--CHORUS--
Banno ki mehndi kya kehna
Banno ka joda kya kehna
Banno lage hai phoolon ka gehna
Banno ki aankhen kajraari
Banno lage sab se pyaari
Banno pe jaaoon main waari waari
--MALE--
Ho ho, oh oh, ho oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh
(Banno ki saheli resham ki dori
Chhup chhupke sharmaaye dekhe chori chori) - 2
Yeh maane ya na maane main to ispe mar gaya
Yeh ladki haai allah, haai haai re allah - 2
--FEMALE--
(Babul ki galiyaan na chhadke jaana
Paagal deewana isko samjhaana) - 2
Dekho ji dekho yeh to mere peechhe pad gaya
Yeh ladka haai allah, haai haai re allah - 2
--MALE--
Lab kahe na kahe, bolti hai nazar
Pyaar nahin chhupta yaar chhupaane se
--CHORUS--
Pyaar nahin chhupta yaar chhupaane se
--FEMALE--
Haan, roop ghoonghat mein ho to suhaana lage
Baat nahin banti yaar bataane se
--MALE--
Yeh dil ki baatein dil hi jaane ya jaane khuda
Yeh ladki haai allah, haai haai re allah
--FEMALE--
Yeh ladka haai allah, haai haai re allah
Sajna
Maangne se kabhi haath milta nahin
Jodiyaan bante hai pehle se sab ki
--CHORUS--
Jodiyaan bante hai pehle se sab ki
--MALE--
Ho, leke baaraat ghar tere aaoonga main
Meri nahin yeh to marzi hai rab ki
--FEMALE--
Arre jaa re jaa yeh jhoothi moothi baatein na bana
Yeh ladka haai allah, haai haai re allah - 2
--MALE--
Banno ki saheli resham ki dori
Chhup chhupke sharmaaye dekhe chori chori
--FEMALE--
Babul ki galiyaan na chhadke jaana
Paagal deewana isko samjhaana
--MALE--
Yeh maane ya na maane main to ispe mar gaya
Yeh ladki
Yeh ladki haai allah, haai haai re allah
--FEMALE--
Yeh ladka haai allah, haai haai re allah
--MALE--
Eh, yeh ladki haai allah, haai haai re allah
--FEMALE--
Yeh ladka haai allah, haai haai re allah

My Page Pet

रब ने बना दी जोड़ी

Banner: Yash Raj Films
Cast: Shahrukh Khan
Direction: Aditya Chopra
Production: Yash Chopra
Music: Salim-Sulemanin

Well, to start off with, Aditya Chopra spells yet another poignant dimension of pure love as in his previous ventures with SRK; DDLJ and Mohabattein. Yeah! These tales were retentive impressing everyone from 8-80yrs old men and women. Of course, we fell in love getting imbibed with those spellbinding personations in these flicks. So, guess what about Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi – a film that brings back sensational pair SRK-Aditya together after 8yrs? Does the film exceed everyone's expectations on 'Love' n 'Entertainment' factors? Or merely conks out dashing down our hopes?

Hats off to Aditya Chopra! An awesome motif of delineating a touching story of romance...

Have you ever stopped to think if the most ordinary, uninteresting, unobtrusive man you might see on the road or around you might have a love story to tell?

Maybe not! How can an ordinary man have a breathtaking, goose flesh igniting, awe inspiring love story of all things to tell?

But guess what - love does not differentiate between the ordinary and exceptional, the uninteresting and interesting, the unattractive and attractive. Because love knows no distinction. It can happen to anyone and once it does it engulfs us into it completely and gives us those heaven-sent experiences that only love can yield.

Perhaps, everything in fine and good with the one-liner…. But Aditya Chopra fails in crafting a gripping narration all throughout the show. A flimsy screenplay lacking finesse with bits and pieces of discontinuities and these attributes easily scatters audiences' attention. The best illustration goes with SRK's ducky actresses shaking legs with him for 'Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte' on theatre screen. It's completely odd for that situation and possibly, the sequences could've been switched over to latter half as a 'special round in Dance show'. Was it an attempt to deliver a replica of 'Om Shanthi Om' song of film stars dancing together?

