 "EXCLUSIVE | R. Madhavan on Netflix 'Aap Jaisa Koi': ‘Love on a dating app starts with objectification…’")
Aap Jaisa Koi’ reimagines and repositions family drama. The trailer is enough to say that this Netflix film on romance looks promising. Love and family drama have an old-world charm and love has no age and that’s what makes Netflix’s _Aap Jaisa Koi_ special.
In an immersive conversation on love with changing times, the lead cast R. Madhavan and Fatima Sana Shaikh along with director Vivek Soni talk about their movie going to be out on Netflix tomorrow.
Edited version of the first part of the interview:
How many of you are on a dating app?
Fatima Sana Shaikh: As for R Madhavan, he has been married for very long. I don’t think he was ever there. As for me, I find it very unnatural.
R Madhavan: Yes, actually I never had the requirement of being on a dating app. Even if I ever was I am not going to tell you (laughs).
Vivek: I was once, but what I realised I am not a person who likes dating on an app. I would rather meet someone in life and have a conversation. Once I was there for a short period, but I realised that there is too much pressure to start a conversation without even knowing the person. Just by looking at the pictures, it doesn’t come to me naturally at all. I rather know someone and then sit and have a conversation.
Madhavan: It all starts with objectification… whether the looks are matching or not. It’s very superficial.
What is ‘barabari wala piyaar’ (equality in love) for you all mentioned in the film Aap Jaisa Koi?
Fatima Sana Shaikh: When your ideologies match, when there is mutual respect. Two human beings cannot be the same. You actually evolve in every relationship. My strengths and weaknesses are very different from my partner’s strengths and weaknesses. The point of an ideal relationship is when your weaknesses also become your strength and you work with each other. That kind of relationship will eventually be a wholesome relationship.
R Madhavan you have been a married man since the longest time we know you. Tell me in real life… how much do you relate to the role that you play in Aap Jaisa Koi?
Touchwood, for what you have just said! I have seen that in my grandparents. They grew up in a very different society. Everybody’s role was cut out and my grandmother was probably fourteen or fifteen when she got married. And my grandfather was probably 21 or 22. That was the norm then and they had babies.
They lived a life of love for eighty years. In the last four years, I would see my grandfather would literally worry to the core to make sure that my grandmother was okay. He used to keep on asking, ‘has she eaten, has she taken her medicines?” He knew everything about her including her favourite colour. So, the amount of attention and care he used to show at 80, for me that kind of love was absolutely pure. He was so particular, that he wouldn’t eat till she had eaten. I realised that the circumstances under which they would have fallen in love were very different. It could have been forced companionship, it could have been a marriage that was arranged. But the definition of barabari (equality) was very different then and very different now and I think it will be very different for my son’s generation.
The transformation happened very quickly for our generation and then we had to adapt to the new world as well. But we happily adapted to it and I don’t think the men from the middle-class families ever wanted to do anything other than give respect to their partners.
Relationships are changing and cinema has been changing beautifully over a period of time and Madhavan you have seen the evolving of cinema: when you started off as an actor and now. Every character these days plays a very important role in cinema…What do you have to say about this change?
Fatima: Cinema reflects society, when cinema changes, the society changes. Not everybody reviews a movie, but the audiences also have evolved and they talk about how cinema and there is a conversation around it. So, there is also a responsibility which lies on the makers and actors. Filmmakers are hearing what the audience wants and that’s why makers are making that kind of films.
WATCH the trailer of Netflix ‘Aap Jaisa Koi’ movie here:
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