As the film neared its end, a character speaks a dialogue - "aise bhi ek love story me tum kya naya likh loge?"
This is a simple dialogue which you will hardly notice in a pretty simple scene, from a simplistic film. But if you have been noticing things, this simple dialogue has depth. Like the scene. Like the film. Meri Pyari Bindu lives up to the idea in this film - there isn't really anything new left to say, as far as the love stories go. How we say it is what really matters! So how does the film speak to us?
"abhi na jaao chhodkar ki dil abhi bhara nahi", is a key song, like many others, which find a mention in the film. The choice of this wonderful song has an additional aspect that the male lead is named Abhi in the film, one of those tiny details, among various others in the film. The film has a music of its own, even in moments which have no songs. It is poetic in its narrative, especially the beginning which seems straight out of a nice novel. It is so everyday and everyone-like, in so many of its aspects, that if you get attached to he film, you find it difficult to let it go. This key song "dil abhi nahi bhara" seems so apt for the film when it ends, when you don't want it to.
I wanted the film to go on and on, and on, like life.Even with its shortcomings, yet so dear to us, felt so very special. Like life. Meri Pyari Bindu may not be one of the most perfect films. When you critically analyse it through the several lenses of screenwriting wisdom, one may find drawbacks in it. But as I said, for many like us, this film is like life. We are just grateful that it exists, and we are going to love it. For me personally, the film did not work only on a few moments when it tried too hard to be funny. Apart from it, it worked. It worked like magic.
A character who tries to become a writer, post his MBA, and is significantly immersed in the memories of a lost love (and a lost lover), is obviously relatable for me at so many levels. But this is just one point. What works is not how special these characters are, but on the contrary, how ordinary they are. A girl who chases her dreams to become a singer, but ends up being just another home maker. A guy who attains fame as a writer, but ends up with works which are hardly anything to be proud of. They are confused, vulnerable, fall in and out of love, and make mistakes. They end up losing each other, despite so many reasons in the film, and in their lives, which make us believe that they were meant to be. But then, this is an ordinary story about ordinary people. It is like life. Beautiful, and heartbreaking.
In a lot of ways, it lacks the dramatic structure of an usual film. Instead it has the flow of a novel, the graph of a literary work. The characters embark upon a journey, and what follows is a sequence of minor conflicts, small coincidences, gradual rise and fall of emotions and aspirations. Once the characters get introduced to each other, what follows includes childhood crush, one sided love, beautiful friendship, silly adventures, dreamy eyed teenage, confused adolescence, choices made and mistakes that happened, moments to remember and acts to forget, and above all - a love story to cherish, despite its vulnerabilities. I don't think one would want to blame either of the two for the way things shaped up, though both have made their fair share of mistakes. Because, that is what people do. In life, and even in love.
Abhi is writing a story during the film, the story which is primarily the story of this film itself. In the end however, we find that Abhi's story has a happy ending, which does not happen in the film. He mentions that it is happy endings that work, but then that is not how things work in life. And in a film which mirrors life so well, we have an ending which breaks our heart. Ironically, we see the two of them dancing and laughing together, and yet it is these visuals which remind you of any and every heartbreak that you may have had. Of people you loved, yet lost. Just like Abhi lost his pyari Bindu!
The film is musical, and poetic, in more ways than one. The visuals of the room on the terrace, the branches of the tree that connected the houses, and those emergency rings on the phone - these are not merely plot points - if it works, it is all poetry, that swallows you in.
Bollywood nostalgia lives and breathes throughout the film. Not only does Bindu derive her name from a popular song, she names her daughter after a song too. There are several moments where these songs have been beautifully used. When the two characters talk after an interval of 2 years, when Bindu informs Abhi of how he is going to lose her, forever - the song playing (ironically) is Kabhi kabhi mere dil me khyaal aata hai. Also a particularly brilliant dialogue which deserves a special mention is the one towards the end, when Abhi describes his love for Bindu - and the metaphors include various things we have all lived and cherished - is something worth remembering. Also, the film, in another dialogue, reminded us that we should always leave space for one final happy song in our lives (reference - the cassette they make)
There are other factors which have a role to play in the film. The supporting characters add a lot of color to the film, the music is often nice, but sometimes ends up being a little unimpressive. Kolkata comes out beautifully amidst an often, overly stereotypical Bengali treatment.
All of us have had our shares of emotions and memories that the film is about - childhood crushes to falling in love to encouraging your love to making mistakes to being heartbroken to going on with your life. Meri Pyari Bindu is about all of that. In the film, they make a cassette of songs, which have a significant value in their lives. Their idea is that these songs may or may not be the best of the songs, but these songs are about them, their lives. So it will always be special. This is what the film is - it may or may not be the best of the films, but it is about a lot of us, and about a lot of things in our lives - and hence it will always remain special. At least, I can speak for myself. This is a film, I will want to watch over and over again, in years to come, so many times.
Meri Pyari Bindu is definitely going to be present in my list of all time favorites. In all honesty, am a little pained by the fact that it did not work really well with the audience, but for the moment, I am just going to be happy that the world of cinema has a film like this. Meri Pyari Bindu :)
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