Why and how Tamasha was a life-changing movie for so many of us

There are some movies which grow on you, gradually. It might happen, that when you watch those pieces of art for the first time, you might not feel yourself belonging to a place where you can appreciate them. You step out of the movie hall, just slightly agreeable of the close to 3 hours you just spent. Then you go on, living your life. You go on following your daily routine.

Quite sneakily, bit by bit, you stumble on to the fact that someone inside you has changed. Something influenced you, to an extent, that you find your perspectives towards life changed. You have rediscovered what you already knew, you have unearthed the lies you once knew to be true. You now realize why you feel tired of your day-to-day drudgery to such an extent that every Monday, you wait for Friday to arrive. You basically wait for every little joy. That riff you want to play on your treasured guitar that now gathers dust in your room, you wait for it. That landscape you saw in your trip last year you wanted to draw, you wait for it. That dessert you wanted to bake for so long, you are still waiting for it. It suddenly hits you that your life has become nothing but an endless loop of waiting. Of waiting to do the things you really really want to do.

One film was enough to make you realize this sad reality, of the banality of the lives we lead. That film was Imtiaz Ali’s Tamasha. Yes. That mediocre on the first watch, but gradually growing on you sort of films, this one fell in that category. You didn’t even know when exactly this movie’s brilliance held you on your path, grabbed your shoulders, and asked you to look into its eyes. It asked you some pretty uncomfortable questions, questions you didn’t have an answer for. This is the reason why we can never have enough of this piece of art.

This movie did what art is destined to do, make us uncomfortable, make us fidget, make us question ourselves, make us call ourselves crazy, make us insane, and then in the same breath, show us the path to be sane once again. That’s what Ved and Tara did for us. They told us, that fools wait to live their best lives. They told us that we can’t let our souls live away from our bodies. They told us that if loving someone meant accepting someone with their imperfections, it also means, helping them find their better selves. They taught us to be brave, to be brave enough to embrace what all makes us unique. They also taught us that it won’t be easy, it won’t be comfortable. It will take so much from us, and it will take all that we have worked so hard on. But, in the end, it will be all worth it.

It taught us the most valuable lesson, we can hope to learn: We can’t fall in love with others if we can’t love ourselves.

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