Posted:
THE END NOTE
I had never thought that a day would come when I would publicly tell the admin of this most loved page to SHUT IT DOWN. Once and for all. But we have been played far too long --- the GHSP page, our participation in it and our frenzy for Maan and Geet having been used randomly like an ATM slot machine for shoring up the fortunes of its stakeholders, crew, makers and most importantly, its leads. There is no denying that Gurmeet Choudhary and Drashti Dhami, the two actors who played Maan and Geet, have shaped a significant part of their career based on their performance and no doubt the receptors of that performance, namely us, fans. Sure, they had their individual fan bases before but Maaneet became a phenomenon because of us, because of our fan expression. Hell, no other show before it had fetched such social media interactivity and a heat index as GHSP did during its run and after it. It got in an entirely new demographic of viewers who had never ever watched Hindi shows on TV before..
But truth be told, our really harmless, selfless, endless love for the show and its crew has been rudely swatted. We have been laughed and joked at for loving Maaneet and wanting actors Gurmeet Choudhary and Drashti Dhami to carry their professional onscreen branding forward, be it in a show, ad or an event. Unfortunately, we have been punished for making an innocent plea, first by the makers and creators, who were heady about an imitation drama on a more profitable channel and thought sequels or repeating a starcast was not done on Indian TV (It doesn't matter there are several examples of both seasons and repeat lead pairings on Indian TV itself).
But the second and most, most brutal hit came from none other than Mr Choudhary and Ms Dhami, who continue to use the aura of GHSP for individual career gains but are not professional enough to acknowledge fans who lent two average actors that halo. Still we were OK. We understood they didn't want to do a repeat appearance. We even accepted that it was hard for them to say a make-believe "Hi, hello" to Geet fans, do a dance duet at TV's umpteen functions even though they have shared performance platforms and have not minded appearances with their other co-stars and performers.
Now, it's the last straw. Both have hit us below the belt by taking away what we held so precious, memories of another day...we had even stopped bothering about their individual pursuits. And then thwack...Mr Choudhary does a Behne De for his Nach Baliye act and Ms Dhami replicates Kurbaan Hua with her current co-star. Guys, do not blame their PHs for sure. Do not believe that a leading lady of a show cannot request a change of song or at least seek a new interpretation. What we got was a xerox copy of the GHSP sequence, enacted by Ms Dhami, who told Geet fans to move on, stumbled while talking about Geet in her post JDJ appearances and has even whitewashed Geet from her official bios (It's Madhubala after DMG and then JDJ winner). Mr Choudhary may love the Behne De song but for someone who knows it was a signature moment of his hit show, it certainly seemed an attempt to disenchant us, to mock us for loving Geet, dissuade us from wanting the coupling back. Mind you, he didn't choose a song from Ramayana or Punar Vivah and his bio file interestingly these days lists Ramayana, Punar Vivah, JDJ and NB 6.. We get it, Geet was a career mistake you would rather not be reminded about. Acknowledging its fans during the two years of the show was a bigger disaster.
So here's from our lot whom both Mr Chaudhary and Ms Dhami consider worse than the ebola virus:
(1) Sorry for loving you and comparing you to and calling you the SRK-Kajol of TV. (It doesn't matter, of course, that SRK-Kajol still appear on Koffee with Karan and do films together. It doesn't matter that hit jodis have been repeated in Hollywood films and soaps and even in our daily soaps. It doesn't matter that we were following the beaten track of other fans).
(2) Sorry for demanding an onscreen return. (It doesn't matter that we were expecting a professional brand coupling. If both of you had personal reluctance to repeat your act professionally, all you had to do was say "never again" or tell journalists, do not ask us about Geet...Your one word would have silenced us forever. Now we know why you didn't allow us the simplest of courtesies. You felt so much better showing us how the mention of Geet was unpalatable to you both).
(3) Sorry for voting you both in Jhalak Dikhla Jaa (Never mind keeping the Geet vibe alive was a conscious commercial effort by both of you to wring votes out of our passionate selves. Even your Geet colleague sought votes for our "dear Maan sir" and assured "oh they will get back onscreen to entertain you" in his PMs to many fans who tracked him on FB during JDJ Season 5. Never mind how we stole time, created a mice army, pooled money for SMSes, bought simcards. Of course, pankha log hote hi paagal...zor zor se haanso un par...gadhe hai saale...jaante nahin channel se deal hota hai...Yes my dear friends, reality shows all over the world are scripted and the tenure of a person depends on his/her perceived eyeball value, which we gave them by voting and creating online events. Talent+perception generated by us. A big total you see.)
(4) Sorry for pointing out your professional harakiri by way of carrying over Geet imitations (It doesn't matter that both of you have publicly said that "you are your own competition" and that "variety is the spice of life." Why then violate the core of being an actor, repeat past performances, unless you want the easy way out by working with known benchmarks? Or is it that you have made GHSP your personal dictionary to be looked into whenever your shows are in the doldrums? A bit of negative publicity also acts as a jet pack right? Also as far as I know, no other actor on TV or films has copied their earlier sequences frame by frame and risk the death of an artist)
(5) Sorry to all PHs and creatives whom we so abused...(because if your stars are willing to replicate each scene, be it a Yash talking to his baby, a performer dancing to Behne De or Madhubala reacting to miscarriage or dancing the exact same way as Geet , you would be inspired to replicate a hit formula. You anyway would want to swat us like flies for every wrong thing that happened to your projects.)
So from my side there will he no voting for Maaneet, no voting for Mr Choudhary or Ms Dhami, no shared celebration of Geet in the public domain here on. For as a fan, I do not need visibility to remember Maaneet...they will be there in my heart and digital library till the end of my time. And they are far beyond what you two actors aren't, a concept to admire, not a plaything to squash and fluff up at your own will. Maaneet has become very conveniently Mr Choudhary's and Ms Dhami's alter ego and the more we celebrate the show and prop up pages in its name publicly, the greater their comfort level of using it to fuel their individual dreams.
Jut for the record, even an SRK or Salman Khan do not abuse their fans the way you have. So good luck with your individual fans from before. People like us are taking GHSP with us and leaving you two behind. I write this because the awakening had long happened but sharing it with like-minded souls was so needed this time. On this very page.
Hum bhi behne dete sab kuch...hum bhi kurbaan nahi honge ab. They became egoist superstars on our wings. And they have crashed us to the ground. Well Mr Chaudhary and Ms Dhami. Celebrate for we are over for you. Just the way you wanted. Happy?
PS: I hope Four Lion extends the courtesy of retaining this post and not deleting it. If, that is, you believe that a fan has a right to vent and praise equally. And if you believe that this page is not about brushing up starry egos but allowing free speech. And yes, this is for all hurt fans.
Artical by Rituparna Ghosh on geet Facebook
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