New Delhi

More than a decade after Jab We Met became one of Hindi cinema's most beloved romantic dramas, filmmaker Imtiaz Ali has revealed that the film was the script that faced the highest number of rejections in his career.

The 2007 hit, starring Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor, is today celebrated for its memorable dialogues, chart-topping music and the infectious optimism of Geet. But Ali said he never believed it was "good enough" to be made into a film.

"I wrote this script just to entertain myself. I never thought this film was good enough to be made. It was just my personal toy, so to speak," Ali told PTI during a visit to its Delhi headquarters.

The director recalled that he wrote the story while shooting his debut film Socha Na Tha, starring Ayesha Takia and Abhay Deol, during periods of inactivity on set.

Even after completing the script, Ali hesitated to narrate it to producers and actors because he was embarrassed by how simple and whimsical it seemed.

When he finally began pitching it, the response was overwhelmingly discouraging.

"Believe me, this movie got rejected by producers and actors more than any other movie of mine," he said.

People questioned the absence of conventional conflict and found the story too light-hearted.

"'What is this movie about?', 'What is it achieving?', 'There is no conflict', 'It's quite silly actually', 'Why will they accept Shahid Kapoor's character in the end?'... This was getting rejected a lot," Ali said.

The first person who genuinely connected with the story, he said, was actor Preity Zinta.

"It took a long time for Jab We Met to find its cast. I had narrated it to Preity Zinta... she was the first person who liked this story."

Ali remembered feeling awkward when Zinta burst out laughing during the narration at a scene where Aditya runs away from Geet at a railway station.

"I thought she's laughing at me. But then she said, 'This is really fun.' I asked her, 'Are you liking it?' She said, 'I'm loving it. What happens next?'"

Although Zinta eventually could not do the film because of delays, Ali returned to his original choice, Kareena Kapoor.

The filmmaker, who also wrote the screenplay and dialogues, said many of the now-iconic lines emerged under unusual circumstances.

The entire dialogue draft was written while he was stranded in a hotel room in Manali during heavy snowfall, with production scheduled to begin just three weeks later.

"In that one night and one day, I wrote all the dialogues. I didn't look back and see if it was right or wrong. I just kept writing and writing," he said.

The film went on to produce some of Bollywood's most enduring lines, from Geet's spirited declaration, "Main apni favourite hoon", to Aditya's exasperated observation that she belonged in a museum with tickets sold to see her.

Ali credited Kareena Kapoor's instinctive approach to acting for making Geet one of Hindi cinema's most unforgettable characters.

"She's a very instinctive actor. She is a director's delight. She has no process," he said.

"Whatever one tells her to do, she does it quickly and with full force."

He said he often had to restrain Kapoor's natural enthusiasm to maintain balance in the scenes.

"If I tell her something wrong, she will do that something wrong. And she will do it with so much force and vigour that it will be difficult to then bring her back to zero and start again," he added.

Asked whether he would collaborate with Kapoor again, Ali said he was eager to do so.

"I would love to cast Kareena again in a film and I will," he said.

"Hopefully, it will be something that's worthwhile doing after Geet. Something very different from what she was in that film, but equally effervescent and vivacious."

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Nearly two decades after its release, Jab We Met continues to enjoy cult status, proving that the script its creator once doubted the most eventually became one of modern Bollywood's most cherished love stories.