20 Years of Dil To Pagal Hai Movie and How I Can Relate My Life to It

The topic that I am going to write on today is a movie from the year 1997. A movie that was made under the banner Yash Raj Films & by Late Mr. Yash Chopraji. Yes, if you’re as filmy as I am, you’ve already guessed the name of the movie. A movie starring Shahrukh Khan, Madhuri Dixi-Nene, Karisma Kapoor & Akshay Kumar, Dil to pagal hai. DTPH, as people shortened it to, because of the long names of movies, or because of the trend that was started from the movie Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ). I really don’t know the reason behind shortening of these names, but I would like to believe that it was because of the long names of these movies.

I wasn’t going to write about this movie before 30^th October 2017, the day when it was released back in 1997. It will be completing 20 years on 30^th October 2017. So yaa, I wanted to write about it only around that time, this year. But, the movie has been flashing in front of my eyes like it wanted me to write this post immediately. I am a believer in ‘signs’. I take this concept of 'universe is giving me signs' very seriously and that universe is trying to convey some message through these signs. I believed in it even before ‘Anjaana Anjaani’ & ‘Kismat Konnection’ used a similar concept in movies.

On Sunday afternoon, I was changing channels and saw that this movie Dil toh pagal hai was being aired on our local cable channel. Our cable channel is a little weird, it plays the same movie for the whole week. So, on the same day, I happened to watch the movie three times. And today again, while changing through channels randomly, it was being aired on Sony Max 2. I took this as a sign that I must write about it rather than waiting till next month.

Like I am used to dragging topics, I’m feeling a little nostalgic and want to mention that I had watched this movie in the cinema hall. I must be 7 or 8-year-old kid when the movie was released. I hardly understood anything from the movie, except the songs, because we had practiced the dance steps of the song ‘le gayi, le gayi’ to perform during the annual function. It was only a movie, a romantic one before I watched it on Sunday. On Sunday, the meaning of the movie changed completely for me.

The ones who have read my previous posts, know that I was in a long-term unrequited relationship. We are so attached to each other, that we still continue to talk, at times. I wasn’t only in a one-sided relationship but was friendzoned too. And the movie ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ flashes in front of my eyes. :/ I don’t know if Karan Johar went through the same kind of relationship or just wrote down the script, being inspired by kuch kuch hota hai. Well, I am not supposed to talk about other movies here. Let’s keep the focus on Dil to pagal hai, okay?

On Friday, I met Sameer (the guy I was in a long-term relationship with) and found out some bizarre things he had done in the past few months, while we were not in touch at all. Since he considers me his best friend, he had the balls to tell me what he had done in the past few months, ignoring the fact that I’m still in love with him. The story he told me, kind of disturbed me, and finally (I think) I decided to move on (or am I just fooling myself?). And the movie came to rescue. I’ll tell you how

The movie starts with a question “mohabbat kya hai, what is love?” to which Madhuri Dixit replies “ mohabbat zindagi hai, love… is life”.

Immediately the focus is thrown on SRK and he says “mohabbat? Kya hai? Kyu hai? Kaha hai?, love? What is love? Why is love? Where is love?

Focus on Madhuri Dixit “mera vishwaas hai ki bhagwaan ne saare dil ke rishte pehle se he jod diye hai, bas unka milna humpe chod diya hai. Usne hum sabko jodiyo me banaya hai, aur har ek ke liye koi ek jeevan saathi hai. (I believe that God has made all the pairs in heaven and has left it on us to meet our better half)

Focus on Shahrukh Khan, he laughs and says “Kya bakwaas hai, mein in sab baato ko nai manta.” (What rubbish, I don’t believe in all this.)

Focus on Madhuri Dixi-Nene again, and she says “Muje toh pura bharosa hai ki kahi na kahi koi na koi mere liye banaya gaya hai aur kabhi naa kabhi mein usase zarur milugi.” (I believe in this completely and I know that someone somewhere is made for me and I will meet him someday).

Shah Rukh Khan says “Accha, accha, muje koi batayega please ki muje kaise maloom padega ke mere liye kaun banaya gaya hai? Mera matlab kya woh mere naam ka board lekar ghoom rahi hogi? Ya fir usko dekhte he kucch badal garaj ne lagege, bijli kadakne lagegi, kya hoga? Me use kaise pehchanunga?” (Okay, okay, will someone tell me please how will I know who is made for me? I mean, will she be carrying a board of my name? Or, will there be lightning in the sky? How will I identify her?)

Focus again on Madhuri Dixit Nene, she says “Dusro ka toh mein nai janti, lekin mein pehchan lungi, woh mujhe batayega (pointing her finger upward, towards God). Woh ek ishaara dikhayega aur mera dil samaj jayega.” (I don’t know about others, but I will identify him, He [God] will give me a hint and my heart will understand)

Shah Rukh Khan laughs and says “Yeh sab kya hai?” (What is all this?)

