JAB TAK HAI JAAN .........SWAN SONG OF YASH CHOPRA

Normally Yash chopra movies are a bit complicated love triangle stories or love stories between odd couple and/or under odd situations , but I found his last movie (as it turned out to be) Jab Tak Hai jaan extremely complicated and there is hardly any strong reason for all the central characters behaving the way they were. 

 

There was no strong reason for a rich girl willingly settling down in life with the choice of her father to getting interested in not-so-young  Sharukh Khan singing Punjabi songs on London streets and requesting him to  teach her a Punjabi song (had she cared  to go to Southhall she would have got better choice of Punjabi gurus) and falling in love with Sharukh Khan immediately after his taking her to a sort of night club-cum disco-joint and dancing with her (where too she did far better job than the aging superstar).    Strange that going to night club/disco-joint is liberation to a London born and bred girl and going in line with Sharakh’s anticipation doesn’t resist or slap him when he dared to kiss her (quite possible because Sharukh has dared to do so after spending 20 long years in film industry resisting it even with gorgeous heroins like Priyanka and Aishwarya Rai  (and I must say that he was so ill-at-ease and definitely need a lesson or two from Emraan Hashmi or Aamir khan).      When she is caught in two minds she meets her mother and it is almost bizarre for her to pardon her mother who left her husband the child to run away with her new found love, and justifying to herself that the lover boy (the eternal Rishi kapoor) waited for her for 8 years (what a solid reason to desert husband and kid?).     Her style of belief in God and God’s way of punishing are kiddish and make a very weak reason for abandoning Sharukh and equally silly is not to get married with the Britisher with whom she gets engaged on the wishes of her father (there was no mention what happened to the poor father – might have died of heart-break with what his crazy daughter has done)

Come the third character the bindaas Anushka Sharma (who has attained a minus Zero figure so crafitily displayed while standing on the cliff before jumping into ice cold water), whose affairs, by her own admission, does not stay beyond 3 months and who openly admits to her looking for experimental inter-continental love affairs.   With this ultra-modern outlook falling for pita-hua ashiq like Sharak Khan and losing all her zing in life is quit out of sorts.       It sounds very funny when she repeatedly says the `true love’ in your times (which was just 10 years back ) as if she is talking to Bharat Bushan of Baiju Bawara fame or like Saif saying to Rishi Kapoor in Love Aaj Kal.   One can understand such a modern and trendy young chick like her doing masti with middle aged man (and other friends) till she gets her discovery channel assignment done, but falling in so called true love for such brooding Sharukh can only happen in the script of a Yash Chopra film.      If one doesn’t go in the technical goof up it is better – like Army allowing its major going and trying to defuse so many bombs without wearing the bomb-suits (absolutely against SOPs) and the London police who doesn’t allow Katrina going near to the accident victim (Sharukh) but letting the murmuring Sharukh to defuse the bomb (sure London cannot boast of naked bomb defusing expert?) 

But with all loopholes also the film holds interest for major part of the very long close to 3 hours love saga( would have been nice has it been trimmed by about 30 minutes)  primarily because all the 3 central Characters Sharukh, Katrina and Anushka have suited to their respective roles to the T and did great job.    May be for the first time Sharukh has not dominated the proceedings with other two ladies also hogging equal footage and doing their best acts in their career.    Apart from these three there is hardly anything worth mentioning about any other characters.   Good that Yash Chopra has taken leave out of Swizerland shooting and opted for stunning locales of Leh, Ladhak and Pehalgaon and the cinematographer captured the serene locales beautifully.    The biggest let down is the music by A R Rehman, songs are too pedestrians considering ARR’s colossal image and Yash chopra is famous for extracting fantastic music from un-known/less popular and unconventional film music directors, Like Shiv Hari (Pundit Shiv Sharma and Hari Prasad Chaurasia) in Chandni and Lamhe and Uttam Singh in Dil to Pagaal Hai (we hardly heard of him after that movie).    

Honestly the last work of Yash Chopra may not be his best (if one compares with his Kabhi Kabhi, Darr, DDLJ, or Mohabattein)  but his passing away just before the release of the movie, after leaving such a blazing trial of movies (specially romantic), will definitely help the cause of the movie.    Many people like me will see it as a mark of respect to the departed soul.     It was a good idea that along with end credits, the working shots of the movie, Yash Chopra directing people and showing his jovial side of him were incorporated with the movie ending by saying …..he lives on (no doubt he will).  

During my visit to Trivandrum, as I finished my work early in the morning and had to catch an evening flight and with cars/autos on strike and off the road, I best utilized the time to see the movie.     After almost three decades I saw a movie in a typical south Indian non-AC, non-carpet, non-doly sound system theater.   Thankfully the electric fans were very affective and we could not make out that it was a Non-ac Theater (the weather not being hot also helped).   First time I realized the reach of Hindi cinema all across India, with poster of Sharukh khan being hanged all around the theater by Fan Associations (unique to South India), one poster strangely claims Salman Khan your movie from 1988-2009 were FLOP FLOP FLOP, 2010 onwards Wanted, Dabang, Bodyguard, Ek Tha Tiger Hits, every Dog has its day, but the real Tiger comes now.    In Theater when Shrukh makes his first appearance, young boys climbed up on the stage and threw pieces of coloured papers on the screen and there was deafening whistles for 3 to 5 minutes, the same honours were bestowed on Katrina and  Anushka.     The best part is thunderous clapping and whitening was given for Yash Chopra when he was shown along with end credit.        The frenzy is definitely not matched to the near riotous frenzy which I used to see in a NTR, MGR, RajniKanth or Chiranjeevi movies in Andhra and Tamil nadu (flower, garlands, coins thrown on the stage, aartis given to the images on the silver screen and guards and police had to be summoned to pull the crazy fans back).  But such things happening in Kerala will make even Sharukh Khan happier.   For me it was like re-visiting movie-going experience of my childhood days.   

s. prabhakar

15.11.2012