By Kartik Iyer
Farhan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai released in 2001. I was three years old. My family went to watch it. They took me along. Watching the film is one of my earliest memories as a human being. I remember my reaction to the film even today.
Inside the theatre in 2001, I remember being totally confused within the first 10 minutes. I saw three people talking about something. I had no clue they were Akshaye Khanna, Saif Ali Khan, and Aamir Khan. To me, they were just three dudes. But suddenly, I saw a car’s tire braking in front of a house. An old lady opened the door to the house and two dudes, who were just now talking on the phone in separate houses, rushed inside asking about someone. Moments later, they enter a room and I see the familiar face of the bald guy from the hospital. But what was he doing here with a paint brush? What is happening?
To the three-year-old Kartik, the opening of Dil Chahta Hai was absolutely incomprehensible. Years later, meaning only 3-4 years ago when I watched it properly in one go, did I realize that it was a flashback.
The opening shot of the movie is an ambulance rushing on the road. That’s Sid taking Tara to a hospital because she is critically ill. He waits in the waiting room and calls Sameer, who calls Aakash. Then Sameer drives to the hospital. That’s when the aforementioned tire braking shot cuts in. What I did not realize then was that this is possibly Sameer looking back in time. We have cut from the current timeline of Tara dying in the hospital and Sameer driving to her, to another timeline that is occurring entirely inside Saif Ali Khan’s head. So, we have a ‘real’ event occurring while simultaneously there is a ‘memory’ being played out. There is objective reality and there is a subjective reality. Moving on.
The scene inside Sid’s house ends with a sweet slow-motion shot of the three friends jumping on top of each other, after which we cut inside the hospital following Sameer. He meets up with Sid and exchanges pleasantries. Life updates are shared. Then Sid asks about a girl that had a crush on Aakash. He asks. Therefore, when we quickly cut to the shot of the girl inside a disco, we can presume that this is Sameer telling him the name of the girl. But we don’t see Sameer saying anything. We directly move to a space and time where the girl is present, and so are all the guys. We have moved to another timeline. Is this the same timeline as the previous one where Sameer was thinking about the gang having fun in Sid’s apartment? Is it, therefore, the same subjective reality we have entered, the one that exists inside the head of Sameer? His memory?
This is critical to Dil Chahta Hai because when you think of the movie from this perspective, you start to think that the movie is possibly, for the most part, a memory. That begs the question: whose memory?
For the next 90 minutes of the movie, we live in a subjective reality. We are not in the timeframe that was first introduced to us, the one inside the hospital. We are in a different one where the gang has gone to Goa, Sid has met Tara, etc (what is typically the most fun part of the movie). Then Sid slaps Aakash and we have the intermission. We return to the hospital immediately after intermission and Sameer is the one talking. Once again, we can presume he has been talking all this time. He tells Sid what he did after the night Sid slapped Aakash. We cut to that other timeframe. For a very long time after that, we are in Australia; by then my three-year-old brain had possibly given up and fallen asleep.
I remember being awake around the time of the opera where Aakash has a stirring moment. The white people on stage are singing something in a language I can’t understand. And then suddenly, I see weird images that are of a different colour. I refer now to the sequence where Aakash sees Shalini in his mind’s eye, realizing that he loves her.
My question, when I watched the movie recently, was this: by this point in the movie, who the fuck is narrating the story? Just before that opera scene, I was in India following what Sameer and Sid are up to. And then I see this weird fucking series of shots of what Aakash is seeing inside his head. What in the world is going on?
Just to wrap it up, we stay in Australia, and that subjective reality, until nearly the end. We move back to the hospital. Sid asks Sameer a question. And Sameer replies. Once again, we can presume Sid is responding to what Sameer was saying. Then, only for the second time in the movie, we see Aakash in the objective reality, in the ‘real’ timeframe of the movie. He is at his home, he drives, mysteriously sees himself with Sid and Sameer at the entrance of the college in the middle of the day, and then meets up with Sid and Sameer at the hospital. At that point, the alternate, subjective timeline comes to an end. We stick to the one and only timeline after that. And the movie comes to an end.
