Ahead of Jersey, revisiting Jab We Met and Shahid Kapoor’s Aditya: The yin to Geet’s yang

A lot of people always think of Kareena Kapoor’s Geet whenever the topic of Jab We Met surfaces, and that is justified. She was the more dramatic one, the louder, more ‘visible’ person among the host of characters that populated the 2007 Imtiaz Ali directorial. And granted, Kareena was phenomenal as Geet; you wanted to knock some sense into her, but you also wanted to believe in her adventures and almost child-like dreams. But what about Aditya?
Shahid Kapoor‘s Aditya was perhaps the most subdued of all characters that were a part of the movie. This, despite being the male lead. He was not making grand plans or gestures. Aditya was quieter, a no-nonsense, more grounded and serious individual. Sure, he went through some ‘slightly’ dramatic changes after crossing paths with Geet and invariably getting influenced her choices and words. But for the large part, our hero was quite unlike any other male lead you had seen until then in commercial Hindi cinema. A Hindi film hero who’s not filmy? Now that’s an anomaly!

But Aditya had reasons to look more intense and brooding than his female lead. He came from a broken home, his girlfriend was marrying someone else, and he couldn’t bare to look at his mother, let alone understand her decision to leave his father and him and marry someone else. With considerable emotional baggage to worry about, Aditya was also entrusted with the responsibility of managing a company that was on its last legs. Nothing was going well for him, so, can you blame him if he was bothered his overbearingly cheerful and optimic co-passenger?
In an earlier interview with Film Companion, Kareena had revealed that it was Shahid who had convinced the actor to take on the project as he thought the heroine’s part was wonderfully written. Shahid was on the buck about that one, but he must have had the vision to know in some capacity that the part he was meant to essay, would always come in short when compared to Geet’s larger-than-life, vibrant personality. That he could come off looking like a bit of a bore. However, it is important to realise that Geet would not look as happy and free-flowing as she did had it not been for Aditya’s quiet self. He was the yin to her yang. They both were polar opposites, and it’s one of the primary reasons why it was such a delight to see them play off each other on screen. Unlike Kareena, Shahid’s Aditya had no funny, filmy dialogues to mouth. And even when he got a chance to make an impactful statement, he was supposed to pull it off with subtlety and nuance. Aditya always played himself down, especially in his interactions with Geet, even when he was the one who seemed more logical and practical. And Shahid left no stone unturned to portray his role honestly. He wasn’t afraid to let his female co-star outshine him, seemingly comfortable with the chunk of meat he had gotten in the bargain.

This sense of confidence worked to the film’s benefit greatly, making Jab We Met an almost instant classic. Here’s a small trivia you might or might not have heard of — Shahid Kapoor’s role was first offered to Bob Deol, who apparently wanted Preity Zinta to play Geet. What a different film that would have been!
You can watch Jab We Met on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, ZEE5, Jio Cinema and YouTube.