Subhash K Jha revisits Mohit Suri’s Hamari Adhuri Kahani, which released in 2015 and starred Emraan Hashmi, Rajkummar Rao and Vidya Balan in this edition of his series This Day That Year.
Mohit Suri’s film about love during times of no red or green flags was mauled, lynched, and savaged. Looking back at the film, I feel compelled to wonder why it has been so violently rejected by critics. Could it be because the film raises some uncomfortable questions and issues related to an India that we’ve blanked out of the shining new India that we want the world to see?
This other not-so-shining India subsumes a societal structure based on and run by rules of gender inequality, where girls grow up accepting themselves as the second sex. This is not to say that this line of thought in the patriarchal set-up is in any way morally desirable. But that’s not the point, is it?
Why must we thrust our own city-bred morality on any work of art that attempts to go into a world inhabited by people we haven’t met or wouldn’t like to meet? Very often, urban readings of films misinterpret the film’s characters’ morality for the film.
Hence, Vasundhara, the very beautiful heroine of Suri’s film played by enormously evocative Vidya Balan… believes her husband Hari (Rajkummar Rao, breathing life into a thankless utterly unlikeable role) is fastened to her life for many lifetimes. He is a hard habit to shake off. She clings to her mangalsutra like a prisoner to its chain. Like Tarzan to his Jane.
So when love knocks on her door , love so giving and uncompromising that it temporarily blinds her to her wifely vows, she soars into the azure skies like a bird that has just learnt to fly.
Vidya Balan’s eyes and voice convey the ecstasy of newly-found love with such persuasive passion you want to believe in the true love that Mahesh Bhatt’s passionate screenplay espouses. This is a film about unconditional love. Emraan Hashmi’s hotelier tycoon discovers the joy of selfless love, as Ashok Kumar had done in Asit Sen’s Mamta and Rajesh Khanna in Amar Prem, that there is a sublime happiness to unconditional love, to surrendering rather than demanding in love.
Luckily for Vasundhara—and for Bhatt’s beautifully tuned script—Mohit Suri captures the quick heartbeats of love suddenly gained . The narrative moves in a spiral structure, creating reams after reams of romance in the mass of misery that Vasundhara has built for herself by remaining stubbornly married to a wastrel .
But is she to blame for remaining loyal to a man who has married and impregnated her and then left her to fend for herself? The film shows the heroine’s character moving from her father tyranny to her husband’s domination with only her misery for company.
Regressive? Or, I repeat, a mirror image of a reality beyond the one that we see gazing down us from hoarding for cosmetic brands?
Could it be that critics are offended because Hamari Adhuri Kahani dares to lift the lid from a reality that we’ve swept out of sight, hoping it would vanish, but it hasn’t? The reality of a gender discrimination that sanctions the brutal oppression of the Vasundharas in a society where the male child is tutored to feel superior over the female.
What exactly is so offensive about Mohit Suri’s film? Is it the languid pace which employs generous doses of music and poetry borrowed from Archies cards to gracefully move forward Vasundhara’s romance with the Prince Charming?
Curiously, there is a touch of impossible love, Cinderella and Devdas, in the way Vasundhara’s relationship with Aarav builds and unfolds . The frames are filled with impossibly beautiful flowers and saturated with an aching and a longing that we know, from past experience, would never come to fruition.
Because at the end of true love, there is always tragedy. And we don’t need a patriarchal system of gender discrimination to tell us that.
Mahesh Bhatt, who produced Hamari Adhuri Kahani, spoke to Subhash K Jha about the film. “When a movie leaves an aftertaste in the hearts of people a decade later, it means it possesses enduring human qualities that continue to resonate despite the passage of time. Hamari Adhuri Kahani, in my view, is Mohit Suri’s most unique film. Suri boldly made this film after the phenomenal success of Aashiqui 2. I had cautioned him, pointing out that Indian audiences, being a young demographic, tend to favour vibrant, youthful love stories. Stories about married people or those outside this youthful bracket often don’t set the box office ablaze. Mohit insisted on creating a more emotionally rich film. So, I wrote Hamari Adhuri Kahani with my co-writer Shagufta Rafiq. The movie had a mixed response; it didn’t perform well in urban India but resonated deeply with “Bharat”—a term representing the more traditional and rural segments of the country, as well as the Indian diaspora abroad. This diaspora often holds onto traditional values more strongly than urban Indians. The younger audience didn’t appreciate Vidya Balan’s character’s sacrifice for her unworthy husband, played by Rajkumar Rao. Nonetheless, Vidya delivered an outstanding performance, and Rajkumar Rao was commendable in his role. Emraan Hashmi was exceptional. But do you know the real heartbeat of Hamari Adhuri Kahani? The heartbeat of the film was its music. Jeet Ganguly’s title track, ‘Hamari Adhuri Kahani’, became iconic, and lyricist Rashmi Virag did an outstanding job.”
The producer added, “I’m very proud of this film. It forged a great relationship between me and Vidya Balan, whom I respect immensely. Emraan Hashmi dazzled in his performance, and I give a standing ovation to Mohit Suri and the musical team for their contributions.”