Did I just now make Dil Chahta Hai seem like an extremely complicated movie? Well, it is!
I will now answer the questions I have asked. Firstly, there are three primary characters and 5-odd secondary characters. Let’s forget the secondary ones. Now the way the movie is set-up, there is a clear indication that nothing you see outside of the hospital for 95% of the movie is happening in real-time, simply because two people cannot be at different places at the same time; duh. So, what is happening? The first time we moved away from the current timeline was when Sameer was reminiscing in his car. Okay. So, the first alternate timeline that was established was of Sameer’s memory. Then we have Sid and Sameer talking about their past. Sid asks Sameer a question and then we move to the disco scene, and the rest of the 90 minutes before intermission. Interestingly, Sid is asking Sameer a question before we jump to that disco. So, did Sameer answer the question? Naturally. Why won’t he? That conversation must have moved on. But we don’t see them talking, do we? So, how can we be sure? We can’t. But we can guess that it did. Because we (and Sid?) got the answer to the question in the form of that disco scene.
Earlier I asked, is this a different timeframe? Or do we instinctively presume that this is once again Sameer sharing his memory? It is the latter. Or else, the movie would not have worked. Because of the question-answer nature of the conversation where it is Sameer who is filling in the details, and the fact that we have already been inside Sameer’s head, we automatically accept this reality as the one inside Sameer’s head. Therefore, based on these observations, the conclusion is that 95% of Dil Chahta Hai is just one dude’s memory. And that dude is Sameer played by Saif Ali Khan. Sameer is the narrator of Dil Chahta Hai.
What makes the movie very confusing is that whatever happens in the second half, especially the whole of Aakash’s arc in Australia and Sid’s arc with Tara, Sameer is not present with them. This happens often in the first half too. Whatever we see and hear is basically Sameer’s memory of the events. Or worse, whatever Sameer was told. For example: Aakash’s stirring moment inside the opera. How the hell did Sameer know? Aakash must’ve told him. So, Sameer is telling Sid what Aakash told him about what he saw in his mind’s eye inside the opera in Australia roughly two years ago. Rashomon my ass!
I state all of this for one simple reason: if 95% of Dil Chahta Hai is Sameer’s memory and its narration to Sid, what are the chances that either Sid or Aakash have a different story to tell? What if the rosy, comforting feeling that you get while watching the movie is because the guy who suffered the least is narrating the story? And if Sameer was not present in large sections of his friends’ lives, how well does he know what happened?
The big, sad truth is that whatever happened in Dil Chahta Hai possibly didn’t happen that way. How different would the story be if Aakash had been the narrator? Or Sid? Where and how would the subjective timeline begin?
Suppose the opening ambulance and call scene remains the same. The way it is, after the call we jump to Sameer and see his memory play out on screen. Suppose we stayed with Aakash and saw his memory play out. Would the following scene, therefore jump into the subjective reality, be Aakash getting slapped by Sid? Suppose we stay with Sid after the call. What will he think about? What will we see? Dil Chahta Hai will not be the same without Sameer. Take him out of the equation and the whole movie will flip on its head.
What is very peculiar to me is that I did not think of any of this before. I have been watching Dil Chahta Hai for 22 years now. I have grown up with it. I have dreamt and aspired for a life and friends like Sid, Sameer and Aakash. But never once did I think that the movie is possibly a sham, a fraud since it’s basically one guy’s memory. Think Memento.
Now that I think of it, did Dil Chahta Hai invent a new form of youth aspiration? One that is unquestionably cool, without the boring parts. The last shot of the movie has the three friends and their partners having a drink and some food around the table. Today, all of us live that life. Or was Dil Chahta Hai simply lucky in tapping into what was happening at a mass level, and a personal level with Farhan Akhtar? Perhaps both. For a movie to become that iconic, I guess you need some luck on your side.
Is the romanticism associated with the movie threatened by this? I don’t know. But it sure as hell makes me think. It brings to mind that famous Don Draper dialogue from Mad Men: “Nostalgia – it’s delicate, but potent”.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Raghu Narayanan
April 17, 2023
An interesting POV about one of my all time favorite Hindi movies.
