As Kareena Kapoor Khan and Shahid Kapoor recently interacted at an event and took the internet by storm, they reminded me of their amazing chemistry in the movie we all love.
The movie ‘Jab We Met’ was released in 2007 and became a massive hit. It has achieved cult status and has become a source of comfort for many. It has great acting and music and is shot at scenic locations. Like other Imtiaz Ali films, it has travel as the backdrop. It’s considered a love story, but I entirely disagree with it. It’s not a love story to me. And I will tell you why.
It’s a story about Geet and Aditya. Geet is on her way to her parents’ place and takes a train to get there. Aditya randomly gets on the same train, and they are seated across from each other. He has got a lot on his mind, and a random woman chattering about her life puts him off. He walks towards the door of the moving train, lost in his thoughts. He seems to be contemplating suicide, as his personal and professional life are in shambles, when she interrupts him and inadvertently ends up changing the trajectory of his life and hers.
He gets off the train at night at a random station, and she gets off after him. A lot of the mishaps that follow lead them to spend a lot of time with one another. They couldn’t be more different. Geet is someone who is in love with herself, full of life, and lives in the present. Aditya is serious and practical, and is currently in a space where he wants to run away from his life and his emotions. They stand at opposite ends of a spectrum: he operating entirely out of his head and she from her heart.
In the first half of the movie, she holds a mirror to him, showing him all the areas of his life he is trying to avoid. Firstly, she shows him how to process emotions. A concept foreign to him. She makes him burn a picture of his ex-girlfriend, which he thinks is totally ridiculous, but it does make him feel better.
Secondly, she shows him how to live in the moment. Sometimes, when people are stressed and overthink their problems, they tend to forget about making the most of the present. As she is someone who lives life to her fullest, in the middle of a serious discussion, she coerces him to jump into a water stream. He is reluctant at first, but ends up enjoying it. It’s usually the simplest unplanned things that bring us joy.
Thirdly, she encourages him to pursue his passion for music, which he thinks isn’t realistic for ‘practical reasons’.
And lastly, she presents a perspective about his mother’s love life which he initially rejects, of course.
Sometime in their journey, she talks about her relationship with Anshuman and her plans to marry him. As she knows her parents won’t agree to her marriage, she decides to run away. When Aditya realizes that she hasn’t informed Anshuman about her plans to run away, it worries Aditya. He cannot fathom how one can operate and make decisions just from an emotional space without any regard to practicality. She convinces him of her decision, and they travel together to Manali. They go their separate ways once they reach their destination: he heads to Mumbai, and she heads to see Anshuman.
He comes back home with a new zeal for life and faces things head-on. He starts to work on himself and accomplishes lots of things in the next couple of months. He lets go of the pressure of living under his father’s shadow, accepts and respects his mother’s personal choices, learns to separate his personal and professional feelings for his mother, and truly accepts the musician in him. In life, we may or may not be able to pursue our hobbies as our careers, but nurturing them truly makes us alive.
He also accepts his feelings for Geet and knows she doesn’t reciprocate his feelings. He is in love with her without holding on to the need to be with her.
When Geet’s family arrives at Aditya’s office after 9 months of her not talking to them, he goes out looking for her. He finds her in Shimla, but she now remains a shell of what she used to be.
They reconnect, and she fills him in on the details of her life since they last met. Anshuman’s rejection. Her trying to convince him to be together repeatedly. Geet’s attachment to the outcome of being with Anshuman and her inability to let go cause her tremendous pain. She loses her light and spark.
Aditya then holds space for her to then finally work through her pent-up emotions and offers emotional support. He can do that as his cup of self-love is overflowing, which allows him to provide support to her in her time of need. He also nudges her to acknowledge her hurt feelings and to express them to Anshuman.
Aditya reaches a space where he truly accepts his love for her, but remains detached from the outcome of being with her. So even when Anshuman and Geet decide to get back together, Aditya surrenders her from a space of gratitude, accepting that meeting her changed his life for good, and his life would be okay irrespective of her being in it. She then realizes her true feelings for Aditya.
They both reach from the opposite ends of the spectrum to its center. She gets there by replacing her naivety with wisdom, bringing her head along with her heart. And he replaces the block in his heart with lightness and a sense of ease for his emotions, hence bringing his heart along with his head. Reaching a point of perfect balance within themselves. She is a yin to his yang.
They finally become two people who know how to love themselves and, hence, are open to receiving love. This movie, to me, is not a love story. It’s a story about two people meeting each other, going on an individual journey of self-love, and then finding their way back to each other as they are finally at the same frequency.
The ending is the actual start of their love story!