Agar Tum Saath Ho — Of Not Letting Go

In J.K. Rowling’s magnificent Harry Potter series, there is a charm called Expecto Patronum. The charm is used to fend off the happiness-sucking dementors, and one must muster the happiest memory they can think of, else the charm does not work. The happier the memory, the better the charm will work. Agar Tum Saath Ho from Imtiaz Ali’s Tamasha casts a magical spell, but it is a reverse patronus. It will remind of a time of a devastating heartbreak, of a time of a wretched state, and of a time of a numbing hopelessness. The song has been filmed on Tara (Deepika Padukone) and Ved (Ranbir Kapoor), and the first fifteen seconds of the song are enough to bring back that flood of painful memories. Memories that one thought were purged, but in reality, they were buried somewhere deep in a small corner of the heart.

Tara and Ved are at a conflicting point in their relationship. As seen in the trailer, Ved thinks he is a different person than the Ved Tara met in Corsica, while Tara thinks he is the old Ved. She is holding on to Ved as steadfastly as she can. She does not want to leave him. She cannot let go of him. But he wants to free himself. It is hard to be unmoved by that lachrymose hug she gives him. The hug will be etched in memory for long. Tara is pleading with him to stay with her. His love comforts her. It makes her forget every sorrow that she has in life. She will fill him in eyes; she talks to him without speaking. She molds herself in his habits, if he is with her. She is thinking of her loneliness, that her sorrows will come back since their relationship is ending, and perhaps, that sends her into paroxysms of wretchedness and she won’t let him go, and would hold him as tightly as she can.

The song is a testimony of the age old battle between the heart and the mind. Tara, dressed in dark red hues, is driven by her heart. Ved, dressed in lighter beige hues, is driven by his brain. Ved means a source of knowledge that resides in the brain. In a sublime moment, Tara and Ved put their head on the table. She slowly caresses his head, as if trying to nudge his brain to fall in love with her. She mothers his brain (quite reminiscent of Veera in the lullaby Sooha Saaha from Highway). Agar tum saath ho. But the brain is stubborn and adamant, and storms out. It is not ready to listen. It is practical. Bedard thi zindagi, bedard hai. Life was merciless; it is merciless, even if he stays with her. It does not make a difference. But, as it happens most of the time, if not always, the heart wins the battle. Perhaps, that is why Ved wears a red bandana over his head in the last few moments, of the same red color dress that Tara wore earlier, as if to signify that the heart has conquered over his brain. He has come around. Bedard thi zindagi, but maybe it will not be bedard if she is with him.

The hug is a repeating trope in Imtiaz Ali’s oeuvre. There is a scene in Highway, in which Veera (Alia Bhatt) gives a tight hug to Mahabir (Randeep Hooda) after she narrates him the story of her sexual abuse. She does not say anything to him and only holds him in her arms. The progressively tighter hug comforts her from her inner demons. In Rockstar, with fresh mehendi drawn on her hands, Heer (Narghis Fakhri) asks Jordan (Ranbir Kapoor) to give her a tight hug. No reason. In Love Aaj Kal, Meera (Deepika Padukone) and Jai (Saif Ali Khan) decide to not meet any longer with one last hug and one last kiss because the tum vaali feeling will never go away if they are together. In Jab We Met, the relation of Geet (Kareena Kapoor) and Aditya (Shahid Kapoor) officially starts when Geet goes and hugs him at Ratlam. The hug plays a crucial part in the film’s climax where she sends a message to Anshuman that she is no longer in love with him, perhaps, she never was. In a romantic film, a hug is of course a common element, but this leitmotif in his body of work holds a special contextual meaning. Though I was reminded of the time in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani when Bunny (Ranbir Kapoor) won’t let go of Naina (Deepika Padukone). “Mat ja Naina, yeh yahan acha lag raha hai, 5 minutes, please 5 second”, while here Tara won’t let go of Ved. 

The brighter parts of the song also tell an interesting story. At one point, Tara and Ved put their faces in the crystal clear water of the lake. The water is as pure as the emotion of love, and the act of dipping their faces in the water, is like they have been baptized in this virgin love. They have immersed themselves in the holy waters of this pristine emotion. Being dressed in ‘spotless’ white, they have tasted this ‘unblemished’ love.

I also really liked the way how the flare of a light has been used in the song. We see glowing rainbows coated around the incandescent lamps at the place where they meet. In addition, there are periodic flashes of a few microseconds of dispersed light when Ved is travelling around the streets, lined with reddish pinkish light. There is something addictive about the song, and I can’t seem to get enough of it. It reminds me of a time that I don’t want to remember, a time I thought I was in love, but I don’t think it was really love. But there are some memories of that time, and it seems to have wiped the dust off those sepia-tinted memories.

Rainbow

At one point, Tara and Ved are sitting on a hill with a drink in the hand, looking over the city. They are silent, and as Imtiaz Ali has shown us often before that love is a relationship in which one converses through shared silences, we see that here once again in the deep silence of Tara and Ved. Bin bole baatein tumse karun.

Song Credits:
Music: A R Rahman
Lyrics: Irshad Kamil
Singers: Alka Yagnik and Arijit Singh

Other reviews of Imtiaz Ali's films:

1. Rockstar—Link
2. Love Aaj Kal—Link
3. Jab We Meet—Link
4. Highway—Link
5. Tamasha—Link

Themes of the romance between Raj Kapoor-Nargis have also been observed (here and here).

Dialogue of the Day:

Pal bhar thahar jaao,
Dil ye sambhal jaaye,
Kaise tumhe roka karun,
Meri taraf aata har gham phisal jaaye,
Aankhon mein tum ko bharun,
Bin bole baatein tumse karun,
'gar tum saath ho,
Agar tum saath ho.

— Agar Tum Saath Ho, Tamasha

P.S. What is the special meaning of writing agar as 'gar?