Much like the heroine, all I feel is a sad blankness: Deepanjana Pal on Saiyaara
Now that the film’s been out a while, and we no longer need to be coy about spoilers, let’s talk about Saiyaara, produced by Yash Raj Films (YRF), directed by Mohit Suri, and starring relative newcomer Aneet Padda and Chunky Panday’s nephew Ahaan Panday.
Here’s the plot: On a day like any other in Mumbai, an angry young musician bumps into a sad poet carrying a notebook. He has a victim complex; she has no sense of boundaries. He punches anyone who criticises him; she stammers when faced with a question. In short, opposites attract. Just when happiness inches towards this photogenic pair, she discovers she has Alzheimer’s disease.
In case you’re wondering just how old this heroine is, well she’s old enough to have been dumped by a fiancé on the morning of her wedding, but young enough to have a curfew… of 8.30 pm.
There is so much that defies logic in Saiyaara, though, that this plot twist, of a woman in her 20s facing a diagnosis few 20-somethings through history have faced, doesn’t even end up very high on the list of absurdities.
Meanwhile, Yash Raj tropes abound. Krish Kapoor (Panday) may have more rough edges than the usual YRF hero, but his heart beats to a familiar pattern. The pivot of the story is a classic one: a young man haunted by a woman whose absence has left a void in his life. We’ve seen this tale play out repeatedly, and often rivetingly, in YRF films from Silsila (1981) and Lamhe (1991) to Darr (1993), Mohabbatein (2000) and Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2012).
A crucial difference is that this female lead is, well, more hologram than human.
For generations, YRF has created women characters who love defiantly and refuse to conform to tropes of weepy, tragic and powerless. They were somehow both flawed and aspirational; exquisitely beautiful, but also complex, and strong. These were human being with whom the audience could connect, identify, even fall in love.
In the hands of legendary actors such as Rekha and Sridevi, the YRF heroine was a force to reckon with. She even held her own in action titles (who can forget Deepika Padukone in the 2023 spy hit Pathaan?).
Vaani (Padda), sadly, has neither the charisma nor the complexity of her forebears. She exists exclusively as a foil for Krish, gazing at him adoringly when he needs to be glorified and turning into a screeching, knife-wielding virago when Suri wants the audience to feel bad for him.
We are told she works at a publishing house, but see nothing of her life outside the scenes she shares with him. Meanwhile, even in these scenes, there are only three states of mind that ever register on her face: sadness, blankness, and sad blankness.
At her most dynamic, she acts as a sort of ChatGPT designed specifically for the hero. At one point, he tosses incoherent prompts at her and she churns out lyrics for his latest song. She listens to him rant and supplies what he has asked for efficiently, politely and expressionlessly.
Then she is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and still puts him first, disappearing from his life in the unshakeable believe that this pain will spare him greater hurt — and spur him on to greatness.
In theory, nestled within Suri’s goulash of a potboiler is a poignant tale of a woman who desperately wants to forget her heartbreak, and finds herself in the clutches of a ruthless ailment that erases not just her pain, but the rest of her too.
It’s just hard to see that plot, in a character who has been emptied of everything but beauty and tears.
(To reach Deepanjana Pal with feedback, write to @dpanjana on Instagram)
