I will try and speak more in terms of how I saw the characters thanks to the overall story rather than the story itself bcos the story has been presented with a touch of humour. For example: when Raghu runs out of his wedding after dumping the bride at the altar, normally we would call him a douchebag and go 'oh shit' and feel sorry for the girl. In the film however, we laugh, and the girl orders a thanda and we laugh again and take it as a cinematic liberty/exaggeration to show last minute wedding nervousness without pondering on it more seriously. And we do not realise the deeper meaning behind this action till a long time, almost till the end, and it is THEN that we feel sorry for the girl and can kind of understand Raghu too, though not forgive him for the act.. Hence I will talk in terms of the characters.
Raghuram Sitaram: I did not see him as characterless- he did not double time the girls or leech around, rather I saw him as someone who fell for girls very easily. Attraction is sufficient for him to get into a relationship including everything else that follows, he even starts dreaming of marriage each time. But simply lust/attraction is NOT what he valued, and that became evident when he wanted to go back to Gayatri again even when he was with Tara- it was evident that living in with her and with the conversations they had had, of not cheating her/leaving her and all, they had developed an emotional bond too and he valued it. Also, the point when he said 'I dont want to cheat/hurt Tara again'- he proved that he DID have a conscience- he didn't want to hurt a girl after having come so far with her, and he did say that to Gayatri too. He was pretty serious about both the relationships, he stuck to Gayatri as well as Tara as long as things didn't come to marriage- he just didn't believe in marriages and he finally blurted it out along with his reasoning in the end, that marriages suffocated him- and then we finally understand why he had taken an extreme step of deserting his bride on the day of marriage- highly wrong but understandable keeping in mind his character, background and the analogy he gave for marriages. Gayatri was right there- he didn't cheat his bride by committing to something he could not honour. Or rather, he was okay with staying committed to a girl but didn't believe in marriages. And that is what the movie tried to show ultimately I guess, that there ARE people who may be committed but still do not get married. For them commitment is not necessarily equal to marriage.
Gayatri- I saw her as someone who has a baggage of the past, which ended up with two conflicting results- 1.) she needs someone to love her, someone of her own, as she hasn't got love in the past... so forget just sleeping with the guy, she starts looking at him as a potential steady partner/boyfriend/whatever (the pulse feeling scene) 2.) Since she has got hurt in the past, she has insecurity issues she can't get over, just like Raghu has his own issues- what if this guy dumps me like the others... wasn't he enquiring about my past and all that. Cos of that reason she even goes enquiring about HIM behind his back. And so even though she goes along the flow with her own attraction for Raghu, she runs away from her wedding with him. A point which can be put up here for debate is- inspite of having bad relationships, why does she fall into another one so soon? Cos all of us live on hope ki nahi, maybe this might work, or cos she didn't learn anything from her past relationships that she should go slow and judge the person first, or cos she is just impulsive and feisty? Or cos the story needed to move quickly cos of limited screen time? 😆
And that is the main problem of the love story. The initiation of the physical relationship between them seems a little too fast, maybe there are people who are so fast, maybe not, I don't know. Or rather than the physical relationship, the emotional bonding from Gayatri's side seemed a little fast. The bonding that they developed later I can understand, it was shown through the Tere Mere Beech Mein song as they got used to each other in the house and gradually fell in love.
Vani: Undoubtedly the weakest character in some ways as we dont get a clear idea about why she does few things, plus her background was never mentioned clearly. The revenge thing the critics wrote about I did not understand. It never looked like she wanted to take revenge and she did not dump Raghu either as was said in some reviews.. she just taught him a lesson. I dont know if they were referring to her deserting him in the end of the story as 'dumping him at wedding' cos it was not the same way. That she falls for him inspite of he having dumped her is a little unrealistic though, but maybe it was bcos she thought he had learnt his lesson? I don't know, I didn't understand many things about her character. I just took it for granted that she thought Raghu had learnt his lesson as Gayatri dumped him, and that kinda gave closure to her hurt and anger for the incident. Or maybe she wasn't that serious herself and just going, dekhen kidhar jaata hai type? I don't know honestly. :-S
For me the story was like a journey of Raghu and Gayatri only and how their insecurities do not let them enter into a commitment named marriage. Otherwise they are completely okay- they have a bonding, they are happy with each other, and they are in love. It is when they realise this that they understand that perhaps they are not meant for marriage and can survive happily in a relationship as long as it does not suffocate them. The closed door analogy by Raghu was very good.
Now I firmly believe in marriages and I do think the story could have proceeded in many ways with many endings, especially bcos of Rishi Kapoor's character and his advices to Raghu and place as a father figure in the lives of both the characters. But Jaideep Sahni took a different take and I get it considering the character sketches we were given. Being a firm believer in the institution of marriage, I would like to think that over time, Raghu and Gayatri got over their insecurities and past baggage, matured and finally got married at least for the sake of starting a family. :-)
So yeah, that's the end of the review. 😆 I hope you are still awake. :P And yeah, a word about the overhyped kisses in the movie, frankly speaking they were too many and overdone I feel- there was no need for so many kisses even if they were less than 10 and not 27. But there was one kiss scene which I really liked- the last kiss between Raghu and Gayatri at the end of the movie- cos he kisses her on the cheek, and it is said it means more when a guy kisses you on the forehead/cheek than on the lips. :-) <3 And that what was what gave me hope for my open ending too. :-D
My verdict: This isn't a perfect movie. Far from it actually. There are a lot of discrepancies. But its definitely an interesting movie. The lead characters were well fleshed out IMO and I enjoyed the film as their journey.
20