VEER-ZAARA by SHRESTHA

Aasish Shrestha

Review #4

Veer-Zaara

Veer-Zaara was directed by India’s finest filmmaker, Yash Chopra. This was the second Yash Chopra film we’ve seen this semester after Deewar and third in the Chopra family dynasty after his son Aditya Chopra’s DDLJ. All three films are similar yet different in a way. One of the similarities is that they are all one of the best bollywood movies of all time. Like Deewar, Veer-Zaara stars Amitabh Bachchan as the father of Shahrukh Khan (Veer), from DDLJ. The movie also stars top bollywood actresses like Preity Zinta (Zaara), Rani Mukerji, and Hema Malini. It was the highest grossing and most critically acclaimed Indian film of 2004, sweeping the awards season by taking home all awards for best film, director, and acting performances. It was also surprising how successful the film was outside India, since it had nothing to do with diaspora. Maybe this is just the magic of SHAHRUKH KHAN!

The film starts of with SRK frolicking across a field of flowers while singing a typical romantic hindi song. Suddenly, as we begin to see who the heroine is, she is shot down and a very old SRK wakes up. It was cool how the film started of like that with the dream sequence and made me wonder what was the story behind it. SRK had been a prisoner in a Pakistani jail for 22 years, after corrupt Pakistani police accused him of being an Indian spy. A female Pakistani lawyer, Saamiya (Rani Mukerji), is reopening his case suddenly after the 22 years of silence. It was surprising how a Pakistani would risk her first case to help an Indian man, whose prisoner number just happens to be 786. This is the holy number of Allah, which we saw before in Chopra’s Deewar used by Bachchan’s character. The entire film is SRK retelling his love story and his dilemma to Mukerji. He was actually an Indian Army officer named Veer Pratap Singh. He was an orphan raised by his Punjabi aunt and uncle (Malini & Bachchan). He then tells the story of Zaara Hayyat Khan (Zinta), an insanely beautiful Pakistani girl. (Preity is incredibly pretty!) She ends up traveling to India alone after her grandmother, an Indian woman whose dying wish was to have her ashes dispersed in her homeland, dies. Then, her bus crashes and Veer ends up saving her life. After a little quarrel, Veer falls deeply in love with the Pakistani girl (I mean who wouldn’t?). He helps her disperse the ashes in India and then asks for one day of her life. He takes her to his hometown where she meets his parents. Veer’s parents also enjoy Zaara’s company and want the two to marry. As Veer is about to propose at the train station, the conflict begins. Zaara has already been engaged to a man with a mustache. Just when you think Veer and Zaara can never be mentioned together again, SRK works his magic and Zaara is also in love with Veer. Veer finds out and rushes back to her. However, Zaara’s marriage was a business deal made by her strict, politician father. Zaara had to abide by her father’s wishes to keep the family name safe. Veer and Zaara agreed to separate but not let their love die. As Veer was on his way back to India, Zaara’s fiancée Raza frames him as an Indian spy against Pakistan. Veer agreed to take the sentence in order to protect Zaara’s name. Saamiya’s desire to help Veer grows stronger after his emotional story. She vows to set him free and have an innocent man return to his homeland. She also wants to defeat an experienced, arrogant, and sexist, older male lawyer to prove that women too have a rightful place in the courtroom. Saamiya does her research well to find out that 22 years later, Zaara too had been living single with Veer in her heart. Veer and Zaara finally reunite and with Zaara’s testimony, Veer is set free. Saamiya wins her first case, the haughty lawyer learns a lesson and retires, and Veer-Zaara walk across the border to India with their heads held high.

Nationalism was a major factor in Veer-Zaara. The film portrayed kinship between India and Pakistan decades after the partition. One of the songs entitled “Aisa Des Hai Mera,” meaning “My country is like so…,” displays unity between Punjabis on both sides of the border. The song captures India’s people and culture, displaying the nation as friendly, traditional, and very welcoming. The soundtrack for Veer-Zaara is probably THE BEST that I have ever heard in Indian Cinema. Every song, including lyrics, music, and picturization is just beautiful. The entire movie is beautiful. However, there were times when the film can appear bias. All Indians are shown to be good people where as all the Pakistanis are shown to be villains. The Pakistanis in the film were the selfish parents, the evil fiancée, the corrupt police, etc. India was also shown to be more modern with Veer’s outstanding job and well-educated status. Veer’s parents were also very accepting of Veer marrying a Pakistani girl; their village also had schools and soon a high school for girls. There was also a claim by Veer’s parents that a “woman’s love is different than a man’s love.” Gender was also a big issue in the film. Saamiya strived as the first female lawyer and taught the pompous male lawyer a lesson in equality. Equality in education was stressed with Zaara stating that girls have the same right as boys in further education. In the Lodi celebration, women had a choice if they wanted to be or not to be with a guy. Zaara’s mother stated that in any place, anywhere, “a mother’s job is to serve her husband and look after her children.” Another major aspect of the film whose plot relies heavily on is religion. In the beginning of the film, Zaara’s grandmother claimed to be a hindu and wanted to be faithful to her homeland India after death. She was brought to Pakistan at the young age of 16. It is unclear why she had to move but it certainly evokes the memory in history of the treatment of women during partition. One of Saamiya’s main inspirations for helping Veer was due to his prisoner number, 786, a holy number in Islam. Veer, an Indian, and Zaara, a Pakistani, falling in love is a huge symbol for the two countries. Veer-Zaara represents the relationship of the two countries as “meant to be” and is supposed to co-exist together happily. Another movie released in 2004 was Main Hoon Na (also starring SRK), which was the first movie we watch in this class, also had a similar situation regarding India and Pakistan with “Operation Milaap (Unity).” In Main Hoon Na, the brothers Ram and Lucky reuniting was a metaphor for India and Pakistan, who are like brothers, and should eventually reunite as well. The border crossing is also a symbolic image in both films that showed both sides of the nation returning back to their homeland.