Punjab Power, lighting up your life.
Dec. 12th, 2008 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
whathoToday I went to the cinema to see Shahrukh Khan with a moustache and glasses. Surinder Sahni is my favourite thing that Shahrukh Khan's ever done. He answers telephones for Punjab Power, he doesn't meet anybody's eyes and he has the gait of a chronically embarrassed poker. On his desk is a sign that says 'I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realise I should've been more specific'. At the beginning of the film, he marries a woman called Taani because her fiance died in a bus crash en route to the wedding and her father had a heart attack and couldn't bear the thought of her being left alone, so he said it'd make him really happy if she married his student, Surinder, who basically seems to be the true love of his life. So she said 'Fine, yes, I'll do that'. And that's what they did. I enjoy describing the plots of Bollywood films in one straightforward sentence.
'Thank you for marrying me the day after my fiance was killed in a bus crash and my father died of a heart attack,' said Taani once she'd been taken to Surinder's house and he'd moved into the attic out of sheer embarrassment and eaten a piece of toast like a champ. 'But I'm never going to be able to love you.' Well, thought I. She's having a tough weekend. But still. If she can't love Shahrukh Khan with a moustache and glasses, you just have to accept she's broken. Take it as an abject lesson in not marrying your late father's boyfriend the day after your fiance's died in a car crash.
Surinder, who could be carried through an entire working day on the buzz from Taani's having handed him his tiffin of a morning, didn't take any abject lessons from it. Instead he told his friend Bobby the hairdresser to turn him into a dude called Raj so he could be the singing dancing hero Taani really wanted out of life. 'This is what I was born for,' said Bobby the hairdresser, who entered the film kicking Surinder's door in because he couldn't really cope with the whole marriage thing, and there was a great bit where they sort of fell into one another's arms sobbing at the thought of what might have been. It was a really good beginning that was tragically ruined when Bobby suggested Surinder hit Taani in an effort to make her love him. Surinder said 'No, I think perhaps I shan't do that,' because Surinder isn't a knobhead. Then Bobby gave him a haircut and shaved off his moustache and made him wear some awfully tight jeans and basically turned him into Shahrukh Khan. Well. Raj. He also made him a fake moustache so he could be Surinder again of an evening. I breathed the world's biggest sigh of relief.
Taani entered the Amritsar version of Strictly Come Dancing and Raj became her dance partner. Raj turned out to be a bit of a pillock, but Taani fell for him anyway. Surinder, in his Raj incarnation, was fairly happy about this to begin with. Then he got drunk with Bobby in the salon and found a mannequin dressed up as the original Surinder. He kissed it on the cheek. I said 'Oh my god' about ninety-seven times. Then he taunted it for a bit, then he had a whacking great angst-fest because Taani loved Raj instead of Surinder. It was Shahrukh Khan vs Shahrukh Khan. I was very much on the side of Shahrukh Khan.
Then there was an intermission. We do need to breathe after all.
In the second half, Surinder decided that Taani's loving Raj was a BAD idea because he kind of hated Raj and it'd be much better for all concerned if she learned to love Surinder instead. But in the meantime he'd made her promise to spend the day with Raj. Phooey. There was a tragically pretty song where Surinder danced around Taani in the lovely Punjabi countryside and she only ever looked at him when he was dressed as Raj. It was best moustache in the world, you know. I can't emphasise this enough. Later that day, Raj took Taani to the top of a hill and made Amritsar spell out 'I love you' with the aid of a brief power-cut and some very selective lighting. Taani was properly weirded out, which was a slightly brilliant reaction. The wrong Shahrukh Khan was in love with her. She banished him for a bit.
Surinder decided to be Surinder for a while, to see if his wife had grown any less insane, so he took Taani to a Japanese trade fair in a further effort to gain her love. While he was there he fought a Sumo wrestler so he could win a pair of tickets to Japan and for no adequately explored reason he won. Taani confronted him afterwards. 'What the HELL was that scene all about?' she said. 'What was it doing in this movie? What does any of it mean?' Taani represented the voice of the people on occasion. Except when she told Surinder she could never love him. Obv. Surinder said he wanted to take her to Japan so she'd adore him. She dressed his wound angrily and told him he was a silly little man who wore glasses and worked for Punjab Power and was mostly attached to a computer by a flash drive he wore around his neck. THE PROBLEM BEING? Surinder sat in a chair with plasters on his face and was beautifully sad.
