Pak Tea House

posted by Soniah Kamal

‘Jab We Met’ (2007) is a prime example of an Indian movie meshing traditional and modern India in its characters but coming off confused. Poor little rich boy Aditya (played perfectly by Shahid Kapoor) and madcap Geet (Kareena Kapoor) meet on a train, the singular motif in the movie and, as such, one which hinges on all the usual cliches: life equals train tracks, decisions equal getting on or off trains and, most banal, because Geet keeps missing her trains she and Aditya are thrown together on a journey which will eventually lead to their…but let me not spoil the hackneyed ending.

Karina plays quite well the scatterbrained, chatterbox if slightly irritating Geet, a girl so full of life her words bubble over, her laugh is a nervous titter, and she sees good in everything and everyone even a stranger yelling at her to shut up, which is what Aditya does the first time he and Geet meet. Soon, however, Geet realizes that there are some lemons even she cannot make lemonade out of, and suddenly Geet goes from bubbly to morose, an emotional condition which is tritely symbolized by her dress. A bubbly Geet wears short sleeve shirts and tight jeans (in fact her old world grandfather wonders aloud that if Geet can dress like this at home then in Mumbai she’s probably roaming around naked), while a depressed Geet appears in shalwars and long sleeved shapeless kurtas draped with dupattas, her hair tied back and her gaze always turned down. So a happy girl dresses Western (Indian-modern?) and an unhappy girl dresses Eastern (Indian-traditional)?

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