Anand L. Rai’s Tere Ishk Mein is now on Netflix, and I’m not sure what I just watched. The film, which follows Dhanush and Kriti Sanon’s characters spiraling because of “love,” is a messy tale about class, psychology, toxic romances, and a lot of other, for lack of a better word, unnecessary plot twists that don’t really do much for the film itself. No, I can’t say I knew what I was getting into, nor can I say that this film was made with a certain intent, because whatever it was trying to say didn’t come through, really. Honestly, the thing that I don’t fully understand here is the inconsistency of the story itself. First, it shifts from present to past like a ping pong match, and then it also tries to introduce multiple different elements within those two timelines, ending up feeling like a khichdi of ideas that doesn’t really have a definitive result. But before I turn this into some kind of rant about why this movie needed way more work at the editing table, let’s get into what happens at the end of Tere Ishk Mein. The film follows Shankar and Mukti, who first meet when Mukti is doing a PhD and needs a test subject: a violent man whom she can use her psychology studies to “heal.” Right there is where the problem starts, so let’s jump straight into it.
Spoiler Alert
Why Is Mukti’s Study Completely Flawed?
While Mukti’s intentions are for her PhD proposal to get approved, when she finds Shankar, she’s willing to go to any length to make her dreams come true. And with that, I mean she even let a man who is clearly too violent for regular life fall in love with her. The problem isn’t that he falls in love with her, don’t get me wrong, it’s that she “allows” him to do so, even though she has no intention of returning this love. Though she makes it clear that she just wants to use him for her PhD, I don’t think he fully grasps what she means, and she happily toes the line between love and education to make sure she gets what she needs. Already, as I’m typing this, I realize how terrible that makes Mukti sound as a person. But that’s what this film makes her look like. But to make matters worse, it does appear she falls for him too, but instead of putting her feelings aside or stepping away from this experiment, she continues to work on her thesis and conveniently wins over her professors, who mere weeks ago wouldn’t even approve the idea at all. I really don’t know why they made academia look so bad in this film.
Anyway, Mukti and Shankar basically developed a relationship by the end of the 3 months she needed to get her professors’ approval. But this is when Mukti decides she’s done with the guy and jumps into the arms of a friend named Abeer. Now you’re thinking, “Oh, she had a boyfriend.” But this guy isn’t her boyfriend, but even Shankar believes he’s the guy she’s going to marry, so he douses both himself and Abeer in kerosene while Mukti explains to Abeer in French (it took me 3 pieces of dialogue to realize what language it was) that he won’t do anything and that she “knows” him. Can someone tell me where the psychology is here? Because to me, this just looks like a really bad toxic relationship gone totally wrong. I feel like this is where the movie really messed up, because, as usual, it makes it seem like the social sciences aren’t any use at all. Especially how the research professors treated her idea in the first place. It was doomed to fail right from the start. Where is her research? Where is the work she’s putting into Shankar? Nowhere to be seen, I’m afraid. But if she had never picked a guy like Shankar, then she might’ve actually done real work, where we could see real results, not just something for show.
Really, the only time we see something actually work on Shankar is when he admits to Mukti that his mother’s name was Kaveri and she died after she suffered 20 percent burns because they were too poor to save her. This is the only time it feels like he’s talking to her as a psychologist rather than just as his love, though obviously that’s why he’s admitting this. It’s all a bit confusing. This is when she should’ve realized how much she messed up, but instead she ran into the other man’s arms, ruining the little progress she’d made, all despite being a PhD psychology student!
Is Mukti’s Son Going To Grow Up An Orphan?
In Tere Ishk Mein’s ending, Mukti, 9 months pregnant, gets down on her knees to apologize to Shankar, just like the priest in Banaras had told him she would. Only, I think he was talking about salvation. When she lifts her hands up to his face, they’re covered in blood because her water’s broken. This is when you know she’s not going to survive this for sure. When Shankar gets Mukti to the hospital bed, she tells him that she did the one thing she could to honor him, and that’s have a baby boy, just like he blessed her to. I don’t really know what she would’ve achieved with this. Really, why would a woman dying of cirrhosis of the liver have a baby? Well, because she thinks it’s the right thing to do (logic has left the chat).
