The concept that the film ‘Baar Baar Dekho’ (BBD) tries to put forth is quite simple and easy to understand but immensely difficult to implement. Those who have seen the British romantic comedy-drama ‘About Time’ would agree that BBD’s core is loosely inspired from the British film. Both films preach the central idea of noticing the minor details of life and celebrate those as they happen rather to keep wishing for ways to turn into some magnanimous life altering events.
The areas where BBD fails to strike a chord though are quite a many, and the main area I found as faulty was the way the protagonist comes to the realisation. Jay magically skips into future (could be an elaborated dream sequence, never explained in the movie whether he was dreaming, the Pandit was playing some sorcery or was it anything else) and gets to live a few snapshots of his future life (one day each), where he finds out that all the things didn’t go as he had planned. In his conquest to revert back to a more desirable future, he even tries to fix a few things in his life when he gets a chance to live a day in past after having witnessed his divorce in future. But despite his calculated measures, things seem to have fallen apart when he learns that eventually he would end up divorced, not loved, alone in his old age. This was the time when the hard realisation hits Jay. Having stated the reason for loving Dia as ‘because we are married’, ‘because we have a child together’ and ‘because we have 2 kids’ on different occasions, when Jay returns to a day in past, post his old age traumatic scene, was the first time he states the reason for loving Dia as ‘because you were my past, you are going to be my future and you are this very moment of mine’, beautiful, isn’t it?
The thing that disturbed me though was the fact that Jay could have taken the decision to profess his love for Dia as another calculated and precautionary measure to avoid his own miserable future situation rather than actually feeling the love. Moreover, whatever reaction came out of Jay was entirely based on those 4 or 5 days he lived in future. There could have been better days of his future which he did not witness, thus his character transition could also be a result of an unbalanced and biased foisting of traumatic experiences. For example, what Jay would have done if he had got a chance to live a day where he was being awarded some dignified award for his contribution to Maths? Or like Dia had found love in another man of her own related field of interest, maybe Jay was also with another woman Mathematician and was actually happy in his life, but all he got to see was that one small day where he was pathetic and sad, giving him an illusion of having made some big mistake.
And the final reason I found the core treatment somewhat unappealing was the fact that the film actually contradicts its own philosophy in a way. It clearly says focus on each day and each moment as it comes, because no one knows what lies in future, over calculated planning is futile. And yet Jay is characterised as being some kind of dick for living his own life as it came through. He emerged as a winner and hero only when he dictates his present actions (confess his love for Dia) to better shape (over plan) his future, for he gets a chance to peep into the future.