Madhuri says “Yehi toh mohabbat hai” (This is love)

Shahrukh Khan chuckles and says “Mohabbat” and head slaps himself.

And then the song starts “Ek duje ke waste” and a line pops up that goes like  

Someone….

Somewhere…

Is made for you….  

Since I decided to move, these lines came as a motivation for me. Because I had already started feeling low and sad and depressed and everything a person feels while going through a heartbreak. I kept blaming myself for falling in love with someone who didn’t love me back. I kept telling myself who asked you to fall in love, weren’t you supposed to get into an arranged marriage circus and live a happily ever after? You were a nice girl when you were an anti-love (I think I just coined a term, I don’t think there’s a word like that in the English language) person. I became a hopeless romantic, ever since I got into a (one-sided) relationship.

While I was blaming myself, I also wished I could tell someone what I was going through. But being an introvert, I have only 2-3 friends and I had just broken up with my best friend, a few days back. My grief was so intense that I felt inarticulate about my emotions. The whole conversation, where Madhuri Dixit-Nene talks about her belief in her “sapno ka rajkumaar aayega”. It made me feel the same. She brought in the feeling of confidence in me, that maybe I was hoping and expecting love from a wrong person. There’s someone who’s made for me and will show up to me if I continue to look for him. (There, you see, how hopelessly romantic I still am?)

However, I was already feeling sad and the first time I saw this movie on Sunday, I had started watching it from the scene where Nisha (Karisma Kapoor), finds out that Rahul (Shahrukh Khan) has developed feelings for Pooja (Madhuri Dixit-Nene) in her absence. She feels hurt and goes and sits at a wonderful place throwing stones into the lake when Rahul appears and she says she’s a bad girl. She should be happy for the only best friend she has, but she’s feeling angry and jealous of him. That made me drown into the sea of sadness even more. I felt like this whole ‘kaynaat’ shit, that Shahrukh Khan speaks about in his movie Om Shanti Om was true.

At close to climax, Nisha says she doesn’t like the end of Rahul’s play and he must change it. That’s when he says something like “humne logo ko galat sapne dekhne ke adat dal di hai”. Which is true in my case, like I’m a dreamer. I daydream a lot. But the problem with me is, I’ve caged my thinking a lot and linked my life to every Bollywood movie I’ve watched till date. So, instead of dreaming about the guy of my dreams, I dreamt, believed and hoped that the guy I was dating was the guy of my dreams. Call it an impact of Bollywood movies on me or just call me foolish. But that’s what I would think. When he delivered the dialogue, it hit me hard and made me come out of my dream world.

Then, in the end Nisha tells Pooja, yeh galti matt karo Pooja, kisi ko pyaar karna aur ussi se pyaar paana bohot kum logo ko naseeb hota hai. That made me think again. I was being too clingy about this whole idea of being in love, being in love with him, especially. Because… first love. I knew I had to let him go, but I couldn’t ever. It was not only hope that kept me going, I don’t know what it was, but I just didn’t want to let go of him.

Life is funny. It puts you in a situation wherein you’re unable to understand how to come out from it. Many people did tell me to come out of it as soon as I can. But, I was blinded by this whole episode that I could bear all the pain that came my way, yet not let go of him. I was so borne to pain, that after few years of it, I stopped feeling it. All I wanted was him. The ones reading this would think I was being stubborn and may say I wasn’t in love. Could be. He said that to me a lot of times. He told me, I don’t know the meaning of true love. But wanting him in my life, was love for me. I cared too much.

There’s a happy ending in the movie. But that’s not always the same with life. Many of us, in fact, half the population on earth may have been victims of unrequited love in their life. But I would like to believe that it’s not the end of life if someone doesn’t love us back the way we loved them. I would like to believe that Sameer came in my life just to teach me the meaning of love and to make me realize the potentials I had of loving someone, no matter what happens. How much soever hard I try, I may never be able to hate him, because, through him, I felt this feeling of love and became a hopelessly romantic person, who once did not believe in love at all. I am grateful to him for that.

The movie starts and ends with the same lines that –

Someone …

Somewhere …

Is made for you.

I would still want to be in my dream world and would like to continue hoping that yes, there’s someone made for me too. I wasn’t just looking for him enough, because I thought I had found him. I’m going to continue with my search until I find him. The day I find him, I might kill him for showing up so damn late in my life. I hope, I get the signs that Madhuri has made me believe in. Until then I’m just going to be dreaming about him. :D

Too lengthy article. I dislike writing such long articles. I don’t read something if it’s too long. But I hope everyone reads it through. Whoever reads through the article, may God bless you. To the ones leaving, may God bless you too and grant you patience. Pray that I find my someone soon enough ;) J