Now, when Mukti tells Shankar all of this, he simply tells her that he could never raise a kid. All he really wants is for her to sign the papers so he can go fight for his country in a time of crisis. Mukti finally signs the papers on the condition that he comes back to raise his child. But he promises he’ll do her one better; even if he doesn’t come back, the child’s father will. Jassi’s actually a good person, though, and I think in light of all the toxic men in this film, he’s actually a good person, like Shankar’s dad. So the question remains, will he raise a kid like Shankar or not? Shankar tells Mukti that the son she bore may not look like him, but he will carry his lineage. Now, I’m not sure what this lineage would be. Being violent, being toxic enough to give a UPSC exam to prove a dad wrong? What is this meant to be? I really don’t know. So much emotional baggage on a kid who hasn’t even been born yet. So, will the kid be an orphan? No, because Shankar pulls a kamikaze during the war situation and saves Jassi, who is watching the whole thing from a porthole on his ship (it suddenly becomes a comedy movie). So, ultimately, he’s saved, which means he can raise the kid all on his own. This is going to be quite a challenge in my opinion, though.
Is The Air Force Base Going To Make It Through The War?
Right from the start of the film, the Air Force base commander in Leh, Ladakh, is extremely concerned about the precarious situation the country finds itself in at the moment. The Pakistani navy is en route to meet the Indian aircraft carrier fleet, and then in the middle of all that, his best pilot has decided to be a maverick and threaten a Chinese aircraft, potentially risking sparking a war on a second front. We do then see that Shankar’s instinct that this was no ordinary plane was justified, as the cargo bay held several uniformed soldiers and what looked like munitions. Following the bombing of the Air Force base that night and the reported deployment of 1 lakh Chinese PLA soldiers, the base is definitely under threat.
However, with Shankar neutralizing the Pakistani fleet (or the most dangerous elements of it), the war on the naval front is no longer a defensive affair, presumably allowing the Air Force to redeploy their fighters to Ladakh, on the Chinese border. Furthermore, Chinese offensives into Indian territory have historically been limited in scale, with fixed objectives. Once these objectives are either completed or the war scenario shifts, the Chinese then engage in diplomatic negotiations to secure their gains, but with their Pakistani allies no longer as much of a threat to India as before, this withdrawal might come sooner than expected. Things are looking up for the Air Force base, all thanks to Shankar’s sacrifice, though he really should have tried to eject when his plane was pointed at the frigate.
Does Shankar Get His Mukti?
Shankar’s last words to Mukti were that, between those destined for love and those destined for violence, fate had pushed Shankar into the second category. For the brief while that he’d been with Mukti, Shankar no longer felt like his skin was burning up, and he could pretend to be a non-violent man. But it seems he’s realized now, just like lots of his Air Force colleagues already have, that his violence can be a gift, and it’s time to put it to good use. At the point Mukti signs the papers, she’s already dying from cirrhosis of the liver, so we already know there’s almost no way she will survive this birth. Especially with the amount of blood she was leaking.
In Tere Ishk Mein’s ending, Shankar flies into combat over the Arabian Sea, launching missiles at the Pakistani naval forces that were about to launch an attack on Jassi’s ship. That’s not enough heroism for him, though, as when his plane finally gets shot at, and his wing goes up in flames, he doesn’t eject like he’s supposed to; he decides it’s time to kamikaze the last Pakistani frigate and seal the deal, dying the way he lived, in the lap of violence. It’s just like the priest in Benaras predicted; you can run from love, but you can’t leave it behind, and even this last act was one he did for Mukti’s sake, or at least for the sake of the son he’d blessed her to have. With his death, he ensured Jassi’s survival, with Mukti dying in childbirth. The film almost seems to imply the “lovers” are united in the afterlife, but that seems unfair to Jassi. He’d never even wanted this child in the first place, knowing that Mukti’s health was too frail, but she’d insisted, just to fulfill the prophecy of a man who’d been obsessed with her years ago. Shankar, on the other hand, had been carrying this pain of an unrequited love for all these years, and on his last day on earth, Mukti had told him that it wasn’t unrequited after all. So, I suppose he does “get his mukti,” or salvation. We can imagine that the burning on Shankar’s skin has finally stopped now, not just when he sabotages himself, but when he says goodbye to Mukti. He finally does the right thing by saving Jassi. Proving to her that her love ultimately “fixed” him.
