I was glad to see there was no compromise in that respect. The locations, lavish as they are lend a flavour to the screenplay. For Jai, marriage is not something to be taken seriously, but he realizes the importance of commitment through his own weaknesses and stupidity. The male protagonists by nature are shown similar however their mindsets are as opposite as the past and present. As we see Jai laughing at this very thought, I could not help noticing how everyone (including me) guffawed at the emotional lines, which emphasized the way a relationship is viewed today. A time when love meant revolution, and sacrifice.

Parallel to this story, Imtiaz also introduces the same scenario as it played out some 30 years back in the form of Veer Singh (Rishi Kapoor). It is only when circumstances force them to take decisions that they start realizing a sense of loss. In their respective spaces, they are most comfortable and keep tabs on each other. Quite practically, they say the relationship won’t last. They separate mutually when their respective careers take them to different shores. The young couple goes by common logic, which says that even in a relationship one should ‘Live and let live’, a thought accentuated by Jai’s pickup line: “Dekho main pile on nahi karna chahta”. Some years and a hugely successful hit later, Imtiaz Ali has revisited Viren and Aditi in their more stylish versions Jai (Saif Ali Khan) and Meera (Deepika Padukone). Yet the protagonists in that movie seemed strangely understandable over time, and the essence of the film lay within the eccentricities of those characters.

I had to actually see it a few more times to catch if I missed anything, and am still not totally sure. But here were some characters that seemed normal like any of us, yet were highly temperamental. It seemed like a mockery to my senses, which were attuned to watching either happy endings or tragic ones. I remember the first time I had seen a movie called Socha Na Tha, I was left thoroughly confused and frustrated. Going by the immense marketing around this film, and the stars attached to it, I was prepared to accept huge doses of lavish settings and plenty of cinematic license. I can’t deny that when I was going to watch this movie, I had expected a soppy love story or a friends realizing they have fallen in love with each other kitsch.

Socha na tha movie poster