The year is 2007 and three blockbuster movies—Taare Zameen Par, Chak De! India and *Jab We Met—*have released one after the other. Aamir Khan’s Taare Zameen Par wants to remind you that maybe, just maybe, the kids aren’t alright, while Shah Rukh Khan’s Chak De India would like to bring to your attention that hey, hockey can be just as cool as cricket. And then, along comes Jab We Met, blasting in like fresh Manali air in the fatigued world of romcoms. It was the dawn of a new morning, the start of an enduring love-conquers-all romance… between director Imtiaz Ali and the manic pixie dream girl archetype.
Browse through his folio over the next decade, and you’ll find that the renowned auteur is a serial offender of the “bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful, young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures,” as penned by film critic Nathan Rabin. The premise of Jab We Met is rather straightforward: Aditya Kashyap, a heartbroken tycoon, aimlessly boards a train after attending his ex-girlfriend's wedding. On board, he meets Geet Kaur Dhillon, a spontaneous, effervescent girl who plans to elope with her lover, and gets pulled into her rollercoaster life, gradually falling in love with her as she shows him an alternate, more fulfilling way of living (of course). But today, would Geet’s optimism-on-steroids personality complement Aditya’s stoic silence as lovingly as Ali’s commitment to outdated character tropes? Would Geet cryptically relocate to a convent school in Shimla every time he forgot it was his turn to take out the trash? Would Aditya be reduced to working the front desk at sleazoid hotels in Ratlam because Geet blew up his family fortune on NFTs of vintage Bollywood posters? We asked a psychologist to take a closer look at their relationship, and here’s what we learned.
“Movies can often tell you that opposites attract and that your partner can fill up the deficiencies in your life, but very often, that doesn’t happen,” observes Mumbai-based psychologist Aanchal Narang. “Geet would take decisions without fully comprehending the consequences, while Aditya would be seen as a buzzkill for advising caution, leading to friction in the fabric of their relationship,” she opines.
The fact that Geet's life revolved around Anshuman for the longest time doesn’t bode good news either. “Co-dependent people often jump from one relationship to the other, making the other person the centre of their life to the point that they can’t exist without them. This is generally observed in people who come from toxic families, which is why they try to find the centre of their life on the outside,” the psychologist explains. In this case, since Geet and Aditya both appear to be co-dependent, Narang believes that they could eventually develop resentment or drift away with someone who appears better off and doesn’t have these conflicts, making that person the centre of their life instead.
Success rate: 40% chance that Aditya’s anniversary gift to himself would be military-grade noise cancellation earphones to escape his wife's relentless YOLO monologue and tickets for a scenic train ride in Manali for Geet—solo.
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I don't know who needs to hear this, but you will 100% move on from your ex
