I saw Tamasha for the first time three years back. I was watching a movie after some 3-4 months. And it had been almost the same amount of time since I had quit my job, wanting to do something different. And when I saw Tamasha, all I could relate to was Ved. I was Ved. I could feel him trapped in the labyrinth of a stereotypical job, with the urge of letting it all go.
Last month, when Tamasha completed three years there were a lot of articles about Imtiyaz Ali and the character of Ved. The whole movie revolves around on how a boy who had a knack for things which didn't follow the society's norms struggles and eventually gets through and does what he wants. Today while watching this movie again, realized that this movie is as much about Tara, as it is about Ved.
Sometime back, I discovered a beautiful word, 'hüzün'. Derived from the Arabic word 'ḥuzn', it represents a sense of failure in life, lack of initiative and to retreat into oneself, symptoms quite similar to melancholia.
Tara is that 'hüzün'. She crosses the line they defined in Corsica, and then spends 3-4 years drifting in solitude, a smiling melancholy, in desolation. She bears Ved when he is at his most difficult. The raw nakedness of her emotions, when she is clutching Ved with all her mental and physical strength in 'Agar Tum Saath Ho' breaks my heart everytime I watch it. Watching Tara in that instance is a poem of emotions. She waited to meet Ved in the first place and then waited once again when he goes out to find himself is what I know and will understand of 'hüzün'. In life, it is tough to be a Ved. To really understand what you are made for, what's your true calling takes more than people's lives, and some even go to their graves before they do that. But it's a tinge harder to be a Tara. Living in that melancholy, that 'hüzün' for something that is nonexistent is the toughest thing I can imagine. Life will give you a few chances to be a Ved, to tell your stories. To start afresh, do something that you really wanted all along. But once in a while, be a Tara to a Ved. Be that 'hüzün'. To Tamasha, to Tara, to 'hüzün'.
