MADHAVAN, WHY YOU DID AAP JAISA KOI?

Sukriti Tankha

Just finished watching ‘Aap Jaisa Koi’ starring R Madhavan amd Fatima Sana Shaikh (on Netflix) and it was so different from what I was expecting. The trailer looked like I was in for a sweet romance between two mature adults sprinkled with some drama. But, apart from a few good scenes, the movie was a fail for me. It had a good plot, that got lost somewhere while trying to be progressive and cool.

What’s the topmost glaring stupidity: A 40-year-old Sree, played by Madhavan, getting lessons on how to interact and woo women from a 16-year-old boy, that too his own student. Don’t know what kind of student-teacher relation that is. If you somehow overlook that, he’s also getting ‘taught’ by his friend about this one app where he can talk to different women and ‘take care of his needs’ or, however you want to phrase it, since it is brought up every time. They leave no stone unturned to talk about the fact that a 40 year old man is a virgin, apparently an unprecedented achievement in today’s time, worthy of his statue in a museum (yes, they actually showed it). Now, that in itself feels so degrading to our generation as if we only make sexual relations with people. Now, if the filmmakers wanted to portray today;s they failed as both Madhavan and his love interest belong to our parent’s generation.

This is surely not all. There is more stupidity to endure: Sree gets all giddy and excited after talking to multiple women on this app, Aap Jaisa Koi, – he’s shown floating in the air, smiling all day long etc., which looks weird considering he’s a grown man and not a teenager.

His love-interest, the 32 year old Madhu, played by Shaikh. They meet in an arranged marriage setup and the two click instantly, so much so that the friend finds something fishy about a ‘hot French teacher’ being into an ‘old Sanskrit teacher’, again an unnecessary point. This makes them start a mission to stalk, oh sorry, find out more about Madhu from her family. Not just the two of them, they take the 16-year-old with them, whose parents apparently have no problem in sending him to a different city on a trip with his teacher and the teacher’s friend to stalk his teacher’s  would-be. Phew!!

There was simply no need for them to do all that, just show the two having a conversation about her ex, since they are mature adults and all. Anyways, fast forward to everything going good, they are very much in love, the families meet, but then on the day of the engagement Sree finds out that Madhu was one of the women whom he talked to on the app and his world comes crashing down. WHY?? Because how dare a single, adult woman be talking to random men like this? A single, adult man of course can do whatever he wants, though. He is a man afterall, the privileged gender!!! It’s nauseating to say the least.

Sree then proceeds to tell his friend and eventually his family and none of them think twice before questioning her character. The engagement is called off. When Madhu confronts Sree, he tells her how he knows she was on the app and calls her characterless on her face – calling the woman he was about to marry characterless.

She questions his double standards and then also confesses how she felt good after talking to him and then told her mama to find more about this boy and send in the rishta (stalking is a common theme here).

Now the movie would have been watchable, maybe even good, had they just focused on this part – on how men, no matter how educated and liberal they are, have misogyny and chauvinism deeply rooted in their veins. How Madhu challenges Sree’s views and how they both regret the mistakes they made and live happily ever after (though I don’t know if I’d ever marry someone who called me characterless, or someone who stalked me into real life after a conversation online. I ask the girls out there, would you???) But they just had to go on and show Sree’s bhabhi cheating on her husband that too with Madhu’s mama, who’s also their neighbor.

I don’t even know why they have shown Sree’s bhaiya as a typical MCP (Male Chauvinist Pig). He has zero respect for his wife, daughter or just any woman in general, thinks he’s oh so great to ‘’allow’’ his wife and daughter to work while their place is in the kitchen. So his wife goes on to cheat on him. And everyone except the husband himself support her. The daughter goes so far as to say that her mom has found love and should be allowed to go. I’m sorry, but no matter how old you are, no matter how much you dislike your dad for his ideology, the first thing you say after you find out your mom cheated on your dad can’t be what she said. Everyone is so relaxed and calm as if cheating was obvious. And while I do agree that the husband is a shitty person, it doesn’t justify him being cheated on. I don’t understand why they couldn’t show her divorcing him, being friends with Madhu’s mama and then eventually starting her own business, something she always wanted. Why couldn’t they show a healthy friendship between Sree’s Bhabhi and Madhu’s mama??? That would have been so refreshing, than this stale stuff the makers offered.

Is drinking liquor and smoking progressive?

Lastly, I also don’t understand why every time filmmakers have to show a ‘progressive’ family they choose a Bengali family (see Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahani). And in the name of being progressive, they show women drinking and smoking, as if that’s all there is to modernism, when in reality both of those things are health hazards, no matter the gender. I hate how they limit feminism to this aspect – it really is the worst representation. It is like taking all the worst characteristics which men are known for and turning them into something women are also now known for, so now we’re feminists because equality yay! Feminism isn’t about getting to drink and smoke and cheat like men do, it’s about getting the same respect, opportunities and treatment like men do. It is time filmmakers and actors understand this fact.

I only have one question for Madhavan: why did you do this Madhavan, I attempted to watch this only for you. And I am crestfallen after watching it!

Ps- the only little bit of feminism for me, even though it was unintentional on the maker’s part, was casting an amazing actor like Karan Wahi purely as eye candy.