Tamasha — Scripting your own life story
Onstage, a robot, dressed in a silver metallic suit, asks the clown, in his impassive voice, “Main kaun hoon,” to which the clown replies, “Tu wahi hai, jo roz office jaata hai, boss ki daant khata hai aur kisi ko nahi batata hai.” And this opening scene is the movie’s narrative, an apt summary of lives back home for most of us, if not all.
Tamasha is a commentary that poses questions to the seemingly comfortable life journeys that many of us have back in India or even outside while growing up as part of the South Asian diaspora. Life journeys shaped by the ‘survival of the best’ mindset in our ever exploding Indian population, journeys that urge us to follow the acceptable rather than find our joys, and at worst, journeys that prioritize social standing over personal happiness and well-being. There is also the Tara-Ved love story, but that isn’t where Imtiaz Ali is focusing. The love story is just the background, an important catalyst that triggers Ved’s self-realization journey when she breaks up with him with cruel honesty.
“Fir toh min kisi aur ke saath hoon Ved, main kuch aur hi dhoond rahi hoon Ved, yeh toh hai mere paas”
The movie’s focus is the struggle that ensues here on, the resurfacing of the multiple skirmishes that Ved has felt through his life. One that he has felt during the seemingly trivial moments of studying Maths when he would instead be enthralled by confusingly amalgamated stories of Heer Ranjha, Troy, and something else. He didn’t quite understand the conundrum when he was pushed into engineering by his father, even though he knew his son’s love for storytelling. And yet, every time Ved is unable to cope with engineering and fails, the only comfort his father offers is to tell him to “keep going,” and so he does.
‘Keep going’ is a phrase we often hear from our well-meaning parents to normalize the pain we feel in making difficult, often forced life choices.
Till eventually, we have normalized the pain to the extent of living seemingly everyday yet dissatisfied lives. Ved was no different, except when Tara breaks up with him. Compelled to face emotions that he has never allowed himself to feel before, he cannot cope and vacillates between being a well-behaved product manager to a crazy estranged boyfriend, who threateningly lashes out at his girlfriend.
Failing to contain these emotions, Ved remains elusive to Tara, trying to reach out to him. Perhaps he felt fear because, as Imitiaz Ali said, “don’t we all fear people who might see through us.” But finally, they meet; and that scene is a work of beauty. It sensitively captures the conflict in Ved’s head while he struggles to keep his composure. You see the two starkly different aspects of his personality, coexisting together and his abject failure at trying to contain them both, switching between an unstable boyfriend and a stranger exchanging irrelevant pleasantries “hello ji, kya haal chaal, sab theek?’
“The dichotomy of these emotions resonates with so many of us, where childhood aspirations and passions don’t make it into careers, having been systemically weeded out by our system that rewards you only for picking conventional life choices. Anything deviant often results in being penalized in the form of parental disapproval, social embarrassment, and at times, potentially pushing away a potential life partner. We grow through our lives, internalizing it, enduring the pain that comes with it, and, unfortunately, valorizing that endurance.”
We continue to endure and engage in a race to reach a goal, defined by others, a goal that we don’t fully comprehend, and yet, we run while being mediocre at best in that race. In an attempt to apprehend this realization, Ved turns to his storyteller (Piyush Mishra); to know what this path holds for him, only to be reprimanded and accused of cowardice by him “apni kahani ka ant mujhse puchne aaya hai kaayar.”
Ved realizes the fallacy of his choices and finds the courage to own his life narrative. Unsure yet exhilarant, he decides to follow his heart and not feel pain in silence; because there is no reward in silent suffering. And as Rumi said, ‘As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.’ The happy clown of his story goes back to each stage in his life, ecstatic with joy at the alternate life that could have been and still can be.
The ‘tamasha’ closes with the opening scene, except this time Ved is the stage actor and director; he is the storyteller! He looks at Tara, who refused to allow him the pride of suffering and stoicism and let him find his happiness. She is equal parts important in his story, because what would we do without that one person in our lives, ‘who loves us and refuses to give up on us.’
