Reader TTS

In an era where I see people fall in and out of love within weeks, watch Bollywood movies which pretend to understand ‘modern relationships’ and read several posts a day where people

dispense relationship wisdom –  I had all but given up on pop culture to resonate with me. And to my surprise I found a movie from three decades ago, which understood people as much as it

understood their inter-personal relationships. The movie didn’t make blanket statements, and was open to ideas. That’s how I got sucked into watching _Ijaazat, _even if it didn’t have the

reputation of being a ‘classic’. The only reason I had heard about Gulzar’s _Ijaazat_ was because of its brilliant song _Mera kuch saaman, tumhare paas pada hai._ Composed by R.D. Burman and

sung by Asha Bhosle, I had forever heard an urban legend around the song. It is said that when Gulzar gave the lyrics to R.D. Burman to come up with a melody, Burman sarcastically replied

saying, Gulzar might as well give him newspaper headlines for lyrics. Without a rhyming scheme or a staccato, Burman still managed to make one of the most iconic songs from 1980s Bollywood.

And that was my starting point as I sat down to watch the movie, after many people recommended it to me. The movie, based on a Bengali story, _Jatugriha _by Subodh Ghosh, follows the story

of two exes who meet in the waiting room of an isolated railway station, late at night. At once surprised and embarrassed at finding themselves in this awkward meeting, the familiar

strangers loaf around in their chairs for a painfully short while before making conversation. It’s been a while since they separated, and there are a million unanswered questions. And just

like that, two cups of tea arrive at their table as they start gathering the scattered pieces of their relationship to find closure. The film made its way through sensitive matters with

Gulzar’s deft touch, and was in many ways ahead of its time. Topics like marriage, extra-marital affairs are talked about with an open mind. The resolution of the movie is not to paint any

particular character as a villain, it devours the reasons behind someone’s actions.  It devours life’s circumstances which become painfully conflicting for this bunch who have no ill

feelings towards each other, and yet cannot peacefully co-exist. The railway track near their waiting room becomes a metaphor for the two people who don’t mind walking alongside each other,

without ever meeting in the end. The ‘other woman’ in the marriage is played by the annoyingly optimistic Anuradha Patel. Leading a life on light feet, she is appropriately called Maya

(illusion in Hindi) as she disappears without a warning, and pops up in the most unlikeliest of places. Maya is a child-like bohemian woman almost too naive to be taken seriously.  Therefore

asking us – would we brand her as the ‘other woman’? Would we hold her responsible for breaking a marriage? Also, what would we do if we were in the place of Rekha’s character? Would you

make peace with sharing your husband with the love of his life? These are only few of the many questions the director leaves us with. ADVERTISEMENT My favourite character in the movie is

most definitely Naseeruddin Shah. Torn between feeling responsible for his unpredictable lover of the past, and remaining faithful to his quiet, understanding wife, Mahender’s character

leaves you with mixed emotions. He’s someone who puts it all out on the table before marrying Rekha’s character, he’s someone who admits to his wife how he is trying to fall out of love with

another woman and he’s also someone who in a moment of weakness – screams at Maya after finding out his wife has left him. In short he’s a real, flawed man, not a ‘hero’. One of the movie’s

binding factors is R.D Burman’s melancholic music. The famous _‘Mera kuch saaman’_ is basically a conversation between ex-lovers, where the woman is asking the man to return everything.

Both tangible and the intangible. On the other side, the wife sings _‘Khaali haath shaam aayi hai, khaali haath jaayegi’_ bemoaning her lonely marriage. Gulzar’s stellar poetry is only

out-done with Burman’s magic at weaving melody around them. Bollywood has time and again, tried its hand at depicting complex relationships in its movies. Yash Chopra made the effervescent

_Lamhe_, more recently Karan Johar made _Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna_, however, in my opinion neither of them did it with the success which Gulzar did in _Ijaazat_. Mirroring pure relationships

marred by life’s curveballs, the movie was truly pragmatic for its time and is still so relevant today. Maybe nostalgia is a good thing sometimes, it reminds us of the endless possibilities

which are the world of movies.