Ten years of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, real-life road trip through Spain, and friendship on a journey

Movies and shows, old and new, have helped us to live vicariously through them. They have allowed us to travel far and wide at a time borders are shut and people are restricted to homes. In our new column What's In A Setting, we explore the inseparable association of a story with its setting, how the location complements the narrative, and how these cultural windows to the world have helped broaden our imagination.

*

Three friends embark on a road trip through Spain for one last hurrah ahead of a significant change in one of their lives. The year is 2016. The trio in question consists of my two friends and I, as we set off on our very own Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara-inspired trip, looking to be the heroes of our own road movie. Sans the slick soundtrack, Tomatina, and abs. So many abs.

As today, 15 July, marks the 10-year anniversary of Zoya Akhtar’s beloved buddy road movie, and the five-year anniversary of our own trip through Spain, it felt like the right time to revisit the enduring impact of both.

In Zoya’s warm, feel-good ode to male friendships, the inciting incident is Kabir (Abhay Deol) mistakenly proposing to his girlfriend Natasha (Kalki Koechlin), leading to him going on a bachelor trip with childhood friends Imraan (Farhan Akhtar) and London-based banker Arjun (Hrithik Roshan) to fulfill a pact they made years ago. In our case, the impending life change was, curiously enough, me leaving my London banking job to move to Mumbai to follow my dream of becoming a film critic. A far less riveting and more cliched story, granted, but it was mine.

In the spirit of finding further parallels, our trio also had a member named Arjun, and to round it off, the third in our group does give off clear Kabir-like energy as the level-headed heart of the group. For both the Kabir of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and me, hitting the road with our people was about saying farewell — him to the final days of singlehood, me to my friends and my life as I knew it, as I set off in search of a new one.

In the film, they call themselves The Three Musketeers. Our group didn’t have a name as such, but our WhatsApp group has us labelled ‘The Dolphin Bros’ (What? Like the WhatsApp group name of your closest friends is any less ridiculous?). The bountiful wisdom of the internet informed us that we weren't the first group who aspired to be clichés and do the ZNMD road trip, with multiple blogs laying out the entire route along with various hints and hacks. The key difference being that it isn’t entirely possible to follow Kabir, Imraan, and Arjun’s exact route, as the film understandably chose the sexiest Spanish locations for maximum movie magic, not all of which can be hit in a linear fashion. (For example the San Fermin Running Of The Bulls in Pamplona and the Tomatina Festival in Bunol take place at different times in the year).

The onscreen Musketeers did Barcelona followed by Costa Brava and Seville (with Bunol on the way for 'Paint It Red' purposes), ending at Pamplona’s famed bull run. We did Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, and Seville ending in Madrid. They had three weeks, we had one. They had Bagwati, we had Maria, the white BMW hatchback that served as our travel companion. Cue douchey bags.

Road movies are as much about characters taking an inward journey as they are about travelling through a place. On screen, the life lessons and revelations tend to be more neat and clear cut as compared to the all-over-the-place-ness of real life. Challenges are overcome, buried issues confronted, and personal demons battled, all across a handful of scenes and moments.

In Costa Brava, when the trio go scuba diving, in one of the most affecting moments of the film, a teary-eyed Arjun confronts his fears of the deep. With the help of Katrina Kaif’s charming diving instructor Laila, he starts to see the possibility of a life beyond the rat race. In Bunol, the unexpected arrival of a jealousy-fuelled Natasha begins to confirm Kabir’s fears, as he starts to see the cracks in a commitment he was never ready for. In Seville, Imraan is forced to come to terms with the painful truth about a father who never wanted him (a perfectly cast Naseeruddin Shah).

Whereas the three of us (four if you include Maria), underwent no such dramatic transformations. One road trip doesn’t solve all, and significant revelations don’t magically present themselves. But reel or real, the core essence of a journey like that remains the same — hitting the road with your people and temporarily distancing yourself from life to gain perspective and come back to, hopefully, do it better.

Beyond that, the magic of a road trip lies in the sheer amount of life you encounter and take in over a fleeting few days, far beyond the typical template tourist trips. It’s the beauty within the blur of passing through places more than the places themselves. It’s negotiating playlists and the views you won't find on a brochure.

It’s the charm of the small bars and quiet afternoons of Cordoba. It’s the unplanned night in Granada. It’s that breathtaking restaurant in Seville. It’s drinking on the beach at night in Valencia. It’s the freedom and discovery of the open road.

I’d argue it’s the only way to experience a country in a short span of time and, I believe, one of the best ways to experience yourselves and each other. Always in motion, always together. Cue another douchey boy band picture.

In the movie, each of the three Musketeers choose an activity for the group, consisting of scuba diving, skydiving, and culminating in the cathartic bull run that closes the film. On our ZNMD-lite trip, we opted for skydiving alone. It’s an experience I’ll never forget. Not because of the jumping-out-of-a-plane-thousands-of-feet-in-the-air part, but because of what came before it. After much research, we found a skydiving place on our route. On the day, as soon as we arrived at the big open hangar, something felt distinctly... familiar.

I’d seen this place before. I’d been here. A brief interrogation of our instructor confirmed my suspicions. I asked him if a Bollywood movie had been shot here some years earlier and his face lit up, as he took us to his office and showed us all the pictures of the shoot. And yes, in hindsight, it’s not that shockingly improbable that this was the very same place from the movie, but to this day, I maintain that it was nothing short of a movie miracle.

The skydiving itself? Far less enjoyable. Somehow being strapped to a dude and falling to earth is far less comfortable than you might imagine. Still cool though. Cue picture of us dressed as sky clowns.

What the movies give you that life doesn’t is a happy ending of sorts. Kabir doesn't go through with the marriage, Arjun reorients his life, finds freedom, and marries Laila, and Imraan moves past his daddy issues and gives his friend the long overdue apology he deserves. But what real life does give you that the movies don’t is an answer to the question — where are they now?

Five years later, my (spiritual) Kabir is engaged. My Arjun is getting married next month. Life continues to happen apart, but we’re still in it together. As for me, like Hrithik Roshan’s Arjun who left behind the corporate world in search of satisfaction and meaning, five years on, I’d like to think it worked out. For the both of us.

Read more from our What's in a Setting series here.