I'm going to be honest, I don't exactly remember when I watched What's Your Raashee? as a child. I do, however, remember patiently waiting for them to reveal what each sun sign looked like in their respective songs on 9XM. Ah, the good old days!
And let me just say, the songs were all bangers!
Anyway, let's move on to our present-day analysis because that's what you're here for!
🚨 🚨 Also, WARNING: Major spoilers ahead for a movie that's roughly 14 years old. So, yeah, proceed with caution🚨🚨
Here's the premise in three succinct points:
Upon hearing this amazing news, this is Jitu's face:
So, the family concocts a plan to lure Yogesh back to India — they pretend that his dad has had a heart attack.
But he does come back, and they tell him about their great wedding plans AT THE AIRPORT. They don't even wait to get home.
Yogesh explains to them his rational thinking of wanting to get married only after he's settled into his new job, approximately a year later. And then his dad emotionally (anger is an emotion) blackmails him:
Later, Crook Jitu reveals to Yogesh that his real debt is not just 2.5 crores, that their parents know about, but actually 4 crores! *Dun dun duuuun*
This "bhai" ke gundey are also following him around to get their money back. Rightly so. AND THEN, Jitu does this:
Mummy, on the other hand, is the only sane one here:
Anyway, Yogesh agrees to get married (duh! otherwise there wouldn't be a movie to watch) and decides to meet one girl from each sun sign and get married to the best match in order to streamline the process. All thanks to this book:
One very important thing to understand is that Yogesh is a decent man. Here's why:
1. For starters, he agrees to do this for his dumbass brother with little to no fuss.
2. He is super nice and respectful to all the girls — as he should be, but let's face it, we've all dealt with enough asshats to know that's a rarity.
Now, Yogesh starts meeting these girls one at a time, all of whom are played by Priyanka Chopra Jonas and who are all eccentrically unique in several ways.
For example this Pisces representative, Chandrika:
Or this Sagittarius candidate, Bhavana:
There is also a side plot wherein Yogesh's aunt suspects her husband, aka the man who is arranging all of Yogesh's meetings with the girls, of cheating. But we won't get into that because, ew!
Also, I know what you're thinking — why do all the girls look the same? The deal is that Yogesh finds that all the 12 girls look really similar because, apparently, we all have a pre-conceived idea of what our soulmate is supposed to look like and we project this image on our potential partners.
Now, I can't walk you through details of all 12 girls. So let's settle for my top three favourites — in no particular order — from the movie:
The Aries representative:
The Gemini girl, Kajal.
The Virgo lady, Dr. Pooja:
Special mention to our Taurus representative, Vishakha:
So, anyway, Yogesh meets all the 12 girls and it's quite obvious who the viable contenders are...but we also know who he really wants to be with.
That's right — it's the only one he could not have!
Sanjana, the Aquarius representative, was the second girl Yogesh met and instantly liked, but SHE HAD A BOYFRIEND. So, she asked him to reject her, which he did...but he never got over her as she was the only one he was completely honest and open with. Anyone else he would choose to marry would mean that he was settling.
And he's bummed about it, but he made a commitment to his family to get married anyway, so he was about to do that. He was going to show up at the wedding without knowing which girl would show up. This happens because his uncle decides to surprise him with the girl on the day of the wedding. As if Yogesh didn't have enough turmoil in his life.
Little does Yogesh know that Sanjana broke things off with her boyfriend and shows up at the mandap in her ghunghat, ready to get married!
To me, the funniest part about this whole wedding scene is that Yogesh can't tell who the girl is, upon seeing her, because THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME TO HIM!
At this point, Nanaji enters the room with a suitcase filled with cash worth 1.5 crores AND a cheque worth 2.5 crores! It seems that as soon as he learned about Jitu's blunder, he had no hesitation in helping him out. BUT NO ONE EVER TOLD HIM.
*facepalm*
Anyway, Jitu then repays all his debts and they all live happily ever after.
That was a lot of information to take in. And now all of these people will be living rent-free in my head for the next few days.
But here are my key takeaways after watching this masterpiece as an adult:
1. A man calling his female cousin "kuch zyada hi sexy" IS WEIRD AF.
There's a scene where Yogesh meets his friend and the friend tells Yogesh that he should meet his cousin (the Scorpio girl), and goes on to say that the only problem with her is that she's too sexy. Who in the world okay-ed this dialogue?!?!
2. It's a cliche for a reason but NEVER judge a book by it's cover.
For instance, Yogesh and his uncle judged Vishakha so hard for being a scatterbrained person, so much so that they referred to her as "pagli", that they never even realised that it was all an act and she was a normal girl in reality, and maybe even a good match for Yogesh. I mean, yes, she trolled them hard, but they didn't even bother to have a conversation after that for him to know who she is. In fact, when he ran out of options Yogesh agreed to marry her, but his uncle immediately shut down that idea!
3. That whole 20 day thing, not to mention the huge pressure to get married immediately, seems more and more ridiculous as an adult.
I'm sure so many of us saw this movie and other Bollywood love stories and thought that it'd be so easy to fall in love and get married, and what a rude awakening you have waiting for you when you're in the middle of your eighth situationship.
4. Someone explain to me why this "playing hard to get" thing was portrayed as being soooo effective? Yogesh literally had at least seven girls lined up, pretty much ready to marry him on the spot, but he only truly liked the one that got away.
5. But most importantly, if your brother (or any other relative) gets themselves into deep soup, without any display of true remorse, kick them in the shin multiple times before you blindly agree to do what you have to in order to save their ass. OR JUST TALK TO NANAJI FIRST.