The next day he went to work without his tiffin and Taani came after him to give it back, and he took this as a sign that she'd fallen for him because really he has a bit of a strange relationship with tiffins. He discovered he was wrong when she ran away to find Raj in the middle of a film about a woman falling in love with a powerfully geeky man. I'd like to see that film. And said she'd rather like to run away with him. With Raj. Bummer. And Raj said yes. We'll do that. Because he'd gone a bit insane. Surinder wasn't actually planning on letting Raj be happy though. Surinder hates his trendy persona who steals his wife and has all the fun. Surinder's just going to leave a goodbye note and put his house in Taani's name and go and live in Delhi.
Before all that though, Taani and Raj still have to do the final night of Amritsar's Strictly Come Dancing (which has been bimbling on fairly quietly in the background). I've gone all present tense there and I thought I should admit it. Anyway. Surinder takes Taani to the Golden Temple so he can pray for her to do well in the comp. Taani, while she's there, asks what people mean when they say they can see god in their lovers, which is what Raj said to her the other night. That's never happened to her before. 'What do you look like, god?' she says. Then she looks up and Surinder's standing in front of her, with his moustache and his glasses. Finally she gets it. More through coincidental thinking than through plot and stuff. But that's not really the point.
At the dance comp, Taani tells Raj she can't run away with him after all because she's fallen in love with her boring little husband. Shahrukh Khan doesn't seem to mind being called boring, and he does the most beautiful happy crying I've ever seen him do. He does an excellent thing with his right hand. Back in the auditorium, Raj fails to appear on stage when he's announced and Taani's about to ask the MC to disqualify the pair of them when out comes Surinder instead with his moustache and his glasses and his shirt and his nicely-pressed trousers and a pen in his breast pocket and he danced with Taani. Brilliantly. It was like Grease with Shahrukh Khan as Sandra Dee, only the bloke decides he prefers her without the catsuit and the heels. I LOVE IT WHEN FILMS DO WHAT I ASK THEM TO DO IN MY HEAD. I did very well not to write this entire synopsis in capitals. And then Taani worked out that Surinder and Raj were (sort of) the same person and she shouted 'lies' at him, but she wasn't so much cross because he'd behaved in the weirdest way it was possible to behave but because he'd been in love with her all this time and had pretended he didn't know what love meant. Or something. Then they took some very stiff bows and went to Japan for their honeymoon.
The moral of the film is that Shahrukh Khan with a moustache and glasses is better than Shahrukh Khan without a moustache and glasses.
I'm basing my life on that moral. Do the same and you shan't go too far wrong.
'Thank you for marrying me the day after my fiance was killed in a bus crash and my father died of a heart attack,' said Taani once she'd been taken to Surinder's house and he'd moved into the attic out of sheer embarrassment and eaten a piece of toast like a champ. 'But I'm never going to be able to love you.' Well, thought I. She's having a tough weekend. But still. If she can't love Shahrukh Khan with a moustache and glasses, you just have to accept she's broken. Take it as an abject lesson in not marrying your late father's boyfriend the day after your fiance's died in a car crash.
Surinder, who could be carried through an entire working day on the buzz from Taani's having handed him his tiffin of a morning, didn't take any abject lessons from it. Instead he told his friend Bobby the hairdresser to turn him into a dude called Raj so he could be the singing dancing hero Taani really wanted out of life. 'This is what I was born for,' said Bobby the hairdresser, who entered the film kicking Surinder's door in because he couldn't really cope with the whole marriage thing, and there was a great bit where they sort of fell into one another's arms sobbing at the thought of what might have been. It was a really good beginning that was tragically ruined when Bobby suggested Surinder hit Taani in an effort to make her love him. Surinder said 'No, I think perhaps I shan't do that,' because Surinder isn't a knobhead. Then Bobby gave him a haircut and shaved off his moustache and made him wear some awfully tight jeans and basically turned him into Shahrukh Khan. Well. Raj. He also made him a fake moustache so he could be Surinder again of an evening. I breathed the world's biggest sigh of relief.
Taani entered the Amritsar version of Strictly Come Dancing and Raj became her dance partner. Raj turned out to be a bit of a pillock, but Taani fell for him anyway. Surinder, in his Raj incarnation, was fairly happy about this to begin with. Then he got drunk with Bobby in the salon and found a mannequin dressed up as the original Surinder. He kissed it on the cheek. I said 'Oh my god' about ninety-seven times. Then he taunted it for a bit, then he had a whacking great angst-fest because Taani loved Raj instead of Surinder. It was Shahrukh Khan vs Shahrukh Khan. I was very much on the side of Shahrukh Khan.
