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Dear Zindagi (Life): With Love, from the Healing Self
- Priyanka Gupta
- 6 minutes ago
- 6 min read
"A very old friend of my grandfather’s … Pyarelalji got the chance to climb Mt. Everest with a Chinese trekking expedition group … Pyarelalji paced ahead of the group with much enthusiasm, while the Chinese people kept waving from behind and shouting, ‘Don’t go ahead!’ … He thought they were cheering him … Suddenly, Pyarelalji saw a growling snow leopard … he started waving his hands frantically and shouting ‘Help! Help!’ but the Chinese people thought he was just happy … Then the snow leopard ate up poor Pyarelalji.”
Dr. Jug, Dear Zindagi
In an unconventional take on Selfhood and healing in Indian cinema, the 2016 film Dear Zindagi (meaning “Dear Life”) opens up a space for modern viewers to engage in a softer foray into the inner vulnerabilities, insecurities, and emotional struggles alchemical in finding oneself, much like the archetypal healing journey. This is explored through Kaira’s (played by actress Alia Bhatt) journey of inner discovery as she begins therapy with Dr. Jehangir Khan (played by actor Shah Rhuk Khan), fondly known as Dr. Jug, a nontraditional and insightful therapist (a contemporary take on the Healer archetype), set in the serene backdrop of Goa, India.
Masks off, Self in: Beginning the healing journey
In her first therapy session, Kaira is seen struggling to open up and finding it hard to accept that she is seeking therapy. Dr. Jug, through his weirdly humorous and tragic story of Mr. Pyarelalji in the epigraph above, tries to put her worries at ease. Making a safe space for her to begin her healing journey, he confronts her truth. Every therapeutic beginning is symbolic of an archetypal hero’s initiation into the abyss of the Self, as put forth by Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It is a journey to the psychic gold, attained by getting through the illusions and our farce possessions, towards inner expansive peace—the wise grace to an enlightened consciousness. Dr. Jug encourages her to understand that the journey begins with self compassion, rather than being harsh and critical. This embarks the tending to the relationship with the Self–indeed the first step in the healing process. To find wisdom in acceptance of one’s broken pieces, fragmented feelings, pain and unsuccessful choices; to not punish oneself for it or else they will consume from within, just like the snow leopard did; to experience the radiance in preparation, in the process and in being.
Remember my earlier statement that the experience of mystery comes not from expecting it but through yielding all your programs, because your programs are based on fear and desire. Drop them, and the radiance comes.
Once the fear of judgement is dropped in a safe sacred space of therapy, the mysteries of the Self speak, helping the patient to listen to their own bare truths, like Kiara does by acknowledging her emotional struggles of failed romantic relationships and the loss of a major professional opportunity due to it. She finally accepts her own struggles that she was initially sharing as of her friend’s, a narrative she spun to share with Dr. Jug in embarrassment. She slowly opens herself to the “radiance” of the path to restoration. Being in the presence of the woundedness first, to relieve the pain, to be free of the fears that block the inner light, Kaira starts by owning her own.
Alchemical selves coniunctio: the Healer as rite to Self
Jung, in Modern Man in Search of a Soul, relates how a harmonious communication between two selves (the mirrors of the soul) can be transformative, especially of a doctor and a patient. This kind of connection translated into a romantic set-up leaves an indelible mark on the Self, of which the projections, interactions and emotional expressions reveal a lot much about the unconscious awakening (49-50). For Kaira, her romantic breakup to be with another potential partner leads to the failure of this new relationship, too. While she was thriving at work (as a cinematographer, wanting to be a movie director) with her potential partner, she fails to commit to the new relationship, and he finds love elsewhere. This disturbs her immensely, and all goes rough when she loses the big work opportunity and has to move to Goa where she has had bitter memories of her childhood. Her incurable insomnia leads her to Dr. Jug, which is a turning point in her life, the meeting of the alchemical selves.
No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell…
Gold from pain: Woundedness and healing
In context to the evolution in the sacred Self, in the Christ Imago as was explored by Jung, true growth lies in the light, as well as in the shadow. Kaira’s series of unexpected and past emotional curveballs added up to a journey through the dark–the lost ways through which comes new life, the Self. That is the privilege of flowing, exploring and knowing your flow.
When everything is lost,
And all seems darkness,
Then comes the new life
And all that is needed
The Chiron, Dr. Jug: Wounded vision to wholeness.
As Kaira takes an archetypal hero trip (psychic dive) into her Self, encouraged by Dr. Jug, she comes close to her wounds by revisiting her childhood. Engaging in conversations with her parents from whom she had distanced herself. Dr. Jug participates in her journey by sharing his insights on his own emotional downfalls (his divorce and child custody experiences) in life. To give her a glimpse of the natural human trajectory of suffering and its authenticity; revealing his archetypal wounded healer essence. This “inner security” that Dr. Jug gives Kaira through his own woundedness is instrumental for her openness to empathy and alignment through her own disintegrating childhood episodes.
It is his own hurt that gives the measure of his power to heal. This, and nothing else, is the meaning of the Greek myth of the wounded physician.
Transference, an inner communion: Through you, I saw me
Campbell follows Jung on understanding the goal of therapy and the culmination of the last analysis, stating that the concluding realization is aimed at individuation. Individual's attempts at Self, are conceived within and journeyed alone. Kaira tends to her wounds of abandonment by parents as a child through the wisdom of life experiences initiated by Dr. Jug; via complexity, deep trauma with emotional honesty. His efforts to help her reconcile with her parents to attend to her abandonment issues trickling into her romances as well, eventually work well. The result is rather a complicated but positive change in her wanting or desiring a long term relationship with Dr. Jug, expressed as her liking towards him (transference).
true growth lies in the light, as well as in the shadow
Sacred trauma: A gift to the healing Self
This deep awareness of her feelings, wherein the unresolved past plays out in a safe present space, shows a sacred opportunity she chose, to mend and to heal. It rewired her approach to life, and such is the magic of healing (Campbell, Reflections, 74).
MythBlast authored by:
I am Priyanka Gupta, a recent PhD graduate in Psychology with a specialization in Jungian psychology and mythology from the University of Delhi, India (2023). My doctoral thesis explored the hero archetype, delving into the Campbellian structure of the hero's journey through the distinctive prism of Hindu mythology and Native American mythology. As a researcher, I am captivated by the interplay of the meaning of symbols, life, and religions, drawing inspiration and contemplating on the perspectives laid out by Joseph Campbell and prominent Jungian thinkers. Beyond academia and research, I am a writing enthusiast and a passionate painter. My diverse interests converge in a desire to share new perspectives and ideas, propelling me towards a future in teaching and knowledge.
This MythBlast was inspired by Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine and the archetype of The Healer.
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This Week's Highlights
"The experience of mystery comes not from expecting it but through yielding all your programs, because your programs are based on fear and desire. Drop them, and the radiance comes."
-- Joseph Campbell
Thou Art That, 16