The film is about Surinder Sahni (Shahrukh Khan) - a simple, clean hearted, honest man working for Punjab Power, leading a humdrum life, when he meets his total opposite and finds love in the flamboyant, fun-loving, vivacious -Taani (Anushka Sharma) for whom the whole world is her canvas and she paints her own life with the colours of rainbow all until unforeseen circumstances changes it all and brings them together. Sooner, its biggest dance show in Amritsar and Surinder coiffes himself as Raj what he calls 'Macho Chap'… He does it all to impress his girl Taani and what's next?

It's a journey filled with laughter, tears, joy, pain, music, dance and a lot of love. A journey that makes us believe that there is an extraordinary love story in every ordinary jodi.

The first half dawdles with sluggish narration until earlier minutes to pre-interval where SRK's soliloquy with statue takes on emotional quotients. Well, the latter half comprises of few enjoyable moments like Anushka racing on her bike with 'Dhoom Machale' on BCM and next ultimate shot of Vinay Pathak-SRK at garage.

It's a crème de la crème performance by Shah Rukh Khan as he emotes resplendently on all situations. Be it his make-over sequences adjusting his tight jeans in dance class or the performance in penultimate minutes, King Khan is awe-inspiring. A flawless performance by debutant Anushka Sharma and of course she eclipses Shah Rukh on many parts. What to say about Vinay Pathak? He's over-the-top and more emblazons to the screen. He strides sparkling smiles on our lips with his wiggeries and soaks our eyes as he gets emotional. Don't miss the great dance of SRK-Vinay for the original tune of 'Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi'. Its emotional outbursts from every characterization that turns entire spotlights on RNBDJ…

Aditya's innovative thought is laudable on certain parts like Shah Rukh laying rose next to food and again placing it vase, pictorial of Anushka's face for the song 'Tuj Mei Rab Diktha Hai' and entire Amritsar being lit up, 'I Love You' deserves grand round of applause. Fine! Young lads and missies would hail with praise worthy comments for Adhi's ideation. Both SRK and Anushka swallowing Pani Purees followed by abrupt sequence where he has to finish of delicious Biriyani are evokes laughter.

Nevertheless, the biggest flaw is that how come a woman fails to recognize her husband with a slight-make over…. The characters of Surindar and Raj differ merely with thin moustache, hair style and costumes. Both the characters have same voice sans any modulations….

What barricaded Aditya's cognizance while dropping these lines on his paper? Indeed, it's a billion dollar question.

Ravi K Chandran's cinematography enhances visual quality and his placement of creative angles deserves special attention. The duo Salim-Sulaiman seems to have not percolated a lot for background scoring. It's again the pieces of existing numbers in album tuned and they sway on all songs.

Possibly, 'Haule Haule' and 'Dance Pe' peaked with high-promos prior to release. For sure, both the versions of 'Tuj Mei Rab Dikta Hai' capture your senses with beauteous visualizing. 'Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte' fails to make it big despites grand set decorations, costumes and top-charting actresses with SRK. Ritesh Soni's editing especially on 'Dancing Jodi' at the climax is mind blowing... Choreography by Vaibhavi and Shiamak are sumptuously ne plus ultra…

On the whole, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is enjoyable on many parts with fun, frolic, lots of music and dance, pains and emotions. Well, Aditya Chopra gets stuck failing to pen an engrossing screenplay. It's too long, irksome and more predictability when it comes to narration and the auteur could've better avoided these vistas.