While I was not quite 3 years old, I did have my own moments about the movie experience – besides the movie itself. I had quite recently started out on a new job then and it was the 1st or 2nd week-end after, that I had gone to watch the movie along with my room-mate. And just a few yards in front of me on the ticket line, I caught sight of my new CEO with his family! And then there was some mix up about the seat numbers and one quiet kid came up to claim my seat and me, in all the haughtiness that I could muster, told him off to check his arithmetic (the very word that had I used then) only to realize later that I was wrong and the kid was right. And the quiet kid gave me back in the same language 🙂
All this before the movie even started!
And then the movie started, and what a ride it was! Right from the intro BGM until the last, nothing else existed in the universe for me.
Coming to your POV, I had quite a different understanding back then, which I continue to hold even now. Three friends are together and then they break up. Two of them meet later under a stressful situation and they talk about their days together and what happened post the break-up. I did not see their ‘flash-backs’ as just Sameer’s memory, but rather each of them recollecting the event/incident in his own way. For example, in the disco Sid was doing a sketch of Preity Zinta on a napkin – which was his memory of the event. And Sameer was getting pulled up by his girl-friend for talking to another girl, which was his memory, and so on. Sid and Akash are very different characters and while Akash is very headstrong and sometimes puerile, Sid is quite deep and mature. Sameer is the ‘malleable’ guy who gets manipulated by Akash quite a bit, but he is also the glue that sort of binds the friends together. So, to me, all the ‘flash-back’ scenes are each one looking at a common event from their own individual point of view – up until the break-up. The break-up scene itself is quite vividly depicting how each one of them looked at the situation then, which is how they remember it now. Post the break-up it is indeed Sameer recounting what had happened to both himself and Akash until the moment when they are sitting at the hospital. And, for want of a better term, it must be put down to cinematic liberty that Sameer is able to explain in great detail what happened to Akash in Australia just based on what Akash had told him. Else, it would have been over in two lines! The beautiful scene where in the hospital Sid asks Sameer if he spoke with Akash. Sameer lies to him and Sid sees through it. This brilliantly brings out the characters of all the three of them upto that point – Sid being the deep, poignant one, Akash being the egoistic one and Sameer being the playful, light guy who wants all the three of them to be together always. Finally, Akash had to be shown as letting go of his ego and patching up with Sid again, knowing that he was wrong in what he said on that fateful day of the break-up.
All in all, it was the best effort of Farhan Akhtar as a director, IMHO. My only grouse was that while Sameer and Akash’s lives post the break-up was shown in great detail, nothing was mentioned of Sid except that he had spent his time with his uncle. That to me was a travesty of justice, not only because Sid was the more meaningful and poignant of the 3 characters, but also that Akshaye Khanna was easily the best actor among the three.
Well, you cant have it all, so I will take what was shown, as I have been taking all these years. I am sure I will never get tired of this movie!
Thanks for the write-up, which has made me recollect such good memories about the movie.
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musical v
April 17, 2023
I must have seen this film 3 to 4 times on ott. A heavy film disguised as light hearted. I liked Saif’s role more. And songs are still good to listen. And Preity was good too.
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musical v
April 18, 2023
I was motivated to watch this once more. Dimple looked ethereal. Sid’s story had depth unlike the other guys’ stories. He was more likeable as an individual who should have been better off without the other two silly souls. This film is evergreen and it is elitist with first world problems. Its spin off ZNMD is somewhat underwhelming but watchable.
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Raghu Narayanan
April 18, 2023
@musical v – Not sure if Farhan Akhtar would have thought about it in this way, but when I reflect about the movie now especially the three central characters, they seem to symbolize the aspects of our own mind and how each of those aspects drive our behavior and define our personalities. One is a playful, impulsive aspect which is flighty, not serious and is easily attracted/distracted (Sameer). Then there is the ego, which strongly goes by likes and dislikes without much care or thought about if it is right or wrong (Akash). And then there is the deeper conscious, that part of the mind which for sure knows what is true/real and what is superfluous/fake (Sid). How the three characters behave across the various scenes depicted in the movie would reflect how the different aspects of the mind react / respond in such situations. More specifically, how the three of them find love in their lives is being used as a premise to explain what their nature is, and how the mind responds in such situations.
