The Unrepeatable Aashiqui

25 years after it was released, there may be many sequels but Aashiqui (1990) still stands for something unrepeatable, though it began as an attempt to cash on the Nadeem Shravan music bank with T-Series.

The film began as a narrative woven around the songs and could have gone horribly wrong. Starting with the hero who had an unconventional face and a bad voice that was dubbed ultimately. Pooja Bhatt was to play the orphan turned supermodel, Anu, but turned the film down. Thankfully, one may add, because Anu Agarwal turned out to be a stroke of genius as she played a long-limbed, plain Jane with haunted eyes. Resigned-to-hopelessness, she then morphs into a dusky swan and bursts  into life with just a dab of lipstick and Bhanu Athaiya’s remarkably understated yet stunning wardrobe.

She had a surprisingly good diction and voice too. Creamy. Substantial. And full of restraint even when she was suicidal and screamed, “Main thak gayin hoon!” Or when she took on a maliciously powerful executive trying to block her boyfriend’s recording deal. She was not hysterical or overly dramatic. She just held a lighter to her face, asked the man to let the recording deal go and added matter-of-factly, “Nahi to main iss chehre ko aag laga doongi.”

Yes, there should have been more Mahesh Bhatts in the industry then to see the potential of this girl and to see that she could be more than just a Khalnayika in the years to come. And Rahul Roy? Not quite handsome, not quite ugly but full of real yearning, anger you could touch and all the desperation and heated impulses of the young. He walked slowly, languidly through shadowy corridors and chased the girl he loved through the crowded streets of Mumbai with equal conviction and even pulled off a most unrealistic lost-and-found song.

He pulled it all off because somehow, he was touched for the span of this film by that incredible, hard-to-explain magic dust that makes everything work even in a less-than-perfect film.

And who will ever say that this was a perfect film? It referenced everything from Rebel Without A Cause to the theme music of The Thorn Birds to Bhatt’s preoccupation with a difficult father and son bond, but here is what worked. The fact that this was a time when Mahesh Bhatt was the counter-point to laboriously staged love stories. He was also a pop psychologist who sprinkled his films with gems like,

“Kyon..tum oopar se likhwa ke aaye ho ki sirf sukh paoge aur tumhare hisse ka dukh koi aur bhuktega? Aur kya tumhe lagta hai ki duniya mein sirf tumhi ko dukh hai?” (Do you think you are meant for only happiness and someone else will suffer your share of grief? And do you think you are the only one suffering in the world?) The fact that he gave such great lines to not a lead character but to someone like Avtar Gill’s minor cameo of a police inspector made the film even more unusual.

Gill in a way was one of the most profound life teachers you will see in a Hindi film. He advises a runaway orphan girl to not heedlessly court danger and a messed up young boy who has just ruined his father’s second wedding, to learn that, “Insaan nafrat ke sahare nahin jee sakta…ye duniya chalti hai to sirf pyar se…dil mein pyar jagao…pyar” (one can’t survive on hate..the world runs on love..fall in love). And it was not just what he said but the way he said it…with infinite empathy and tenderness that made you want to reach out and hug this kind, golden-hearted cop.

Then there was Reema Lagoo, who repeats Bhatt’s patented take on modern day love and relationships, “Koi bhi rishta, kitna bhi bada kyon na ho..usske khatm hone se zindagi khatm nahin ho jaati!” (No matter how great a relationship is…when it ends, life still goes on). And, “Rishta wohi kamyab hota hai jisme barabri ho.” (Only a relationship based on equality can survive).

The other cameos were great too. Starting with Deepak Tijori’s supporting best friend turn and the always willing to save the day Master, the tailor who was part of the family. Both with their unique set of mannerisms.

The film also made token nods to Bhatt’s take on repression that religion and authority impose. So there was  Tom Alter running the orphanage with unsparing bitterness, trying to break  Anu’s spirit and its need for validation, freedom and love. Drawing inspiration from perhaps his own love story with his first wife Kiran who was the inmate of a hostel too, Bhatt drew a hurried template to explore a love story between two damaged souls. The girl, tired of being controlled and oppressed. The boy, scarred by his father’s abandonment of his mother. Unlike most superficial love stories of that time, most notably, Maine Pyar Kiya, this was a slice of life. Sweet, salty, bitter, rancid and familiar. The heroine was not a coquette. The hero, not the spoilt rich son of a privileged family but living with a single mother in a house where the lights go out when the electricity bill is not paid.

The two were like you and me. Ordinary. Identifiable.

And the songs. The songs. It is hard to define what these songs felt like in the 90s. They just defined love for a generation of young people going through perhaps their own heartbreaks and conflicts. These were not songs where the hero and heroine changed costumes and danced among the tulips. Among the best picturised songs of that era was, Dheere Dheere Se (Sorry..Yo Yo Honey Singh just doesn’t cut it)

Atmospherically lit, the song follows the two lovers as they count moments before they will meet next.

She trying to pin a flower in her hair. He checking his face in the mirror till his incredulous mother catches him. Long shadows, guitar chords, lamp light and longing.

Just perfect. And of course, Nazar Ke Saamne where Anu, now free from the orphanage, is learning to walk on her own.

There are so many tender moments in this song. So many unsaid moments of utterly committed and single-minded love that you feel every time you watch it, the magic that was Aashiqui.

The film in the end stood out in a clutter of overwrought filmy romances because it was not about gun toting villains and disapproving parents but the demons two people have to vanquish within and around them before they can truly belong to each other.

Demons of fear, insecurity, ego, possessiveness, anger, mistrust.

The film was also about the struggle all young people face. The struggle to stay who they are and to keep their integrity in a world eager to discourage them, define them, change them. Yes, the fact that the super model wants to dump her contract and marry her boyfriend at the first given opportunity jars but still, after a long drawn, filmy sprint to the airport when Rahul and Anu meet finally to craft a happy ending, you like Avtar Gill grew misty-eyed too.

The film ultimately worked because Mahesh Bhatt extracted from his cast, performances they would never again surpass. Because he gave them lines that from the first frame grabbed you by the scruff and took you into the souls of his characters. And because, the music breathed life into the story that was just supposed to be hastily put together but in the end, managed to stand on its own.

The recent Aashiqui may be a hit but it can never revisit the places Bhatt took us to in the first one. Certain journeys can only be relived. Not repeated.