous for using silence as a medium to convey the thoughts of his characters at that particular moment, be it in Taxi Driver, where he uses silence to convey the violent nature of Travis Bickle, dark eerie nights on the streets of New York or expressing the volatile nature of Jack La Motta in Ragging Bull. Imtiaz Ali employs similar use of silence to transport audience to feel the state of the mind of his characters, be it to express the shattered, emotionally broken Aditya Kashyap, Explosion of an emotionally exhausted Geet leaning into the arms of Aditya, The numerous strong glares of silence exemplifying the solace between Veera and Mahabir in Highway, the trance like state of Jordan sitting at Nizammudin Dargah, feeling the coldness of dawn in Rockstar contemplating about his love for music and tryst for a broken heart, the desperate yet a very a calm sense of silence in Ved sitting around the mountains in Corsica in Tamasha and the silence in the yearning of home in Harry’s eyes in Jab Harry Met Sejal. On both the occasions in Love Aaj Kal, where Jai and Meera realize their doubts about the situation, they excuse themselves and figure out a way to comeback with a proper response.

The scene between Meera and Jai, around the courtyard of Qutub Minar while cutting back to the similar model of situation between Veer and Harleen at the Purana Qila. Meera wants to Jai to go away so that the space he has in her thoughts gets empty and is taken by Vikram, whereas Veer learns about the engagement of Harleen, and is shattered by the news. Now the contradictions on how both Jai and Veer perceive the news of separation is notable. Jai is quite causal about the whole situation early on, and kisses Meera, whereas Veer simply walks away with a heavy heart. In one of my favorite novel, The Zahir, Paulo Coelho wrote “When someone leaves, it's because someone else is about to arrive” I think this line blends perfectly with the way love is beheld upon in present-day times, the space in someone’s thoughts which Meera talks about is a vulnerable space, which becomes difficult to handle, and constantly torment us with the thoughts of people we desire in our lives, some people manipulate this space of thoughts, and twitch it in their favor. Talking about Meera, where do I even start, there are more entertaining, layered female characters Imtiaz Ali has written in his films over the years, somewhere the girl with the most stunning smile is lost. Meera works on Art restorations projects, and that too feels like a symbol connecting the bridge between the past and the present. She is confident, smart, and takes bold decision, and much like Imtiaz Ali’s other characters, she helps Jai realize what lies inside his heart. She understands Jai better than him, and without a doubt is more mature than Jai in terms of the kind of decision she takes. Yes, she too takes decision which are questionable (marrying to Vikram), but she should not be judged based on that one decision, it seemed like an impulsive and spontaneous decision on her part. The scene at Meera’s wedding where she calls Jai, and Jai starts explaining to her about what he is feeling at that precise moment, she does not utter a single word, on paper it is supposedly looks like Jai’s breakdown moment, but after repeatedly watching the scene, I found Meera’s silence more heartbreaking than Jai’s outburst. What I found really romantic and utterly intimate in Love Aaj Kal was the moments when both Meera and Harleen tries Black coffee and Black Tea for the first time, you could sense that they hated the drink and could not understand why their loved ones regularly kept drinking it, perhaps it was there moment to experience the bitter part of this thing called Love. In an interview, Imtiaz Ali said “I genuinely find women to be smarter than men. Women are more intelligent, aware and practical. They come up with solutions that men don't even imagine”.

Jai Vardhan Singh, in a lot of way reminded me of Akash Malhotra from Dil Chahta Hai, one of my favorite characters from Hindi Films. Akash is witty, spontaneous, no fucks to give kind of an attitude, he is someone who never believed in the magic of being hopelessly in love with someone until the moment, he himself experiences the waves of emotions inside his heart. Aakash is more concerned about his own space and believes in the motto of living by his own rules. The only characteristic that differentiate Jai from Akash is the particular dream of reaching somewhere, Jai is focused on reaching the Golden Gate, focused to such an extent that he even unknowingly let go away his love to reach there. The song “Main Kya Hoon” orchestrate the change Jai feels organically inside his heart, the smile has vanished from his face, complete tiredness has taken over his life. I feel both Jai and Akash’s breakdown moments have a bit resemblance to one another, both finally realizing that all this while, they kept ignoring the voices inside their hearts that told the fact that they are hopelessly in love with someone, and finally when those voices are heard and acknowledged, both accepts the fact. 

The conversations between Jai and Veer Singh about a lot of different aspects of love, like separation, taking a bold decision at the right, the subtleties of physical intimacy is what gradually plants seeds of realization in Jai’s heart. The point at which both of them discuss about how differently love is treat in the present day, one could easily sense the change in Jai’s tone, a bit irritated with all the nonsense around love, he explains why make love so complicated, already there are so many complex things floating around in our lives, why add love into that list. Veer explains to Jai the fundamental problem in contemporary times, that in the hope spending his life with Harleen, he became serious in his life, whereas Jai is so serious in his life that let Meera go way so that their work doesn’t suffer. Another factor that brings both Jai and Akash closer is the presence of a friend who helps them understand what it feels like to be in love. Akash makes fun of Siddharth, whereas Jai laughs at the activities of Veer Singh, and when both of them breaks down, they call their respective friends as if wanting to confess about this feeling.

Love Aaj Kal is about the ordinary stories of mango people, those with genuine flaws in them, but yet their stories are extraordinary when told through a great storyteller. Somewhere at the start of the film, Meera tells Jai, “All couple think that they are special, so actually they are just as special as all the rest” and as Jai says "Tu Hamesha Correct Baat Bol Deti Hai Jaaneman"