Sameer being the easily attracted / distracted kind quickly falls in and out of love, many times over. This shows that aspect of the mind which is superfluous, impulsive and acts without depth of thinking or feeling. It is not even deep enough to recognize its own ego. Akash, being the egoistic, selfish and opinionated guy, denies the existence of love and then is incapable of handling his own emotions when confronted with the truth about his own love. His first humbling moment happens when he had to express his own love, something which he had been mocking others about. His second humbling moment happens when he had to apologise to Sid. This goes to show that the egoistic mind, despite the strength of opinions that it is capable of forming, will have to bend and obey when confronted with truth and reality. Lastly, Sid is the most profound of the characters and finds true love in an unconventional way. He is not bothered by the frills and opinions of others but rather is connected to his deep conscience and does not hesitate to go with it, even if it means being misunderstood by everyone else. This is how the deeper, conscience-driven aspect of the mind behaves and this aspect enables people to take up important decisions and follow through on those decisions which can ultimately lead to satisfaction and true happiness.
Well, the movie has got me rambling again…!!! 🙂
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brangan
April 18, 2023
musical v: Wow. So the loss of friendship, the strained relationship with someone whose love you crave, the desperation to find at least one person who truly gets the “real” you, the the inability to break free from an MCP boyfriend because you feel indebted to his parents — these are “first world problems”?
Then everyone who’s living a life is filled with “first world problems” 🙂
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musical v
April 18, 2023
Well BR, elitist is the way the characters’ background suggests and so their problems are not basic like unemployment and starvation. Nothing wrong in being elitist as the problems apply to everyone. Elitists are a misunderstood lot. Their problems are dismissed easily. I just pointed out about their backgrounds and some of their issues like spending parents’ money while criticising their old fashioned values.
Raghu Narayanan, it is a pleasure to read your views about how all the three represent different aspects of a personality.
I loved the way how Sid consoled a distraught Priya. And how he tried to bring cheer to Tara on her birthday. How we wish to have such friends? How we should be like Sid?
Sameer is a confused guy but most are like him. He is the balancing factor.
Persons like Akash need some reality checks to understand certain things in life. He needs someone like Shalini to do so.
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musical v
April 18, 2023
Raghu Narayanan, enjoyed reading your interesting take about various aspects of our personalities.
BR, the first world problems like spending unearned money while dismissing parents like some irrelevant caricatures. Other problems are similar irrespective of belonging to first or third world. Just like third world heroes think they are virtuous simply because they are poor and live in poor conditions and their crimes should not be highlighted. They are like that because of years of exploitation.
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Kartik Iyer
April 18, 2023
Hello, Raghu. I’ve thought of DCH in a similar fashion too, that it is a shared reality that carries 95% of the movie. However, when I watched it recently, I couldn’t help bite a little too much into it. Honestly, there isn’t much on a narrative level to suggest that major chunk of the movie is carried by a shared memory. It is a curious thing how all of us accept it that way. That’s what was so ‘fraudulent’ about it for me. There is no physical evidence to suggest that majority of the first half is actually a shared, roughly objective recounting of the past. And I was simply baffled by it. That’s where the ‘we want it to be that way’ part comes in. Or maybe I’m just plain-old reading too much into it. But what a funny story about your first viewing man! You know I could’ve been that kid whose seat you accidentally sat on, yet here we are!
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Raghu Narayanan
April 18, 2023
Well you never know, it’s a small world really…you could be that kid had you perhaps watched the evening show on a Friday at the (now closed) Opera theater on Residency Road in Bangalore!!! 😀
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An Jo
April 18, 2023
Wonderful piece. Thank You.
