Yesterday, I watched Yeh Jawaani hai Deewani….for the Nth
time! :P I’ve spoken to a lot of people regarding what they felt about the
movie and have received reviews ranging from horrible, same old story to
one-time watch. The only person I know who feels the way I do about the movie
is Sahana (God bless her for that!!). We’d both decided that we’d stop trying
to debate with people about the movie. Nothing we could say would change their
opinion of it….if they didn’t feel it from within then there was nothing we
could do to make them see things otherwise! Though that still holds true…after
watching the movie again yesterday I couldn’t resist just making one last attempt at telling people why the movie is
special to me.
From the time that we are born, the world is eager to figure
us out and categorize/label us. Good girl, bad boy, naughty, obedient, topper,
back-bencher, rebel, tomboy, idiot, good-for-nothing….the list is pretty
endless and I’m sure all of us have had one or the other label applied to us. Most
of the time, people don’t think twice about such labels. But sometimes, as
kids, these labels become our identity. People tend to expect certain things
from us and we in turn get used to meeting those expectations. The label
becoming, not only a self-fulfilling prophecy but also, a self-limiting one.
Those boundaries that people lay down for us can sometimes be too difficult to
cross and we remain enclosed in this shell of others’ perception of us. Naina’s story is not too different from my
own….someone seen to be this studious girl who was happiest with her books, but
who was actually in part hiding behind them. A girl aching to go out there, be
brave and do adventurous fun stuff…but
no one, not even her parents, expect her to be interested in any of that and so
no one ever asks. That mixture of loneliness and regret….the feeling of life
slowing slipping by without you ever having truly lived a moment of it….I can
imagine how she must’ve felt, why she’d wanna run away from her life, if only
for a few days.
And then comes along Bunny. Most people think its pretty clichéd,
Naina’s transformation to this cool chick as soon as she meets a cute guy, but
things go much deeper than that. Its very difficult to explain what it means to
find someone who sees you for all you can be, when you can’t see it yourself.
Who likes and accepts you just as you are, giving you that confidence and
freedom to truly open up! And Naina did the same thing for him… saw beyond his
antics and humor, to the passion and drive that was at his core. Its no wonder
then that they forged a bond that lasted through the years. For once, I felt the
treatment of the story was far from clichéd. The maturity that characters like
Naina and Aditi show are something you rarely get to see. No wonder then, that
with such loving and caring people around him, that Bunny makes the big leap….quitting
his dream job, not for a girl, but for himself. Because he finally had the
courage to face the fact that circumstances had changed him, changed his
dreams, his priorities.
This movie has brought me a whole lot of joy, whether its
the songs, ranbir’s awesome dancing, the humorous dialogue or some of those
lovely moments between the 4 key characters. To me, it feels real and close
to my heart. Ayan Mukherji has done a
fantastic job of bringing back memories of friendship and love. A different
story….probably not, but certainly well made. A story not just about deewani
jawaani, but of growing up. It’ll be my “Happy Movie” for a while to come! :)
