H Shouts Into the Void

The moment this changes is what Bunny, like the audience, asks Aditi about her relationship with Taran, and her crush on Avi, and we learn that she is well and truly over him. When you watch over the movie again, everything about these scenes change. Aditi crying before the intermission is her finally mourning her unrequited love, and then putting it to rest when she says they are no longer kids. And Avi asking her why she is getting married is not some kind of implication about him being in love with her, but rather an insight into how Avi feels like everyone around him seems to be moving too quickly, far ahead of him.

Bunny is building his career and travelling the world. Naina is a (implied) respected doctor. And now his last link to childhood, his best friend Aditi, is getting married and getting on with her life. Meanwhile, most of Avi's attempts to build something for himself have failed, and he has reached that classic quarter life crisis where he is falling behind and nothing is getting better for him, while everyone else is doing well.

I love YJHD, though I do wish that a: we could have seen Naina as a doctor and b: we could have had an uplifting ending for Avi. His ending is tinged with hope, that this is his rock bottom and that he has a chance to get better if he so chooses, but that is his choice that he has to make, and the movie leaves it open-ended for us to decide if he makes that choice or continues to spiral. So maybe it was a better option not to leave it open-ended.

Because if you really think about it, the characters in YJHD are often defined by a certain struggle people in their twenties/early thirties report to feel. Bunny, even after the intermission, is implied to be finding some doubt in his lifestyle choices, especially when he is missing so much of his loved ones' lives, and has to choose if he wants to make that change or not. Naina is also challenged in a similar way, initially on the trip where her self-perception and desires are challenged, and at the wedding where her current lifestyle and again her desires are questioned. Should she make the impulse decision to go on the trip, even though she always perceives herself as someone who thinks things through? Should she go to the party, even though she doesn't think she's cool? Should she start a relationship with Bunny, when she doesn't want to leave her family, friends, and life behind?

Yes, Geet is flawed, like any good character is. She effectively uses Aditya to imply an affair to get out of her marriage with Manjeet, which Aditya takes in good humour but still must bear the consequences of. She blames Aditya for her missing her train a second time, though in my opinion I think that is her responding as a woman alone at night who is painfully aware of the danger she could be in, and that her only chance at safety is also a man who she does not know that well. She is impulsive, often not considering other people when following her heart. But she does care.

A big moment is when Aditya drops Geet off at her family's house for the first time and tells her that he plans to leave. You can see how Kareena Kapoor plays it - fearful worry, from how I see it. But what is she to be worried about? She isn't aware of the Manjeet problem until later, and in fact bringing a boy home would bring up questions (which it does). I think in this moment, we see how perceptive Geet actually is. She understands the depth of his depression post the break up, might have even put the pieces together that he was considering suicide. She is afraid to leave him alone because she is a good friend and she cares.

There is more hints of Geet's perceptiveness. When she's about to leave her family's house to run away to Anshumun, she looks guiltily back, then promises that she will beg for forgiveness once she is married. She apologizes the moment she asks Aditya if it was his mother that ran away with another man. She is completely aware of her habit of speaking without thinking, acting with a disregard for the consequences. She is not just a naive manic pixie dream girl. She is a complex woman who maintains a bubbly outlook on life.

What explains Geet is what she tells Aditya while hiding from her family, that she follows her heart regardless of what would happen because she wants to make sure that whatever happens in life, she will only have herself to blame, and no one else. Geet doesn't want to live with regrets, and she also wants to take full responsibility of how her life turns out. She wants to get married to Anshumun, not roll over and accept her family's insistence that she marry Manjeet. She might not have a neat, clean way of going about things, but deep down she doesn't want anyone to bear responsibility for her life.

In fact, her loyalty to Anshumun being what drives most of her decisions is often underdiscussed imo. Even with rich famous Aditiya flirting with her, she insists to remain with Anshumun. She is a one man woman. She is willing to upturn her life and relationship with her family just to remain with Anshumun, which is what makes his harsh response to her devastating. He does not reciprocate her devotion to their relationship. He does not care as much.

