Few in India can argue that there is a better Bollywood actor than Shahrukh Khan who can bring romance to life on the silver screen in a way that almost every person in the audience feels as if he/she is a part of the act. I grew up watching Shahrukh Khan movies – Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Kal Ho Na Ho, Veer Zaara, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Jab Tak Hai Jaan – being a few of my favorites. The way SRK’s character loved a woman with all a human being could and the amazing impracticalities of his love become the truth of my idea of romance during my formative years. SRK’s romance, as most of my female friends opine, is cheesy, over-the-top, unrealistic/fairytale-ish and loud – everything a typical audience who comes to watch cinema needs! After all, if we wanted to see what romance is like in real-life, we could just look around, why come to the theatre? The larger Indian audience comes to the cinema to escape the reality and mundane of their everyday lives to get lost in a story where he/she is the hero/heroine of the plot and he wants to love the heroine like he cannot in real-life and she wants to be loved by the hero like she cannot be in real-life! However, this wisdom of cinema-life interaction was not available to me while I was growing up and forming my opinions on love, romance and life and hence, SRK’s romance was (and is) my reality. I believed (and believe) that nothing in love is impossible – you could leave everything in the world and go to Pakistan just to get the girl you love (Veer Zaara); so what if the girl is getting married and she has an uptight father, you could still go to India to her house and charm the shit out of everyone to win her (DDLJ)! SRK’s idea of love was a confluence of seeming impracticality, exaggeration and immeasurable mush – everything superlative to charm an audience whose everyday romantic life was bound by social, religious and economic realities of the Indian context.
Just about when Jab Tak Hai Jaan had released (2012) – the last decent SRK romance, I had started reading a bit of Faiz. As I read – Aaye Kuch Abr, Mujhse Pehli Si Mohabbat, Nahi Nigah Mein Manzil, Gulon mein Rang Bhare, Dil Ki Khair and countless other nazms and ghazals of Faiz, I found him to be a very measured and a disciplined romantic – a lot unlike SRK. While Faiz’s romance is bold too, direct as well at most times; it is seldom over-the-top, it is seldom a declaration of his love to world, it is seldom about making a statement to the society. Faiz’s love is very internal, independent of success or failure (getting or not getting the girl in the end), independent of the world-view and the societal norms – he is just happy loving the girl within himself, he doesn’t mind if he doesn’t get the girl, he doesn’t want to make an unrealistic effort to get the girl – he is just happy writing poems about loving her, he doesn’t want the world to applaud his love and romance – rather he just wants the world to read about what love meant/means to him post-facto. A Faiz would never open his arms wide in the middle of the desert to have her lady love in his arms and hence Faiz writes a “Baam-e-Mina se Mehtaab utre, Dasht-e-Saaqi se Aftaab aaye” instead of a “Suraj hua maddham”…
Between these two approaches to love and the expression of it and knowing that my version of love was more SRK-ish, I always wanted to be Faiz-ish someday! Also, in the last 4-5 years that I got to know Faiz a lot more, I always fancied as to what would transpire on screen if SRK was ever to read Faiz… It was not until some 3-4 days ago that I discovered that universe has already granted me this wish. SRK appeared in a cameo in the 2017 Karan Johar shit-show called Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. In that 3.5 minute of intense cameo where he exchanges some scathingly cold dialogues with Ranbir Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai, he ends his part in the scene and the movie by quoting a sher from a very popular ghazal by Faiz. Here’s the scene for you to watch it before I introduce you to the context of Faiz’s ghazal in this:
For the ones uninitiated on the shit-show of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Ranbir Kapoor is a friendzoned loser who wants to score a hot chick just to make the girl regret who friendzoned him. In his utterly pious endeavor, he manages to score Aishwarya Rai (Saba). Saba is divorced from Tahir (played by SRK). Years later after the divorce, Tahir invites Saba to his art exhibition and Saba gets along Ranbir as his +1 to this event. At the introduction encounter of the three, the above exchange follows where Tahir is lamenting about his unrequited love and how he is still madly in one-sided love with Saba. And he doesn’t care that the love is unrequited and it may never reach its conclusion, he is just happy that he is in love – just the typical Faiz I narrated above. And it is at this juncture, he quotes Faiz –
“gar baazī ishq kī baazī hai jo chāho lagā do dar kaisā gar jeet gaye to kyā kahnā haare bhī to baazī maat nahīñ” If love is at stake, then go all out in the bet without any fear; If you win then nothing like it; and even if you don't you will not be a loser.
I could write a separate blog post on this entire scene, however, for this post, I will continue with sharing with you all the ghazal of which this sher is a part. Here we go:
“kab yaad meñ terā saath nahīñ kab haat meñ terā haat nahīñ sad-shukr ki apnī rātoñ meñ ab hijr kī koī raat nahīñ” There is not a memory of mine of which you are not a part of, there is not a moment when your hands are not in mine; Thank God that no night in our nights is now a night of separation!
“mushkil haiñ agar hālāt vahāñ dil bech aa.eñ jaañ de aa.eñ dil vaalo kūcha-e-jānāñ meñ kyā aise bhī hālāt nahīñ ” If the circumstances are difficult, I am ready to sell my heart, I am ready to give my life too; But Oh The People With Hearts! Are the circumstances in the lane of my beloved so worse that this too will not be enough?
“jis dhaj se koī maqtal meñ gayā vo shaan salāmat rahtī hai ye jaan to aanī jaanī hai is jaañ kī to koī baat nahīñ ” If one goes with the right attitude to fight a battle, his glory remains intact; This life is transient, then why are you so worried about losing it?
“maidān-e-vafā darbār nahīñ yaañ nām-o-nasab kī pūchh kahāñ āshiq to kisī kā naam nahīñ kuchh ishq kisī kī zaat nahīñ ” The arena of love is no royal court of some king that takes into account your name and status; People are not born lovers (lovers are not by birth) and love doesn’t have a caste/family-name.
“gar baazī ishq kī baazī hai jo chāho lagā do Dar kaisā gar jiit ga.e to kyā kahnā haare bhī to baazī maat nahīñ ” If love is at stake, then go all out in the bet without any fear; If you win then nothing like it; and even if you lose you will not be a loser
This ghazal is a part of Faiz’s collection of poems “Nuskha Hai Wafa” (Love is a Recipe/Cure). The poem is unique inside Faiz’s collection because this is one of those very few poems where Faiz is more blunt than usual in his expression of love. Shers like – “mushkil haiñ agar hālāt vahāñ dil bech aa.eñ jaañ de aa.eñ”, “gar baazī ishq kī baazī hai jo chāho lagā do Dar kaisā” – which are verbal equivalents of a Shahrukh Khan opening his arms wide open – are very unusual expressions in Faiz’s repertoire. On the other hand, Shahrukh Khan quoting a shayri addressing a woman is a pretty toned-down manner of his expression too. Perhaps, this scene is where both – SRK and Faiz – travelled some distance to create 3.5 minutes of a powerful experience in the realm of unrequited love.