Verdict: A Fair to middling Show

कभी कुशी कभी ग़म

KABHI KHUSHI KABHIE GHAM…

(notes by Corey K. Creekmur)

("Sometimes happiness, sometimes sorrow")
2001, Hindi, 209 minutes
Directed by Karan Johar
Music: Jatin Lalit, Sandesh Shandilya, and Aadesh Shrivastav; Cinematography: Kiran Deohans

Patriarchy has not yet, to my knowledge, made the Endangered Species list, but Karan Johar seems to feel that it needs shoring up with this massive, opulent, yet oddly hollow film. Strange to say, KABHI KHUSHI KABHIE GHAM… — compressed as K3G by the press even before it was released — may now be the most successful Indian film ever made, at least in terms of initial revenue returns. A minor scandal was created when the film should have appeared within the top-10 box office in the United States on Variety's lists for late 2001, but was omitted because the editors apparently couldn't believe that an "unknown" film was doing "house full" business in American theatres (albeit those catering to Indo-American audiences); the film did appear high up on the U.K. charts at the same time. Meanwhile, K3G broke records throughout India, supported by a massive marketing campaign that included CDs and cassettes as well as a fancy gift book on its making. Inevitably, the film doesn't live up to the hype — could any film? — but this one seems an especially notable letdown: the storyline is rather simple and blatantly illogical at times, and the lavish sets and use of showy locations never serve much purpose; most of the songs aren't very memorable, and seem inserted rather then integrated, reinforcing a claim that is too often brought against Hindi films (unfairly in many cases — e.g., 2001's other big hit LAGAAN, which works to carefully combine song and story).

The film, through emphatically "big," treats a fairly narrow topic: the internal dynamics of the ostentatiously rich Raichand family, headed by Yashovardhan (a.k.a. “Yash,” played by Amitabh Bachchan) and his wife Nandini (Jaya Bachchan). A flashback reveals that the childless couple adopted a son, Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan), but were surprised when Rohan was born a few years later, placing Rahul in the tricky position of being the "eldest" but not the "natural" child of his parents. The family is a model of love and respect until Rahul falls in love with Anjali (Kajol), a perky and comically clumsy Punjabi girl from Delhi's Chandni Chowk, whose younger sister Pooja is Rohan's classmate. (The development of the love between Shah Rukh's Rahul and Kajol's Anjali, which occupied most of the running time of DILWALE DULHANIYA LE JAENGE and KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI, takes mere seconds here.) Yash had a classier, business-minded match in mind for Rahul: Naina (Rani Mukherjee, left with little to do in the film); but Rahul chooses love over duty in order to marry Anjali, accepting banishment from the Raichand family and mother India.

All of this comes as news (in the form of a long flashback) to the adult Rohan (Hrithik Roshan), igniting his quest to reunite his broken family. Once a roly-poly and teased little boy, he's now a strapping, style-conscious hunk who plans to go to London and covertly work his way into Rahul's home and family, since his own brother, sister-in-law, and childhood playmate surely won't recognize him. Finally, he stages a family reunion at an upscale London shopping mall, and in a rather confusing ending, everyone quickly apologizes for previous bad behavior. (Rahul, it seems, should have simply disrespected Yash by not staying away and all would have been forgiven; Anjali was apparently right to ask for the blessing of the man who was banishing her from his home and family.) Karan Johar's chosen epigraph for the film, used in the script and in all its advertising — "it’s all about loving your parents" — is in fact hard to apply to the film, since Rahul's adherence to his love for his parents generally brings him grief. Rather, the film seems to actually admonish stern fathers to trust and love their children — mothers, aunties, and grandmothers, of course, love their children unconditionally even while respecting the idiotic wishes of vain patriarchs.

