Geet: The Girl a Nation Loved

 

Till today, even after complex heart-wrenching movies like Tamasha, Jab We Met, the funny and endearing romance remains Imitiaz Ali's best work. Most of the credit for the insane popular appeal of the movie goes to our favorite sikhni from Bhatinda Geet Dhillon.  When the movie released in 2007. Geet was all everyone could talk about. The clothes she wore became a fashion statement, her hook steps a regular in every sangeet. After a long time in Indian Cinema, a female character enjoyed the love and adoration of the entire country. 

Geet Dhillon was not the kind of woman, you'd expect Indian audiences to like. She spoke too much to even accidentally come across as shy, swore like a sailor, talked incessantly about herself to strange men she met on trains, and most importantly, she put herself first. She was as diametrically opposed to the concept of a "good girl" in India as one could be. She also commits the greatest sin, a woman can in a Bollywood movie ie love someone other than the hero of the movie.

Most of the time in Indian cinema, we are told that the girl rejecting our Hero is doing one of two things:

• Saying No when she means Yes. (Uski na mein uski Han hai.) - In this case, the Hero just needs to stalk her some more, maybe hire some goons to fake assault her or ask for her hand in marriage from her father.
• Being an Ungrateful person. (not exactly the word people would use.) How can she not fall for her Hero? He has been so nice to her? He took her back home safely, he did this,he did that blah blah blah. Indian audiences have always been led to believe that women owe men who are nice to them, a relationship.

Geet Dhillon doesn't love our Hero, because she chose someone else over him. She rejects him and he actually accepts. He helps us elope from her house, accepts her rejection, and moves on with his life. This is very uncharacteristic of a Bollywood hero. But, Geet's character makes it look natural and realistic.

With her iconic line "Main Apni Favourite Hoon", Geet taught us self-love before it was cool. She taught all the young girls across the country, that it was okay for them to be a little selfish. Even with all these great qualities, Geet could easily have turned out to become a regular Manic Pixie Dream Girl. As Nathan Rabin describes it, the MPDG is "that 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." But, Imitiaz Ali inverted this trope even before it became one.  Although our bubbly girl does help our broody guy live a little more, the story doesn't end there. Geet is not a one-dimensional character that exists to move Aditya's story forward. The story is as much hers as it is his. While most people love Geet for her larger-than-life personality, it is the second half of her character that makes her so endearing to me.

She is scared, broken, and lonely. She fell in love with the wrong person and suffered and is now a changed person. This pain and growth make her character feel human and you can't help but fall in love with her. When Geet is discovered by Aditya in the second half of the movie, she is a shell of the person, she once was. The realities of life have hit her hard and she has lost the naivety she once possessed. This the moment at which, she truly becomes relatable. 

Imitiaz Ali through Geet tells us that with our immense freedom to make our own choices, come a lot of consequences. The way Geet slowly recovers and bounces back is an excellent example of bouncing back from seemingly life-ruining mistakes and start again. The Geet we see in the second half is less carefree than her previous self and it is a good thing. While instincts are powerful, sometimes they do and will fail us. This doesn't mean we should stop listening to them. It just means that we need to fail.

Geet Dhillon is one of the most human characters I have seen in Indian cinema, who is allowed to exist in her own skin, make mistakes, take her own decisions, and when her choices go wrong, pay terribly for them. We see her laugh, cry, swear, dance, love, and grow. And with her, we do too.

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