Jab We Met

Watching the latest Shahid Kapur-Kareena Kapoor movie Jab We Met has prompted me to write this post. The film story is that the hero-heroine meet on a train. Aditya Kashyap (Shahid) is escaping from his troubles. Geet (Kareena) is on her way home. They get off the train at one station and end up missing it. There after begins a journey which the two take together all the way from Ratlam to Bhatinda and then to Manali. At Manali they part ways. Geet stays on to meet her boyfriend with whom she wants to get married while Aditya returns to Mumbai to begin life with a new found vigour. Do they meet again? Do they fall in love? That's for you to see.

The concept of Jab We Met is not new. There have been quite a few before where the lead pair embark on the journey and as it ends they fall in love.

A classic example is Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahi. Pooja (Pooja Bhatt) has run away from home. Raghu Jaitley (Aamir Khan) is a reporter for whom she is a khabar (news). A misunderstanding occurs in the end and Pooja decides to marry Deepak. Her father (Anupam Kher) reveals her the truth while taking her to the mandap. Pooja pushes Deepak aside while taking the pheras and runs away for a second time to meet Raghu in the same bus where they'd come across each other first.

In Pyar Toh Hona Hi Tha, Ajay Devgan decides to help Kajol to get snatch her lover back from the arms of another woman. In this process however they end up falling in love. In Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Vanraj (Ajay Devgan) takes on a journey with his wife Nandini (Aishwarya Rai) so that he can unite her with Sameer (Salman Khan), the man she was in love with before marriage. But when that moment arrives Nandini tells Sameer "pyar karna maine tumse seekha lekin pyar nibhana maine apne pati se seekha hai". With that she returns to join her husband.

Even though all these stories sound similar what sets them apart and makes them endearing and entertaining is the odyssey each couple takes. Its like the lines of the song Shahid Kapur sings "manzil se behtar lagne lage hain yeh raaste" (these roads look better than the final destination).

Nothing as interesting (read meeting Shahid Kapur) has happened to me on any of my journeys. I do remember however my first sojourn by train with a friend and no parental guidance in the holidays following 2nd Year of BSc. We were going to Pune from Delhi in order to work on a summer project. There was this really talkative Uncle-Aunty. In the middle of the night they were joined by their daughter who was even more talkative. They went on chatting keeping us awake till it was nearly morning. When sleep left our eyes completely these people decided to doze off. It was very bugging. I hadn't said anything earlier because I had thought they were going to get down sometime in between and that's why they were behaving the way did. That clearly wasn't the case. So later on when they got up I had a nice fight with the daughter who didn't even have a ticket and had been occupying our seats. Angry she went to the topmost berth and fell asleep and didn't come down until we reached Pune!! The other thing that I remember is me getting off at one of the intervening stations and buying some cold drinks. My friend and I saved a part of it and only when we set our foot in the guest house room did we drink it while raising a toast to an uncomfortable journey which we were not sure would come to an end.