Such domestic clichés have been central to many of the recent family-oriented hits of Hindi cinema, and the promise of another treatment of similar material evidently paid off in ticket sales. But K3G doesn't bring much to the now familiar formula. Even one of the film's greatest draws, its casting coup of three of the biggest male stars of Hindi cinema, doesn't pay off as fully as it should: Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan had already been paired, in quite similar roles, in Aditya Chopra's lackluster MOHABBATEIN (2000), and the addition of Hrithik Roshan doesn't significantly alter the dynamic. Amitabh (who now plays the kind of unyielding fathers his career-defining "angry young man" used to get angry about) has a few nice comic scenes with Khan in the latter's London home, but they don't create the sparks one expects from an on-screen meeting of mega-stars. Shah Rukh, while still in the boyish persona that made him famous, effectively carries the emotional weight of the film, and is best when he registers the undeserved pain of his banishment. He's also convincing as a father himself, a career transformation that began when he played a widower in Karan Johar's hit debut KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI. The three female stars don't fare very well either: Jaya Bachchan is as impressive as possible in the conventional role of the Indian woman torn between her duties as mother and wife, and her final chance to tell off her (real-life as well as on-screen) husband is at least satisfying. Kajol, cute as ever, gives in to frequent mugging and pratfalls that become tiresome. Kareena Kapoor's grown-up Pooja is simply confusing: she's a spoiled NRI princess living in London who has apparently taken CLUELESS as a lifestyle guide (a decade too late), but is asked to gain sudden sincerity at the last moment. Paired with Roshan, whose emotional mission doesn't prevent him from partaking of fancy cars and the latest fashions, she can't seem to decide whether she's playing a sexy cartoon or a sympathetic co-conspirator in the rescue of a wounded family.

Like a number of recent films that depict (and address) so-called NRIs (“non-resident Indians), K3G is most interesting — but also most confusing — when it mixes the material pleasures of global consumerism with the nostalgic desire for Indian values: a transitional montage of the familiar sights of Tony Blair's "cool" London is accompanied by "Vande Mataram" (a hymn to the Motherland beloved of the Hindu Right) on the soundtrack, and patriotic feelings are aroused in the principals when they hear the Indian national anthem sung by…the blonde and blue-eyed children's choir of a posh English school (the British parents, understandably baffled, nevertheless stand and shed tears as well). Father Yash keeps harping on the importance of the rituals and traditions of his family (which apparently include an expensive foreign education), but it's often difficult to understand how his Anglophile lifestyle — including an English country mansion, personal helicopters, and finely tailored designer suits — reinforce the “traditional” Indian values he seeks to uphold (admittedly, the same might be said of some of India’s reigning Hindu commercial families).

Logic is hardly the primary concern of this or any popular Indian film, but when the chemistry is right this may not matter. Here, where it's never more than lukewarm, a number of obscurities seem glaring: the source of the family's massive wealth is never clarified, and when Rahul is banished to life in London, he seems to have figured out how to maintain a tidy income, though we're never sure what he does for a living. The suggestion that fat little Rohan could transform into tall and buff Hrithik by going away to school for a few years (what an athletic program they must have!) perhaps explains why his "bhaiya" doesn't recognize him at all a few years later, leading even Rahul to wonder aloud how the little butterball lost all the weight (the answer is delicately avoided). But why must Rohan infiltrate Rahul's home and family anyway? The film never suggests any rift between the brothers (Rohan has apparently simply accepted his brother's decade-long absence without question), and so Rohan's clever deception seems altogether unnecessary. It's stubborn Yash who needs to be convinced to accept his banished son and daughter-in-law: Rahul, who honors a large portrait of his parents every day, is hardly reluctant to return to his family's arms.

Finally, given the track record of the filmmaker and his composers, the songs in K3G are also surprisingly lackluster, and massive sets and phalanxes of dancers tend to be the only notable contributions to their picturization. The blustery "Say `Shava Shava'" (with Yash at least loosening up for a bit) and the catchy "You Are My Soniya," are at least memorable, but the other songs fade quickly. Inside jokes and allusions — to Amitabh's new career as the television host of the Indian franchise of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”, and a persistent use of the theme song from KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI — are clever but also serve little purpose. In the end, it doesn't seem a wise move on Karan Johar's part to keep reminding his audience of that previous, equally excessive, but far more effective film.

[The Yash Raj Films DVD of K3G is of excellent quality, and fully subtitled, but unlike other recent DVDs released by this company, offers no significant extras. Then again, after 3.5 hours with the Raichands (a family that has everything), you probably won’t need anything more.]