Inside, we are all real. Most of us know how the mind works and unless we are losing our minds, we understand the motive and intent behind all our actions. We know our fears, our triggers, our weaknesses, our strengths – and we hope to make each new day better than the previous day. Whether or not we are able to do it, is another matter.

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t watched the movie and intend to watch it, don’t read further. It contains some telling references to the movie.

Yesterday, I finally finished watching Gehraiyaan. I had started watching the movie about five days back – stalled for the first three, then inspired by a tweet, jumped into it the day before. The movie was doing well for me until about the 1-hour mark. It was normal – the characters (Alisha, Tia, Zain, Karan) were quite realistic – Alisha and Karan (the AK couple) a wee bit more than Tia and Zain (the TZ couple.)The mutual annoyance and disturbance in the AK couple’s life, the affair, the hidden messaging…it was all fairly realistic.

Does Alisha have that affair because she is genetically prone to having it? Perhaps. Our perception of risk is made of many factors – and our genes are one such factor. Other factors are: our loved ones, circumstances, and so on – and Alisha scores a huge cipher on all those factors.

Zain appears to have traces of narcissism (he is charming, glib, and conscious of the image he projects) lacks empathy, lacks regret, and is prone to finding the easy way out. He comes across (to Alisha) as an adventurous and successful businessman, who is willing to take risks. Alisha is attracted to these traits, because she blames the death of her mother upon the lack of such traits in her father.

Tia could be Ria, Mia, or Kia – it wouldn’t matter. The story needed a placeholder for Zain’s fiancee and that is Tia. She could be an absentee character, and I wouldn’t notice (someone like Howard’s mother in The Big Bang Theory.)

I felt a remote connection with Karan (and his awkwardness,) because I am a writer and awkward too – but beyond that I didn’t care.

Alisha and Zain have dark pasts and some of that darkness has seeped into their characters. Yet none of those two characters can be called “evil.” Evil requires no reason to wreak havoc – in fact, it revels in it. It enjoys the spectacle of blood, bones, agony, and pain. Most of us have had some sort of brush with evil, and we know that we didn’t see evil in Alisha and Zain. Instead, we saw aching hearts covered with scar tissue. We see two people trying to go through life, little realizing that the shards of their broken selves were mangling the lives of those who were close to them.

  • Is it wrong?
  • Is it right?

A moral debate isn’t my area of expertise. All I know is that darkness hides inside all of us, but only in a few does it transcend into apathetic, hedonistic, sadistic evil. After scorching our souls with its flames and making us scream in pain, evil goes looking for another victim. Some of us die from the pain, but those who survive, grow a shell of crystal shards – wanting to stay safe within, but subconsciously hurting everyone who gets too close.

If all this appears too cryptic, feel grateful that it does. Sometimes ignorance is indeed a bliss.

Image Credit: Photo by Joel Filipe on Unsplash