Dasvidaniya

How often do you plan things in day to day life? How often do you feel that you have a lot to achieve in life, and hence keep working day and night like programmed devices, and continue living a mechnical life? How often do you forget that you should invest some time in your personal life and do some self-pampering at a times? How often do you get the feeling that - Kaash maine aisa kiya hota? How many times do you envy those guys who keep passing you on road with their girl-friends hugging them as tight as your own underwear? Or, how often do you feel that - What a boring life I have?

I don't think you need to go any far to spot a similar person,because thats the story of a common Indian man (and chances of you too becoming one is not too low). We often neglect our dreams and the personal pleasure for the sake of our day to day needs, and keep postponing our dreams and aspirations to be met only in future. We start taking life too seriously, and keep warning ourselves about so many unwanted events which might never happen, but we Indians are programmed like that. We have contingency plans and funds, which probably will never be used unless we  die. And in this whole process of planning we neglect only one thing - Our Present.

And one fine day when we realise that our 'present' has aged into the 'past', we get to realise the futility of all those meaningless planning and the asset acquisition for future.

With above context in mind you see a common man Amar Kaul (Vinay Pathak) in the movie, his only motivation to start a new day is to jot down some important tasks for the day, and then go ahead with it for the rest of the day. He works like an ass in the office, and is treated as the most irresponsible street-dog by his boss. He leads a plain and boring mechanical life, and on top of that he is unmarried even at the age of 37. 

Amar Kaul definitely wants to share his pain but then he has no one to share with. And he has accepted that his life would be always like this and he has even stopped complaining about the same. He would have probably lived the rest of his life making his '10 things to do today' lists about getting his gyser repaired and changing the batteries of her mother's hearing aid. But, God had some different plans for him. And for no obvious reasons known to him, he is found to be suffering from cancer, and his days are counted. And this is the time when he realizes that - " Was the motive my whole life was to make 'Things to do today' list? " And this is when he makes his 'Things to do before I die' list.

Each of those things which he listed in his to do list follows in the remaining part of the movie.

At first thought you might feel that the story is going to be somewhat similar to Anand or Kal Ho Na Ho, but you are going to get a  huge surprise when you watch the movie. This story treats the 'nearing death experience' with a better sense of acceptance, and with almost no emotional drama. [It only happens in Karan Johar's movies that when a person dies, his whole family is sitting around him and they exchange some emotional words and the hero passes some promise to the girl friend before dying, but these things never happen in a average person's life.]  A average person almost always dies a silent death and there is no hype about it. This movie depicts the death of Amar Kaul as a moment when the earth would not shatter and everything else will keep working in the same manner as they were always.

Needless to mention that Vinay Pathak is the one who takes the centrestage in this whole cinema, and not even for a single scene or dialogue he looses the grip of the character. He would remind you of that hardworking uncle who could not achieve much in his life, and is yet not complaining. Thats the power of this person's great acting calibre. If you liked his Bheja Fry, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Manorama 6 feet under, Jhonny Gaddar then this is one movie where you can feel his actual power of acting. I was almost taken aback to see his facial expressions and the dialogue delivery in at least these few scenes - when he expressed his love for Neha (Neha Dhupia) without speaking even a single word, When he tells about his illness to his brother (Gaurav Gera), the way he reflects his expression while talking to his boss, they way he talks to his childhood best friend (Rajat Kapoor), and finally the best one, when he tells his brother about his liking for watching the view from his balcony and then he says that - Kitni sundar hai ye zindagi!

I would definitely say that this is one movie which can't be missed at all and even if you miss it in cinema halls, then watch this movie on DVD, and if possible, watch this movie alone because this movie has got a lot to teach every human being who has lately forgot that he is not a machine but an emotional creature too. 

When the time comes, we all will have to bid-adeu to this world, and then instead of saying a plain 'bye' or 'good-bye', it should always be the 'best good-bye' we could offer to the spirit called 'living life' and to the rest of the left behind living souls...which is Dasvidaniya!