Then there was an intermission. We do need to breathe after all.
In the second half, Surinder decided that Taani's loving Raj was a BAD idea because he kind of hated Raj and it'd be much better for all concerned if she learned to love Surinder instead. But in the meantime he'd made her promise to spend the day with Raj. Phooey. There was a tragically pretty song where Surinder danced around Taani in the lovely Punjabi countryside and she only ever looked at him when he was dressed as Raj. It was best moustache in the world, you know. I can't emphasise this enough. Later that day, Raj took Taani to the top of a hill and made Amritsar spell out 'I love you' with the aid of a brief power-cut and some very selective lighting. Taani was properly weirded out, which was a slightly brilliant reaction. The wrong Shahrukh Khan was in love with her. She banished him for a bit.
Surinder decided to be Surinder for a while, to see if his wife had grown any less insane, so he took Taani to a Japanese trade fair in a further effort to gain her love. While he was there he fought a Sumo wrestler so he could win a pair of tickets to Japan and for no adequately explored reason he won. Taani confronted him afterwards. 'What the HELL was that scene all about?' she said. 'What was it doing in this movie? What does any of it mean?' Taani represented the voice of the people on occasion. Except when she told Surinder she could never love him. Obv. Surinder said he wanted to take her to Japan so she'd adore him. She dressed his wound angrily and told him he was a silly little man who wore glasses and worked for Punjab Power and was mostly attached to a computer by a flash drive he wore around his neck. THE PROBLEM BEING? Surinder sat in a chair with plasters on his face and was beautifully sad.
The next day he went to work without his tiffin and Taani came after him to give it back, and he took this as a sign that she'd fallen for him because really he has a bit of a strange relationship with tiffins. He discovered he was wrong when she ran away to find Raj in the middle of a film about a woman falling in love with a powerfully geeky man. I'd like to see that film. And said she'd rather like to run away with him. With Raj. Bummer. And Raj said yes. We'll do that. Because he'd gone a bit insane. Surinder wasn't actually planning on letting Raj be happy though. Surinder hates his trendy persona who steals his wife and has all the fun. Surinder's just going to leave a goodbye note and put his house in Taani's name and go and live in Delhi.
Before all that though, Taani and Raj still have to do the final night of Amritsar's Strictly Come Dancing (which has been bimbling on fairly quietly in the background). I've gone all present tense there and I thought I should admit it. Anyway. Surinder takes Taani to the Golden Temple so he can pray for her to do well in the comp. Taani, while she's there, asks what people mean when they say they can see god in their lovers, which is what Raj said to her the other night. That's never happened to her before. 'What do you look like, god?' she says. Then she looks up and Surinder's standing in front of her, with his moustache and his glasses. Finally she gets it. More through coincidental thinking than through plot and stuff. But that's not really the point.
At the dance comp, Taani tells Raj she can't run away with him after all because she's fallen in love with her boring little husband. Shahrukh Khan doesn't seem to mind being called boring, and he does the most beautiful happy crying I've ever seen him do. He does an excellent thing with his right hand. Back in the auditorium, Raj fails to appear on stage when he's announced and Taani's about to ask the MC to disqualify the pair of them when out comes Surinder instead with his moustache and his glasses and his shirt and his nicely-pressed trousers and a pen in his breast pocket and he danced with Taani. Brilliantly. It was like Grease with Shahrukh Khan as Sandra Dee, only the bloke decides he prefers her without the catsuit and the heels. I LOVE IT WHEN FILMS DO WHAT I ASK THEM TO DO IN MY HEAD. I did very well not to write this entire synopsis in capitals. And then Taani worked out that Surinder and Raj were (sort of) the same person and she shouted 'lies' at him, but she wasn't so much cross because he'd behaved in the weirdest way it was possible to behave but because he'd been in love with her all this time and had pretended he didn't know what love meant. Or something. Then they took some very stiff bows and went to Japan for their honeymoon.
The moral of the film is that Shahrukh Khan with a moustache and glasses is better than Shahrukh Khan without a moustache and glasses.
I'm basing my life on that moral. Do the same and you shan't go too far wrong.
