Why Rockstar Still Hurts and Heals Me.

25-Oct-2026

Why Rockstar Still Hurts and Heals Me.

I am twenty three and I have watched Rockstar more times than I will admit to my friends. Every time I come out of it feeling like someone has opened a window inside my chest.

Rockstar is not a perfect film. The timeline jumps around and the second half drags in places. Some people say Heer is written as a woman who exists only to break a man into an artist. I understand that criticism and I think it has weight. But the film was never trying to be neat. It is about a boy who believes he cannot make real art until his heart is shattered. Many of us have quietly believed some version of that. Imtiaz Ali takes that idea and lets it bleed on screen without apologising for it.

Imtiaz Ali is the reason I trust Indian cinema about love. He does not write romance as a sweet little destination. He writes it as a journey full of wrong turns and wrong timing and the wrong person arriving at the right moment. His characters run away from home or from themselves or toward someone who cannot hold them. Rockstar is his rawest version of this. It feels less like a story and more like a confession.

Then there is Ranbir Kapoor. Before this film I saw him as a charming star with good hair. Rockstar changed that for me. As Janardhan who slowly becomes Jordan he plays awkwardness and hunger and rage and heartbreak without ever looking like he is performing. Watch the early college scenes and then watch the later ones when he is numb and famous and empty. It is the same body but a different person. The scenes where he simply cannot express what he feels are the ones that wreck me. This is the performance of his career and I have not seen him match it since.

Now to Katiya Karun. A.R. Rahman and Irshad Kamil gave this film a soul and this song is one of its quieter miracles. It does not announce itself like Sadda Haq or Kun Faya Kun. It has a folk earthiness and a restless pulse that sounds like a heart that cannot sit still. When I first heard it I was in my room late at night and I remember going silent. It sounds like longing in motion. It reminds me that not all pain needs a big stage. Sometimes it is just a feeling that keeps spinning in your head and your feet and your breath.

That is what Rahman does best. He builds music that feels older than the film and bigger than the scene. Katiya Karun works because it never tries too hard. It just lets the ache breathe.

What Rockstar taught me is simple. It taught me that heartbreak can make you honest but it should not be the only teacher you have. Jordan found his voice through pain and the film makes that look beautiful. But it also shows what that cost him and everyone around him. At twenty three I feel both sides of that. I want to create things that matter. I also want to be happy.

Rockstar is flawed and messy and a little self indulgent. It is also one of the few films that made me feel understood. Give it a watch with headphones on and the lights off. Let Katiya Karun play. Then sit with whatever comes up.

-Devangshu Purohit

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