But Aditya does. Aditya flirts with Roop to make light of the elopement Geet was suggesting earlier on in the movie. Aditya cares about where she has gone after nine months despite knowing she is devoted to another. Aditya does not betray Geet's secret of loving Anshumun and insists everyone ask Geet for her opinion on the marriage. Aditya cares just as much as Geet does.

Persephone is taken, very much against her will, by a man much more powerful than she is. Zeus, her father, gives Hades permission, thus whatever Persephone and her mother Demeter feel about the matter is dismissible, since the men have already decided what their fates will be. Persephone is snatched by Hades from her blissful, joyful moment of picking flowers - a very youthful, innocent image - and taken down a cleft in the ground. What happens next we can only assume, because really, would Persephone, who was taken so violently down into the underworld, want to consummate her forced marriage with Hades? And would Hades care about what she wanted?

In some later myths, Persephone experiences sexual violence from men almost constantly. She is born when Zeus rapes his mother Rhea, who becomes Demeter (note: why did Freud call it an Oedipus complex and not a Zeus complex? Oedipus killed himself after finding out he slept with his mother. Zeus turned into a serpent and chased after his mother just to get his dick wet). Her father-brother, Zeus, rapes her twice more afterward, both times getting her pregnant. And in these same myths her brother-uncle Hades still forcefully takes her as a bride. Men in mythology have never respected Persephone. They have never respected Spring.

Back to the earlier myths, Demeter is devastated and determined to find where her daughter went. In most tellings of the myth, she is helped by Hecate, another female goddess. While she does this, she either neglects tending to the Earth, or does not permit it. While the latter is more satisfying with its vengeful attitude, either way we start to see the consequences of Persephone's abduction. The rest of the world has to suffer.

Once Demeter discovers what happens to Persephone - in a rare male W from Helios - she is devastated and asks Zeus to have Persephone returned. Zeus, having to hear not only Demeter's pressure but the anguish of humans during this everlong winter and their associated gods, tells Hades to return Persephone. Hades complies, but not before he has tricked Persephone into eating 3-6 pomegranate seeds, a horrendous taboo which condemns her to return to the underworld 3-6 months of the year. A crime she has committed because she was hungry. Because she was trapped underground by a powerful man and was starving. The very representation of spring had no nourishment, and ate the seeds to survive, though the seeds ended up sowing her partial tragedy.

Thus, Persephone is scarred by a man forever, and forced to spend a third to half of the year with him, the rest with her mother. But this is not the end of her story.

See, we are used to see stories of sexual violence come to an abrupt end. Someone is assaulted. They must hide it, or recover quietly. Go to therapy, don't make a fuss. When they do, they must be the ones to take the shame from everyone else, the pressure. God forbid they decide to take it to court. Meanwhile, the perpetrator gets to live on without the consequences of their actions ever being felt, let alone coming back to them.

And yes, Hades is powerful and also very much hidden from the rest of the world. But the consequences of what he has done are felt, and violently. Demeter's sadness for part of the year ravages the earth with blistering snowstorms and slicing winds that tear up crops. Humans die, and their patron gods must contend with their anguish. Down in the underworld, Persephone's name is not spoken, though apparently she was considered to have equal standing in power with Hades over the dead. Hades took Persephone, and in response Persephone took half of his empire. The other gods took away Demeter's daughter, and in response Demeter took away their subjects and their livelihood. Hades brought hell to Persephone, and in response Demeter brought hell for everyone else. For letting this happen. For not fighting back.

Yes, Persephone's story explains how the seasons have come to be. And it also shows what happens when a woman is abused, and is not quiet about it. When she is abused, and the people who love her do kick up a fuss, be loud, not recover, or recover loudly. Send blizzards out of their sadness and let flowers grow in their joy. And Persephone still must carry the scar of the pomegranate seeds, of her taking. But she is not letting it control her anymore than it has to. And by God, do all the other gods have to feel it.