We have this habit, since our college days, of planning to watch certain movies (of mutual interest) in advance of their release dates, like we constantly keep doing it before weeks, and sometimes months! I remember a friend of mine joined me at a BAR, after returing from office, and first thing he did was, put the headset of his i-pod into my ears and played this song ‘Sun raha hain na tu‘ (female version sung by Shreya Ghoshal) from ‘Aashiqui2‘.
I didn’t know that then. My reaction was ‘Neutral’ after listening the song, but my friend kept praisin’ it so much, as if Shreya has sung it for him (he’s a biggest fan of Shrey Ghoshal). But the next day i heard the same song almost everywhere i went, in Bars, Cars, evrywhere. I heard it people singing it all over. But it didnt have that much impact on my ears & mind, but i was reserved to experience something more intense than these people around me.
Everybody then, had this curiosity to know if the songs of this movie could manage to have the same cult status of the first installment of this movie, ‘Aashiqui‘ released on 17aug,1990, the music of ‘Aashiqui‘ in 90’s created history & has a cult following among almost everyone since it’s release. The film was a huge commercial success and one of the highest grossing films of 1990 mainly due to its music with the showings running to full houses. “Dheere Dheere Se”, ” Main Duniya Bhuladounga”, ” Ek Sanam Chahiye” and “Mera Dil Tere Liye” and “Tu Meri Zindagi Hai” were rages amongst the youth and general audience.
Finaly the week of it’s release came and my friend was much excited, as a Kid frenziedly waits, few days before his birthday to come. Looking at his serious and intent mental state towards the movie, even i started developing an intrest for it. His every status on Facebook, every TWEET on TWITTER, every Blog comprised ‘Aashiqui2’, for that entire week.
I was doing night shift, a day before it’s release and grew almost equally fervent to watch the movie next morning. The first show was @9a.m. in the theatre in our town and it takes an hour for me to reach there from my office. I left office and rushed towards railway stn, didn’t even had a smoke and boarded a train by 7:30a.m. reached the theatre exactly @8:45a.m. It took an hour and 15mins, and my friend called me in every 10mins askin’me where have i reached? G O D !
The day was ‘Friday‘ the 26th – April, 2013. The weather was cool & breezy, so that it provoked me to light a cigarette. There wasn’t much que at the BoxOffice but this friend of mine was the first to take the tickets, as if it was goin’ to be HOUSEFULL. I could still easily reminisce that moment, how he grew impatient and was killin’ time to enter the Dark Room. So.. here the security guard opened the door & we were the firsts to enter(shuffin’my half-smoked cigarette). I was quite annoyed but managed not to show it on my face, coz’i didn’t want his exhilaration to die-down. We perambulated in the DARK ROOM looking for our seats, by the time they played the theaterical trailers of upcoming movies, as we found our seats, the central board of film certification was displayed on the screen. And he was the first and the only person in the Hall who screamed and clapped, the guy sittin’ nxt to me gave us a strangge look but it didn’t even bother him or me at all, Now even my whole concentration was pointed towards the Movie, which was started now.
From the very first scene where they showed the Green bottle of Whiskey, which R.J. – Rahul Jaykar (Aditya Roy Kapoor– male protagonist) sips from and the camera panning the glimpses of him till the end where Aarohi (Shradha Kapoor) and signs her name as “Aarohi Rahul Jaykar” in a fan’s handbook as a tribute to Rahul and her unsung desire to marry him. As rain starts falling, she watches the couple who took her autograph sharing a romantic moment under a jacket as she and Rahul had done when he was alive.
What made me so teary eyed was that I felt these two perspectives of love and human relations are absent in my life. I know this may sound like a selfish reaction to a story about other people, but I realized by the time the film ended that one of life’s simplest, yet most complicated emotions, is not really present in my life.
I saw the enamoured Rahul Jaykar(RJ) and the beautiful nature of Arohi as two juxtaposed types of love that when balanced, create the most wonderful of bonds.
My constant struggle with conscience, depression, and alcohol robs me of a lot of happiness and energy, and as a result, I don’t find myself in situations where I can create and enjoy the emotions of love in my life.
If I take this film literally, I suppose that I should go out looking for a girl in a completely different culture that does not place value on the material things that drive me to get up and work everyday.
In reality, however, I think that the aching loneliness I feel can be filled by any variety of love…the fact to the matter is that I am not in a relationship (and haven’t been for a long time) and therefore I have lost touch with this emotion.
Love is everything Rj & Aarohi portrayed it to be in this film, and in the end, the sadness I felt is the result of feeling a vast void in my heart where these feelings should be present.
In non-poetic terms, I need a girlfriend. More specifically, it doesn’t matter who she is as much as what we will come to feel and experience together: feelings that enlighten the heart, lift the soul, and bring happiness to the otherwise daily drudgery of life.
My Blog 