Day 95: Why we Love Geet from Jab We Met

The 100 Day Writing Project

As I danced on a Jab We Met song for my morning online Zumba class, I jumped around excitedly, going into full Geet mode, making eyes at, well, the wall but in those few minutes I was the colourful Geet we all loved seeing on screen. I actually felt bubbly, chirpy and happy.

It got me thinking as to why we as an audience are so attracted to these bubbly characters. Not only Geet but so many other female characters (pretty much all of Kajol and Preity Zinta) have always found a special place in our hearts. And why only bubbly, every strong, fierce female character-be it the Chak De! India girls, Sulu of Tumhari Sulu, English Vinglish, the Mangalyaan female scientists or the Dangal duo-any story with a strong female lead has our hearts soaring seeing them win and succeed.

It often makes me think why? And always only one answer pops up-we aspire to be like these women-strong, independent, successful and always speaking their minds(oh how I envy them). We see ourselves in their struggles, in their aspirations. The representation we see of daily life on screen and how they overcome it gives us hope as well-if they can do it so can we. In feeling these feelings, two things happen-first the film makers idea has has translated well on screen and secondly it is kind of pathetic on the audience’s part to lap up what they feed us after being the reason for this patriarchal society and also because so many women hurt because of it, knowing for sure that it could have been them had society not run over their dreams with their expectations.

Yet, those three hours make the audience live vicariously through those strong characters and therein lies the reason why we love Jab We Met and Geet so much