I believe in protecting good things. Good things are sacred, and the excess exposure might ruin the experience. I may have read Harry Potter a gazillion times, but it won’t ever be like the first time. But you can keep revisiting a seven-series book and never have enough. You can’t do it for a 2-hour-long film. You can’t do it for Anand, because that is how special it is for me.

I have not watched Anand a lot of times. Three or four times, perhaps. But that film has stayed with me ever since I first watched it. No, it’s not just about the performances or that one couldn’t endear Anand enough or that the dialogues were too powerful or that the songs were too heart-touching…it’s all and more at once.

The moment Rajesh Khanna enters as Anand, he begins healing a part of you that you didn’t know was wounded. There’s magic about him and his conviction to live that is rare. Albeit enchanted by Anand, I found myself relating to Amitabh Bachchan as Dr. Bhaskar Banerjee more. He’s a practical man who is disillusioned by life upon seeing the pain and suffering that enveloped his world. Like everyone else, Anand moves him. He’s taken to care for him like a family member, and often feels irked at his nonchalant attitude towards his inevitable death.

Often you learn the importance of something when you lose it. Now that can’t happen with life because you won’t exist to have any sense perception, to begin with. But when you know you’re about to die, and you can see and feel death eating you up day by day, does that rekindle your desire to live or make you utterly hopeless?

We’re all so overwhelmed by our daily conflicts that often we forget to take account of one thing that matters. Life. We forget to live. Reason? Well, work feels stagnant, managers are unempathetic, parents are aging, friend circle is depleting, relationship is withering, and nothing seems to be working out. Soon, years turn into fleeting numbers, and a moment of epiphany arrives. We’re not really living as much as we’re operating life. Anand was dying and he made me want to live.

We often – unconsciously – link the act of living life with existing, when the truth is the two are exceedingly different. You see, Anand was actually living. Be it through a walk by the beach, by striking random conversations with strangers, or by making his loved ones feel validated. He lived for love, and he aroused emotion even in people who did not know he was dying, so we can’t confuse it with sympathy.

I think, many a time, we take simple things for granted. A glass of water can bring you at ease. A simple walk can make life’s chaos appear light. There’s peace in the sound of waves crashing at the beach. There’s beauty in exchanging pleasant smiles with strangers. The starry sky can be very serene. The solitude in the mountains can be life-changing. We forget to take note of these little things because they’re not gonna go away, right? But what goes away is life.

I think that’s one thing Anand sensitized me about. To take it chill, to be easy on myself, to live, and most importantly, to live for love because that’s what makes life worthwhile, otherwise, it’s all a deep frustrating mess.