To use Tinder parlance, you can only ‘swipe right’ after a stimulating conversation with Shah Rukh Khan and Aalia Bhatt about Dear Zindagi, out in the UAE this Thursday.
Directed by award-winning Gauri Shinde of English Vinglish fame, their latest drama is a coming-of-age film about a twentysomething Kiara (Bhatt) who’s on popular dating app Tinder, looking for answers in love and wanting to seize life along the way. Enter the wiser Jehangir, played by the suave Shah Rukh Khan, who may not have all the answers, but lends a patient ear to her quarter-life crisis.
Our phone conversation with both stars together went something like this … Just like its inspirational trailer, these two might tempt you to seize life and take chances in love …
Shah Rukh Khan: Hello, this is Shah Rukh and Aalia…
Gulf News tabloid!: Hello, it’s lovely to catch up with you about Dear Zindagi. Do you think your job is half-done because the trailers look good?
Aalia Bhatt: While it feels great to hear you say that, I don’t know. Is the job half done Shah Rukh?
Khan: Our job is done only when you watch the film. Inshallah, it will be a good one. The trailer is only giving you bits and pieces of what the movie is about. It gives you a smattering of what the film is going to be like. But I have seen the film and I think it’s different. Different, in a good way and I am not just saying that word, different, for the heck of it. It dwells and speaks about a subject that’s the need of the hour in a fun and easy manner.
Gulf News tabloid!: If you were to write a letter to zindagi or life, what would you say in it and why?
Khan: Yours gratefully, Shah Rukh. That’s all I will write.
Gulf News tabloid!: That’s succinct, I thought you weren’t a man of few words.
Khan: You are writing to life and it’s life so you never talk back to it. Life is beautiful and I just want to thank it.
Bhatt: Dear life, thank you for being alive.
Khan: Manjusha, what would you write in your letter to life?
Gulf News tabloid!: I need sleep because I’m a mother of three young kids.
Khan: But I think if you were to ever write to life, say you are grateful and thank life for being so beautiful and sweet. When you look at your children, do you think about the lack of sleep or the wonderful gift that life has given you?
Bhatt: I think both of us are writing reverential letters to life. Maybe another moment, I will be asking a lot of things in life. But our last letter to life would read something like what we told you.
Gulf News tabloid!: Sounds fair. Shah Rukh, it’s great that you are playing a mentor in this film to Aalia’s character. But don’t you think Hollywood has already exhausted that storyline with films such as Dead Poet’s Society? Also, does Dear Zindagi occupy the same space?
Khan: When you talk about Dead Poet’s Society or To Sir, with Love, it’s more of a teacher and students’ relationship where they are talking about Carpe Diem [Latin phrase for seize the day]. My Chak De! [India] belonged more to that space. In those movies, a person has taken over students to groom them for sports or literary education. In Dear Zindagi, it’s not just about being a mentor or a teacher. Aalia is in a phase in her life when they need someone to listen to them. They don’t want that person to talk or guide them. They are not looking for a Mr Fix-It. They need someone to listen to them because sometimes you are wary of [your parents]. Sometimes, even friends or boyfriends don’t fill that gap. You don’t want that person to be judgemental. What that young person may be doing is wrong, according to many people, but sometimes they may need someone in their life to say it’s all right. More than a mentor, friend or philosopher, my character is more layered than a teacher-student relationship. The relationship between Jehangir Khan and Kiara is much more interesting.
Gulf News tabloid!: What did you learn from Jehangir Khan, Khan’s character in the film? Were you able to forget that you are opposite one of the biggest stars in the world?
Bhatt: For the first few moments of shooting, it was difficult for me to forget who he was. I had to constantly remind myself that the cameras are rolling and I need to say my lines. The obvious question that everybody is asking me is what I learnt from Shah Rukh, the star. But there’s so much to learn from his character. In fact, I sent him a message yesterday that I missed Jug right now, that’s what I call him in the film. He is one of those people who doesn’t discard what you are feeling. According to him, feeling bad isn’t always a bad thing. That’s such a great thing to hear. Gauri Shinde’s writing is so perceptive.
Gulf News tabloid!: Aalia, did you have to explain what Tinder is to Shah Rukh? [The trailers show a scene in which Kiara is on Tinder, a popular dating app.]
Shah Rukh: I didn’t know what Tinder was, until I asked her. She told me that I am not single and that I am not supposed to know.
Gulf News tabloid!: Did you feel you were revealing your age when you said you didn’t know Tinder?
Bhatt: It’s not an age thing, but an indication of your lifestyle. He doesn’t need to be on Tinder because he doesn’t need to look for people.
Khan: So this Tinder is to find ladies. But my problem in life is to lose them. I should have a site that’s opposite of Tinder.
Gulf News tabloid!: Tinder is also labelled as the McDonalds for one night stands?
Khan: I never have McDonalds in life. I am what you call fine dining, gourmet style.
Bhatt: I love junk food, I am the fatty of the group.
Khan: But seriously, I don’t know about many things in life including Facebook, my office does that. Twitter or Instagram either. Aalia taught me how Instagram works. So you live and learn. I am glad Aalia is teaching me new things. She even taught me to do the Dab [dance gesture that symbolises being cool, used often by millennials].
Gulf News tabloid!: What’s that… Is it dab or dad?
Khan: Manjusha, you just revealed your age now.
Gulf News tabloid!: Speaking of age, do you think your character suffers from the Peter-Pan syndrome where you have a body of a man, but the mind of a child?
Bhatt: Jehangir has childlike instincts. But he’s knowledgeable and wise. It’s something that everyone aspires to be.
Khan: Everyone should have that quality of childlike innocence. And, you should see my body. It’s a boy’s body. I am hairless and so cool. But jokes aside, as a person, the quality that I most cherish is that I can be a three-year-old or a 75-year-old and I am happy being that. I am still giddy, inquisitive and wonderstruck. In the creative field, it’s not easy to maintain those qualities without any artificiality. I am easily excitable over things from the smallest to the most beauteous things in the world. Everyone should have childlike wonderment. Life hasn’t broken me down yet and there is a child in me even now.
Gulf News tabloid!: But Shah Rukh, do you feel that you are in a better place than the single, young people who are still looking for love and partners on mobile dating apps?
Khan: I believe in one partner, one family and one friend. But the process of love never ends. Love can come in different forms — whether it’s something that you feel for your friend, sister or children. Throughout your life, you are getting in and out of love. I am not talking about the regular man-woman love or the boyfriend-girlfriend. Youngsters are beset with uncertainty and newness. I identify with what Aalia is going through in this film. She’s not my age, but when she’s having issues in love, the question of settling down or when she wants space from her family. When you see Jehangir and Kiara, you will realise that he understands about love.
Gulf News tabloid!: Do sparks fly between you two in the film?
Bhatt: I hope there are only fireworks. Please don’t take that literally. But to find out more you need to watch the film. Let’s keep something as suspense here.
Khan: There’s enough space for everyone to be satisfied about the relationship we share in this film. It’s so beautifully treated. It will leave you gauging their relationship long after the film is over. Or just think of me as McDonalds and enjoy that movie meal...
Don’t miss it!
Dear Zindagi releases in the UAE on November 24.
