Navjot Gulati on 7 Years of Unrequited Love in Pooja Meri Jaan

Navjot Gulati has built a name for looking at the parts of modern relationships that most screen romances skip. With Pooja Meri Jaan, his ZEE5 series that has been picking up talk since it dropped, he turns a familiar scene into an uncomfortable question: whose feelings actually matter in a big public proposal?

The image that started the story

Gulati says the show began from one picture in his head. A young woman is at the centre of a public proposal while the crowd cheers for the man, reading the moment as pure romance. He describes the woman as “visibly suffocating,” but the people around her are too busy celebrating to notice. The series, led by Mrunal Thakur as Pooja with Vikram Singh Chauhan, Huma Qureshi and Vijay Raaz, asks what that scene looks like from her side.

That is the real pivot. The old filmi formula of the persistent lover who never gives up becomes a warning instead of a dream. The plot sits with obsessive love, entitlement, and the social pressure that can silence the person at the centre of the story.

Why Gulati calls it his public apology

The subject is not just professional for him. Gulati has said he spent over seven years deeply in love with someone, and even after she rejected him, he kept trying to bend her choice. That is exactly the behaviour the show pulls apart. He now describes the project as “my public apology”—not only to her, but to every woman who has had to deal with unwanted persistence.

That admission gives the series its weight. Instead of pointing at the problem from outside, Gulati places himself inside it, which makes the message about consent land differently.

Keeping both sides human

The trick, he says, is not turning the man, Aniket, into a cartoon. The makers mapped his distorted thinking so viewers can see where he goes wrong. But the show still sides with Pooja. For Gulati, that is a deliberate moral choice, because cinema should not pretend to be neutral when one person is carrying the trauma.

What should have happened, in his telling, is simple. Aniket should have accepted that Pooja was not attracted to him, stayed a friend if he could, and looked for love that was actually returned.

What to watch for when you stream it

If you are about to press play, keep an eye on the crowd in the big romantic moments. The show treats all that cheering as pressure, not support.

• Notice whose comfort is centred in the public proposal scene.
• Ask when “persistence” crosses into entitlement after a clear no.
• Watch how Aniket stays human without his pursuit ever looking aspirational.

For viewers who grew up on grand filmi gestures, Pooja Meri Jaan is a reality check that asks us to stop confusing obsession with love.

Source: IWMBuzz