8 Years Of Jab Tak Hai Jaan: Heartfelt Letter To Samar Anand

Teri aankhon ki namkeen mastiyaan, teri hasin ki beparwah gustakhiyaan, teri zulfon ki lehrati angdaiyan, nahi bhulunga main. Jab tak hai jaan, jab tak hai jaan.

In London, Samar Anand is a struggling immigrant, who meets Meera (Katrina Kaif) on his journey. Unfortunate incidents leads to Meera leaving Samar, and a heartbroken Samar returning to India to work in the Army. There he meets Akira (Anushka Sharma)- the bubbly and spirited person.  Jab tak hai Jaan is a beautiful and heart-wrenching tale swirling around three lives. And today, this tale completed 8 years of love. To celebrate it we have written a letter full of admiration to Samar Anand. 

Dear Samar Anand,

We may have never met but still, it feels like you’re a part of my daily life. A man who wakes up in the morning with a charming smile and wins hearts of everyone he meet throughout the day. 

It wasn’t just maternal instinct when your mother told you “Tumhe dil jeetne aata hai, aur jo dil jeetna jaante hain wo kabhi haarte nahin” because whoever crossed paths with you knows that you can own people in just one blink with that luminous smile and kindest gesture of yours. 

Far away from home, away from your people, the way you made London feel like home to yourself is way more than earning thousands of pounds. The way you romanticised London, If I will ever be in London someday, my eyes will search for you may be roaming around singing and making people happy. 

There could be nothing happier and charming than you singing “Challa” with so much feel around the crowd that doesn’t understand the language of the song yet can feel the essence in disguise.

Samar, you are someone we know for decades, but no one knows the real you. You carry so much of enthusiasm over your external self that no one can really ever read you at a glance, that depth of your heart can only be discovered through eyes. 

It feels like whoever has you in life will never walk alone on the sharpest edges, it seems you can just overshadow every darkness of life with that charming smile and that’s why more than just a living, you deserve all the celebrations, celebrations for being Samar.

When you went out singing “Challa” through London, at that very moment I felt if I could do this once, because you so easily became what each one of us wants to be, you so easily made home through the strangest of people around you. 

From love, compassion, enthusiasm to charm, determination and belief, you romanticised with London more than Meera throughout your journey.

As you were loved by people, you were hated by cars, or say it like this that cars too wanted to come closer to you. 

But your transition from Samar to Major Samar Anand was obviously out of the same passion of yours towards your love when ‘Sir Jesus’ didn’t agree to do a “Done! Done! London” with you. You went onto serving the country as your ancestors, even in the most lethal of them the ‘Bomb disposal squad’. 

Every time you stepped towards the bomb without a safety jacket, I was afraid yet believed that you aren’t going to give up so easily over your love. It wasn’t love that made you live through hundreds of bombs, but it was you who lived to love, you always loved Meera, but it was your time of being loved with the same amount as of your rebellion towards that belief of Meera. 

I must thank Akira who made that charming smile happen all over again after so many years, the Samar who is less tense and more living. When you said to Akira “Mere jaisi matt banna, teri ye mastiya, ye gaaliyan kho gayi to iss duniya ka bohot nuksaan ho jayega,” I felt that sudden amount of loss we all suffered after losing the Samar who used to smile and go out there like a Challa to conquer the world in disguise. 

Truly, it’s hard to find a lover like you but you know what’s impossible? It is to be a lover like you.

I just can’t stop admiring you from the day I first saw you, it may seem we know so much about you, but yet there is a depth of you, the depth that sings itself out saying “Challe Tu sab da, Challe tera koi nai”. 

I recently bought a guitar like the one you played while singing songs all over London, and all I wish is to sing “Challa” while being the Challa like you. You are like the Thames to London, if London does not have you flowing through itself, it’s less living. You’re like a new festival every day, celebrated enough but yet left with more happiness and joy to be celebrated. 

At last all I want is to sing a couple of lines from your own song for you

“naa vásl hóyà kadí, naa riyaàhi hoóyí,

ishq the qaidi ti, naa riyaàí hoóyí”

[We never met, neither we got separated

but the bond of love, remains invincible]

With that, I will keep admiring you for the rest of my life, Jab tak hai jaan, jab tak hai jaan, jab tak hai jaan!!

With the love that I learnt from you,

A Challa in the making