It gave us Abhay Deol and Ayesha Takia, and we will always be grateful for that.
Bollywood has not portrayed another female character like her ever since. She has no qualms in marrying the boy her family would choose for her, but she also decides to enjoy the last few days of her 'freedom' by going to Goa with Viren and his friends. She is grateful to her aunt and uncle for raising her. She has a mind of her own, and exercises her decisions with quiet firmness. She is not the quintessential virtuous female character who never lies, and refrains from talking to people her family warned her against. Quiet, restrained, but quick-witted, Aditi will always be counted as perhaps the most real female protagonist there was. She was what we wanted to be perhaps, or even meet. The incessant chatter, the rare naivete in a female character was new, and we immediately fell in love with her. One might argue that Geet is Ali's most memorable female character, and perhaps she is. Viren stares, as dumbfounded as us, and cheekily admits it was the most weird situation he had ever been in. When an outrageous situation does arise, the background music does not soar. In fact, Ali infused a rare kind of humour in it, and the same is reflected in the way people conversed. haan toh dekh le," followed, with no one moving a limb. People in the film fought like we do in real life, that is to say, by making empty threats. Families fought, but no guns were taken out, and no death threats were made. This is what happens in the first 15 minutes of the film, and anybody who has watched enough Bollywood films can tell you the serious potential it has for some teeth-grinding melodrama. Things go awry between the families, and each calls out the other. The girl and the boy decide against it, and the boy graciously takes it upon himself to 'reject' the marriage. Two reputed families meet with the hope of a prospective marriage. People spoke and fought like normal people. And it is this that makes the story so real. This was the courtship period, albeit unofficial, that Bollywood never cared to show before. During the course of the film they keep on meeting, and discovering things about each other that only reaffirm their belief. And this is what Ali explores, and does a great job at it.Īditi and Viren meet to keep their families happy, but their first encounter also tells them they are in fact extremely compatible for each other. It can be mutual, non-problematic, and as fulfilling as a love marriage. But notwithstanding these, the idea of arranged marriages is not intrinsically regressive. And his arguments do make a lot of sense. Viren, the character essayed by Abhay Deol, critiques the idea of an arranged marriage saying that it is in fact regressive to expect individuals to make up their minds about their future in a couple of hours.
But in this film, everyone was perfectly fine with the relationship, except the protagonists. Much of the drama in love stories was triggered by the respective family's refusal to accept the relationship. In fact they meet because their parents wanted them to get married. Though the boy and the girl meet fairly early in the film, it is not a typical boy meets girl love story. Source: mage source The film had an acceptable take on arranged marriages. Coming at a time when melodrama was still an acceptable concept in Hindi films, Socha Na Tha was a refreshing take on romance, and in many ways paved the way for the unconventional love stories we are so accustomed to watching these days. Though the film did not do great business, it has, over the years, succeeded in making a place of its own. That Ali has time and again recycled this familiar trope demands a separate debate, but undeniably it all started in 2005, with a film called Socha Na Tha. They were real characters, those that we find in our homes and localities, and their stories immediately struck a chord. His women were not second fiddles, nor were his male characters flaunting their valiance at the drop of a hat. His characters were not wooden or unidirectional. Rather, they embark on a journey together, and the tribulations that follow help them realise how they feel for each other.Īli was departing from a familiar Bollywood trope, and was doing a fine job at it. The leads do not fall for each other the first time they meet. The character of Geet was perhaps the most amusing protagonist we had seen so far, and the story, with all its confusion and chaos, redefined love in many ways. Jab We Met released in 2007 and made Imtiaz Ali a household name.