Jab Tak Hai Jaan received positive to mixed reactions from critics
and opened well at the box office. Various websites have also opined that the
film might have drawn some inspiration from the Graham Greene novel The
End of the Affair.[12][13][14] Box office website Box
Office Indiadeclared it as a "superhit" in India and a
"blockbuster" overseas.[15][16]
Plot
The film begins with Samar Anand (Shahrukh Khan) a major from the Indian Army, defusing a bomb. After a while, Akira Rai (Anushka Sharma), a Discovery Channel intern, dives in a cold river in Ladakh because
of a bet. As soon as she got into the river, she felt so cold that she started
drowning and cried for help. Samar saves her and gave his jacket to warm her.
Akira, offended by his late reaction, starts yelling at him. After reaching her
hotel, she finds out a diary which falls from the jacket's pocket. Curious, she
starts reading it.
Samar, aged 28, was a struggling immigrant in London,
working as a street musician and a seafood seller. He was offered a job to be a
part-time waiter in a hotel, which he accepted. One day, he meets Meera (Katrina Kaif) in her engagement party taking place at his
hotel. Meera believed that giving up something she loves is the only way to ask
for a favour. In exchange for some English lessons, Samar agreed to teach Meera
a Punjabi song. In the process, Samar fell in love with Meera. Samar helped
Meera get out of her shell & also in resolving her issues with her mother
which made Meera reciprocate his feelings. On the day when Meera was going to
tell her father about their relationship, Samar is hit by a car and goes
unconscious. Meera starts praying to God to save Samar and makes a vow to never
meet him again. Soon, Samar makes a speedy recovery. Samar comes to know about
the vow and in anger, tells her to go away and leaves London,
giving all his money to his roommate. Samar challenges God to keep him alive
while he will risk his life everyday because he believes his death is the only
way to make Meera lose her faith in the deity who stole his love. He goes to
India and gets a job as an army officer posted in Kashmir.
As Akira finishes reading the diary, she requests her
boss to make a documentary about the bomb disposal squad of the Indian Army,
and is granted permission. She approaches Samar and his colleagues for help and
soon gets acquainted with them. She soon starts showing romantic feelings
towards Samar, though he refuses reciprocation due to his past. Akira makes the
film successfully and departs for London, earning her praise from her boss but
to launch it, she needs Samar to come to London. After extensively persuading
an overly hesitant Samar to come with her, he again gets hit by a car and is
diagnosed with Retrograde amnesia,
remembering only the events before his former accident. Akira meets Meera to
help her try and recover Samar's memory, but she is hesitant as Meera is happy
with her own family. Later, it is revealed that Meera never married her fiancé
as she loved Samar too much. Meera pretends to be Samar's wife to recover his
memory and Samar is told that he is the owner of a big restaurant. During this
time, Akira realizes that Major Samar is only a fragment of young Samar who was
a jubilant social man while today's is a lonely bitter individual. Later, he
comes across a bomb and diffuses it, which results in his memory returning and
realising that Meera has been lying to him. Samar gives Meera a condition,
either come along with him or he will keep on risking his life until he is
dead. Samar departs for Kashmir where he continues defusing bombs. During a
conversation with Akira, Meera realizes that her beliefs and prayers subjected
Samar to a fate worse than death. Meera, realising her mistake, travels to
Kashmir where they reunite, while Akira is shown addressing an audience in
London, stating how Samar will be defusing his last bomb in India because there
is a time for love, and the time for Samar and Meera's love is now.
