Everyone deserves a Dr. Jahangir

-Ankita Baruah |

(A Hello to Life from the lap of the film ‘ Dear Zindagi’)

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“Don’t let your past blackmail your present to ruin a beautiful future.” , With these lines the film ‘Dear Zindagi’  touches every soul leaving us spellbound with its simple way of portraying the complexities of human emotions. It narrates a love letter meant to be written addressing life, but was procrastinated and somehow it found a way out.The film is like a surge of ocean that comes instantaneously,  washing off  the insecurities of one’s mind and then slowly restoring to its destined pace. It is much like that favourite easy- chair you sink at the end of a particularly frazzled day, which melts away your fatigue in its warm solace. It is the blissfully cool relief of the first monsoon showers after the sweltering summer. One cannot say  that the film hasn’t been able to touch one string or the other of the heart, because that’s an obvious prophecy.

The film unfolds starring Kiara as a young, beautiful, smart , ambitious cinematographer with a messed up personal life. She had a complex within herself that kept her running away from her insecurities and fear creating a turmoil of emotions within her head and thundering across her heart. She was a juxtaposed image of two contradictions, a fire externally while a silent, calm, scared river internally. Her personal issues took a toll over her health and soon she started feeling that nothing around her was good enough to live for . It was then that destiny played it’s card and made her cross her ways with Dr Jahangir Khan, a psychologist. Her encounter with Jugs ( Dr. Jahangir) changed her way of seeing life and exploring it’s broader dimensions, it freed her from the cage of broken emotions, it moulded her from a lump of shattered clay to an exquisite chiseled masterpiece, it intensified her beauty as she started learning to live her life , instead of just existing.His sessions gave her the best memories of life and it was when she attended her last session, that she finally allowed her emotions to break free from the hard shell ; a clear indication that slowly and stealthily she was learning to express herself.

Turning from the film, if we look into the real world we can find that there’s a Kiara within each one of us, that Kiara maybe our insecurities, or maybe our fear, or maybe anything that forbids us from being the real us , anything that veils up with  a mask that doesn’t actually belong to us. It takes time to accept that we have a Kiara hidden within us, or presumably we deny to accept but doing so just drifts us away from the brighter side of life and we start sinking in a puddle of negative , pessimistic outlook . The biggest challenge is to accept that something is really not working fine with us , that depression isn’t a feeing of sadness but it’s a feeling of numbness , voidness. Everyone has difficulties , that’s obvious. Life wouldn’t have been so interesting hadn’t there been some shortcomings , some twists and some turns. But at times, we are so rooted to these obstacles that we fail to see and appreciate the brighter side of life. We don’t walk up to unstring the tangled knots , instead we love to stick to the pain, built a fury within us and blame things for not going the way we expected it to happen and thus we end up with lots of complaints and pontificating. There comes a point in life where we find ourselves to be lost or maybe, we aren’t ready to look into us and see what we really are. We grew up wearing so many masks that at times we forget who we are as an individual. Playing the role of a mother, a daughter, a teacher, a guide, a brother, a father …..and what not, we fail to appreciate the fact we are like the thread in a crystal-bead necklace and all these roles that we play in course of our life are those beads. We are the ones holding the beads all together. Our individuality, our principles, our own ideologies reflects the strength of the necklace ; how fair we are with our roles.

At times, we fail to listen to our inner voice . It is then when we need to find the Dr . Jahangir of our life. Dr. Jahangir isn’t a fictious character , it is a reality that is necessary in everyone’s life. In the film,we find the doctor as a calm , composed , measured man with a great sense of humour and eyes filled with thousands of stories. He was the one who turned over a new leaf in Kiara’s faded life, it seemed like Kiara’s emotions found a home within Dr. Jahangir’s custody. He turned the rusted wheel of time into a free flowing rhyme and taught Kiara to live while living .

The film closes with Kiara hosting the premier show of her short feature film , which ended with winning hearts and applauses from the audience. The ending screen showed ” Thank you Dr Jahangir Khan.” That made it all again. Ths words waved a magic and hit upon the realisation that at times some people come to our life for a reason, to introduce us with our inner voice and then they leave ; but that doesn’t efface them from our mind. They stay within us just like the sky lives in the sea , their bond surpasses beyond time and distance . We move forward, carrying the imprints left by the person . The flame doesn’t run out of fuel, we grow , we learn to nurture ourselves beautifully, we learn to add purpose to our lives, most importantly, we remain indebted to them forever beyond the discourses of time.

Likewise, in our journey of life, there is a Dr. Jahangir for everyone . Maybe he is your teacher, your sister, your brother, your best friend, your mother, your father, your soulmate  or a random stranger ; Dr Jahangir may hit upon you in any form . It is important to recognize the one and pour out your insecurities in front of them , often we fail to recognize but once done , trust me , you are a lucky one.  And if not, why don’t you be the Dr. Jahangir of someone’s life ?  It is easy to be Kiara, but it takes insurmountable patience and courage to be Dr. Jahangir because he knows to tame his emotions, because he knows to put his miseries aside just to add a pinch of happiness in someone’s life,  because he  is like a soothing song that calms every deceased soul and adds a potion of hope and optimism in his surrounding.

So, everyone out there, listen to the rhythm of life . Listen to the voice of yours, live with a reason , live because you have a purpose, smile because there maybe a Kiara out there somewhere in some corner of this vast cosmos waiting for you to step into her life and teach her to be a Dr. Jahangir in someone else life.

Dr. Jahangir is a role out of the reel world, that perfectly fits into the real world. He is like those mysteries, mind boggling yet enthralling. Thus, everyone deserves a Dr. Jahangir.