The Liberalism in Imtiaz Ali’s Cinema

“Pata Hai! Yaha se bohot door, Galat aur Sahi ke paar, ek Maidaan hai, Main waha milunga tujhe…..”

With these philosophical lines, Imtiaz Ali begins his fourth film Rockstar where a nerd from a middle class Punjabi family wants to be a Rockstar. These lines clearly depict Imtiaz Ali’s frustration from the social norms which snatch away the freedom of an individual to live and love.”Toote hue dil se hi sangeet nikalta hai” is what the manager of his college canteen tells him. The innocence with which he approaches a girl whom the guys consider hot, is worth loving. He approaches her not to love her but to let her break his heart so that he can become a Rockstar and considering his passion for Rock, he proposes her like this, “Girlfriend ban ja meri, hum dono Rock kardenge”. But the film is not about having passion for music, or about a musician’s life. The film is all about how we are stuck in society’s norms and never let ourselves go free, doing actually what we want. The film also depicts the hypocrisy or the double standard of our society where in one scene the yet-to-be rockstar with all good intention is entertaining the public who is waiting for their buses in the bus stop with his Guitar and suddenly the police comes and starts beating him for doing that to which his friends say “criminals toh freely ghoomte rehte hain, ye bechara kya bura kar raha tha” where in another scene he is telling that manager that Jim Morrison had once raised his middle finger out in the public and people went mad for that gesture which tells how this whole society is a flattery.

There’s a unique trait in the female protagonists of Imtiaz Ali’s films. They are mostly the characters which are highly confused and get intermingled between the social norms and their individual desires. Geet (Jab We Met) and Veera (Highway) both faced confusing situations but the one faced by Geet happens with almost all of us whereas Veera’s case was quite rare and more intense. But it was Meera (Love Aaj Kal) who had this biggest confusion related to love where she wakes up in the morning on the very next day of her marriage and realizes that she actually still loves her ex-boyfriend and if she remains here, she’ll spoil her and her husband’s lives. Now, her husband has also been shown very understanding and uniquely different from the ones who wouldn’t have had allowed their wife to leave them for their ex-boyfriend on the very next day of their marriage considering what society would comment on such an act. Imtiaz has always given love the most importance. His films say that there’s nothing in this whole world as important as love and that’s why when Heer (Rockstar) is diagnosed with a disease that could cause her death, all the name, fame, money, that Jordan was having and used to crave for, suddenly started feeling less important to him. He gets ready to leave everything for the love of his life. Also, love has no rules. It can happen anytime with anybody and sometimes with the right person but at the wrong time which led Viren (Socha Na Tha) and Aditi (Socha Na Tha) run off at last after rejecting each other officially and kept on meeting secretly and falling in love with each other quite late unfortunately which resulted in multiple problems in both the families. Socha Na Tha also raised a finger on arranged marriages that has been a trend in Indian society. The film actually showed us that visiting a stranger’s house, meeting with that stranger, and his/her parents is not enough for one’s decision of choosing his/her life partner. For that, we need love to happen which did happen with Viren and Aditi but only after meeting several times and understanding each other well like friends.

Often males are considered more rebellious, more passionate, more aggressive, more daring in taking real life decisions but in the world of Imtiaz, these qualities are found in females whereas males are generally cool, calm, caring, and preventive. Viren was madly in love with Aditi, still in the end it was Aditi who ran from her engagement and convinced him for marriage. Aditya (Jab We Met) has also been shown playing safe in every situation, always trying to convince Geet not to run from home, always teaching her serious lessons about life, “sirf hasna gaana khelna ye nahi hoti hai life.Life mein serious bhi hona padta hai! “, to which Geet replies, “tum toh bohot serious they na life mein. Kya hua!” Geet is a strong representative of freedom of will. She doesn’t care about the rules of society. According to her, we cannot plan our life because we don’t even know what’s going to happen on the very next second, so she does only what her heart says. Jai (Love Aaj Kal) is also a pragmatic who breaks up with Meera just because he has his life’s own goals but he is shown being jealous whenever Meera refers to her boyfriend. Jai is also shown to be in love with materialistic life but Imtiaz has beautifully crafted that song Main Kya Hoon where his seems-to-be interesting materialistic life is later found to be dull and boring by him which again leads to a conclusion that nothing is as important as love. Mahabir Bhati (Highway) from a poor background also has been shown as a transitional character in Highway where he kidnaps Veera in the beginning but later develops an emotional bond with her.

Being a rebellion doesn’t always mean that you hate everything about society and Imitiaz’s love for folklore is a proof of that. Whether it is Nagada Nagada or Thoda Thoda Pyaar, or Hawaa Hawaa or the latest Patakha Guddi he has a deep rooted attachment to his culture where he mostly tries to promote the beauty that India has, through songs as well as through scenes. The best example for that is Highway where the second half is all about the ice-caped mountains and saintly rivers. His angst for the hypocritical society has increased over the years. He was limited to marriage in Socha Na Tha and Jab We Met, exceeds his limit in Rockstar and raised a heinous issue of child abuse in Highway.

There’s only one person who has been constant in all these films i.e Irshad Kamil. The lyricism in his films is also an integral part of his rebel as well as in describing his films’ themes. The stanza of O eco-friendly nature ke rakshak, main bhi hoon nature in Saada Haq depicts Kamil’s synchronization with Imtiaz where he writes “kyun sach ka sabak sikhaaye, jab sach sun hi na paaye, sach koi bole, toh tu niyam kaanoon bataaye.” Irshad Kamil shows his great mastery in lyricism when he describes the whole concept of the film Love Aaj Kal in just one line “Ankh lad jaana, marmukh jaana, ikko ye kahaani, bas badle zamaana.” 

Love stories have always been the crux in our cinema. But it is Imtiaz Ali who provided a deep conceptualized understanding of love through his films, maintaining the cultural essence of the country alive along with the rebel that he has for the disgusting social norms. Geet’s description of herself “Main apni favorite hoon”, describes the importance of individualism that Imtiaz Ali presents.

A philosopher called Giordano Bruno in 1593, had once raised his voice for the truth that Universe is infinite and that the stars are just distant suns surrounded by their own exoplanets. He was murdered by the then society of Romans. Re-think if you are a follower of this society who has always been cruel and brutal for those who dared to say the truth. What is right and what is wrong for a person should only be the right of that person to decide and not the society because:

“Pata Hai! Yaha se bohot door, Galat aur Sahi ke paar, ek Maidaan hai”