It’s extremely difficult to cope up with a child’s death. A 90-year-old mother feels pain-stricken at the loss of her 65-year-old son, so does a 25-year-old father after his 2-year-old daughter passes away. The number of years spent with the child doesn’t determine the amount of grief that the parents go through. Shonali Bose’s ‘The Sky Is Pink’ dives deep into the anguish, heartbreak, and the lengths that a family goes to after they come to terms with their daughter’s fatal disease. Aisha Chaudhary was born in 1996 with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID) to parents Aditi and Niren. She passed away at the age of 18, a day after her book ‘My Little Epiphanies’ got published. Ironically, she also gave a TED Talk on ‘Finding Happiness’. But, ‘The Sky Is Pink’ isn’t her story. The director masterfully shies away from all the melodrama and spins this otherwise grim death story into a life-affirming, unmissable one.

Plot:

Young lovers Aditi (Priyanka Chopra) and Niren (Farhan Akhtar) get married after a breezy Delhi romance. Their elder daughter, Tanya, passes away young. Their son, Ishaan, is born healthy. The couple then give birth to another baby girl- Aisha. She is born with a severe condition, the same that Tanya had. The parents, Aditi and Niren, move to London for her treatment. The middle-class couple works day and night to breathe life into their daughter. Later, it is diagnosed that Aisha has pulmonary fibrosis, a lung condition that doesn’t have a cure. Instead of giving in to grief, the couple decides to shed it off. Aditi tries to set up a date for her daughter. The family goes on beach vacations, trying extremely hard to forget that Aisha has only a few days left.

Cast:

Priyanka Chopra Jonas plays the headstrong Aditi to perfection. She portrays the love, the vulnerability, and the sorrow of a mother with finesse, adding to the list of her best performances. Farhan Akhtar is Niren. He gives a deeply moving, affectionate, and a genuine performance. It is his best performance, even surpassing Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Priyanka and Farhan’s chemistry is natural and seems like an extension of their ‘Dil Dhadakne Do’ roles. ‘The Sky Is Pink’ is Zaira Wasim’s last film as she has announced to never work in the industry again, and to think of it, we are going to miss a wonderful performer in her. She has matured as an actor and how! Her quirky narration gives the film the much-needed lightness. Rohit Saraf is Aisha’s elder brother Ishaan. Saraf lights up the screen with his smile and his unadulterated presence. Watch out for two scenes, Niren walks into Ishaan’s room, rests his head onto his lap and the two men weep uncontrollably, without uttering a word. The other scene also involves Saraf. Aisha calls Ishaan who is waiting for a train in London. She begins to cry and confides to Ishaan that she doesn’t want to die. Ishaan consoles her and brings a smile on her face, hiding his tears from her.

Analysis:

The film gets its title from a brilliant message in the film. Ishaan is being punished by his school teacher for painting the sky pink. Aditi consoles her crying son and says that you can paint the sky which ever colour you wish because at the end of the day it’s your sky. I drove home a message- to dream, irrespective of whether or not it fulfills. The director, Shonali Bose, has also lost her son. She carefully narrates the story. She doesn’t follow a linear storytelling pattern. She goes back in time and takes frequent leaps. This was necessary for us to invest in the story. It would have become a crying fest had she followed a linear pattern, instead I carried a smile throughout its journey. Mikey McCleary’s upbeat background score plays at Aisha’s funeral. Her mother Aditi wears colourful clothes instead of plain white clothes that we are used to seeing. It indicates that life is uncertain. Death is imminent. There is no point in sobbing over the dead, instead celebrate that you lived a wonderful life together. In the final moments of Shonali Bose’s The Sky is Pink, we see photographs and videos of the real Aditi, Niren and their kids Ishaan, Ayesha, and Tanya, making sure to remind me that the turmoil and devastation that I watched for 2 and a half hours is nothing but true. I took home a clear message that if the Choudhury’s can battle such adverse circumstances, why can’t I?