Reel Merges With Real: Sushant Singh Rajput’s Dil Bechara Is A Roller Coaster Of Emotions

It is said for exceptional actors that their life often shapes out in ways similar to their work, imitating the stories that they create and portray. Perhaps, knowingly or unknowingly, they manifest it. When it comes to Sushant Singh Rajput’s posthumous appearance in Dil Bechara one cannot help but connect the dots here. 

Based on John Greene’s best-seller novel The Fault in Our Stars, the film features Sushant Singh Rajput as Immanuel Rajkumar Junior aka Manny and Sanjana Sanghi as Kizie Basu. In the film, Kizie is suffering from thyroid cancer and Manny from bone cancer. The two find each other through a cancer support group in a coming of age story that has already garnered a 9.8 rating on IMDB. And given that the film has been based on a best-selling novel which also happens to be another super hit International film, most of us know how it is going to unfold for the star crossed lovers. 

Manny in the film is terminally ill and yet an ebullient spirit who does not let cancer stop him or diminish his love for Rajnikanth and South Indian films. He lightens up Kizie’s otherwise “boring” life the instant she sees him for the first time dancing on a Rajnikanth song on the road. Brought together by fate, the two are bound to fall in love, finding the impetus to live in each other. Both Manny and Kizie decide that “Seri” the Tamil word for “okay” is going to be their word.

However, for two star crossed lovers everything seldom turns out to be “okay.” The film leaves you feeling so much especially as you see Sushant’s warm, haunting smile one last time in the end. But there’s more. One cannot help but notice how closely the film resonates with Sushant’s life and the late actor himself. To give you an insight into the uncanny similarities, we have thus compiled a list of moments and sequences from the film that’ll surely leave you wondering. Scroll through:  

Dreams So Real You Could Touch Them

In a sequence, Manny tells Kizie’s father (Swastika Mukherjee) that he has big, mammoth dreams for life. And if you have really heard any of Sushant’s friends and family talking about the actor then you must know that Sushant was a passionate genius with his dreams ranging from painting the Aurora Borealis to charting the Moon’s trajectory. In fact, he had a handwritten bucket list of mighty, fascinating dreams and had already ticked off 12 of them before he died of suicide on June 14th this year. 

Film’s Setting

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Most of the film’s action takes place in Jamshedpur, a quaint city in Jharkhand. One can’t help but notice the geographical proximity of Jharkhand to Patna, Bihar which happens to be Sushant’s hometown. In fact, until 2000 both Jharkhand and Bihar used to be the same states. As Sushant plays a terminally ill character in the film, it is impossible not to connect the dots in his absence now. It’s unfortunate that it turned out this way for Sushant and yet so shocking to see the film subtly yet surely overlapping with the late actor’s life. 

The Music

It’s almost surreal how the film’s music hits you with its intensity, trailing behind a reminder of Sushant Singh Rajput’s artistic legacy and all that he was in real life. Now, with AR Rahman as the music composer, while you expect each one of these tracks to be as good as the other, there’s something different about “Taare Gin.” Both Shraddha Kapoor and Ashutosh Rana in their tribute to the late actor recollected how he was absolutely smitten and fascinated by astronomy. “During a lovely musical and poetry filled get-together at his home, he showed me the moon from his telescope and I was so speechless,” Shraddha wrote. 

Mohit Chauhan, who crooned the ballad with Shreya Ghoshal shared in a recent interaction with Tribune India “Sushant was fascinated with space, stars, astronomy. He had even bought a plot on the moon! He had a telescope and would often look out for stars and the moon through that. So this song is dedicated to his passion. Well, it’s almost poetic how the song reminds you of all that as Manny smiles through the song madly, visibly in love with Kizie.

Another song “Maskhari” again beautifully connects Sushant’s reel and real life. “Think of it as a small glimpse of his off-screen playful and mischievous self,” says singer Sunidhi Chauhan. 

The Dancing Star

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Speaking of film’s music, “Main Bechara” deserves a separate mention. A shining beacon of Sushant’s prowess as an artist, the song was shot in a single shot. In the song, Sushant can be seen dancing in his characteristic style, a talent that helped him gain immense popularity as a TV star. He has indeed left us all with a memorable performance in this one. 

‘He came to me dancing and that’s also how he left me forever alone,’ Kizie says during a make-believe funeral that Manny throws for himself. And hasn’t it been the same for his fans as well? 

The Send Off That He Deserves

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As the film’s end credits roll, we hear Manny’s voiceover: “We don’t get to decide when we’re born or when we die. But we do get to decide how we live our lives.” This is the point when the film hits you hard and so does the reality: a star is gone and while he has left behind a huge void, he has left an illustrious legacy too. 

More than a month has passed since Sushant’s tragic demise and yet we can’t stop thinking about him. While so many have raged and agitated after the suicide, building theories on how he was “murdered” or how all of this was a “conspiracy,” it’s his life that we should be celebrating instead. Sushant was an exceptionally talented and gifted individual and even though he was with us for a brief 34 years, he made the most of his life. As we talk about how an elitist industry relegated him to the brim, let’s not forget all that he accomplished. Let’s give him the send-off that he deserves. 

Here’s to Sushant Singh Rajput and the glorious legacy that he has left behind!

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