The important thing is: Aamir was supposed to play the role of Akshay; given the popular perception that Aamir was/is a ‘thinking’ actor: Aamir was hell-bent against it, and it turned out to be one of his GREATEST performances, ever. His ‘reactions’, rather than his ‘actions’ are to be marveled at. When the girl says, ‘Chalo na, Hum bf/gf banke sabko jealous karte hain’, Aamir takes a couple of seconds to react, but man, what a reaction that was!!
And then there’s the scene where he is hogging break-fast like a pig, though a pig with forks and knives – the fork on the right hand; the knife on the left; Ghanta, he drops it all of a sudden and tells his parents, “OUT WITH IT FOLKS. Can’t handle the suspense anymore.’
And his character-turn when Akshay slaps him, and t hen the way he gives it back to that Dilip Kumar’s nephew; :MEIN HOTA, TOH MAAR DETA’, is terrific.
This movie earned the benefit for Aamir and Saif; Saif, as the idiot-comic; and Aamir, blowing to smithereens the image of a thinking actor.
Too bad, he left the ground bare-threaded for a mediocre actor like SRK to reap the benefits for the next 4 years; else, it would have been a fantastic game between the two.
And don’t EVEN TRY, to bring in Vinod’s outing with OSHO versus Amit; else I tell you, I have the knack of killing you verbally with verbiage…
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Raghu Narayanan
April 19, 2023
Would have been a bad decision had Aamir gone on to play Sid. He may have the reputation as a thinking actor, but the role itself is really one that is deep, serious, conscious and connected. Required an actor to convey intensity without much dialogue and depict a certain poise and seriousness even while having fun. He did try a slightly different shade of such a role in Dhobi Ghat but it turned out to be more brooding than intense, IMHO. Aamir’s abilities were more tuned for the role of Akash for sure, and while credit is due to him for picking the right role, I am not surprised at all that he hit it so far out of the park.
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hari prasad
April 19, 2023
I just completed rewatching DCH on Amazon Prime after the interest that this write-up created since it’s been a really long time since I last watched it without understanding it.
I’m watching it from Akshaye Khanna’s perspective and I empathised with him when Aamir and Saif aren’t okay with his relationship with Dimple Kapadia.
People now might say for fun that Akshaye is hitting on her because he thinks she’s a MILF but I don’t think so.
It might seem like that at first glance , since these three guys were introduced as fun pranksters but his feelings for Dimple were from the heart and looked really genuine and Akshaye did a pretty good job of convincing us that this is love.
Also , was Aamir’s Akash the first ever manchild protagonist of Hindi cinema or is he the first one to become popular like crazy?
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hari prasad
April 19, 2023
God , I forgot SRK’s roles in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa were that of a manchild
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hari prasad
April 19, 2023
Agree that Aamir suited well as Akash.
In 3 Idiots , though he was focused on reforming the education system , I liked his fun prankstery side more.
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musical v
April 19, 2023
Man is always a child for his woman,wife. Especially as he ages. What used to be cute becomes a problem and also a privilege. Thus the woman in his life tolerates his tantrums with a smile and with some irritation. Some go for divorce. It is not a generalisation per se. Does it happen opposite way? A woman being treated with kidgloves by her man? Sometimes, maybe. Are pranksters considered as manchild types? They cant be tamed easily but they have to grow up to be taken seriously. But these things are inborn. Not cultivated deliberately. Why should everybody be alike? If all were like Sid, there would have been no DCH. Sid is also born like that. He has to be like that only. He cant become manchild suddenly. In Andaz apna Apna, both the heroes were pranksters. The girls were serious or somewhat deep. Any film where girls were pranksters? Khoobsurat? Tanu weds manu? Chaalbaaz? Womanchild types?
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hari prasad
April 19, 2023
I thought Sid was the calmest dude among the trio , even in the opening party scene , he was busy drawing Preity Zinta on a tissue paper or a hankie , I guess.
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MANK
April 19, 2023
DCH is a film that i liked a lot when it came out but, with the passing of time. it is becoming more and more difficult to tolerate – to the point that today I don’t feel like watching it at all. everything about it feels artificial and phony to me, not to mention it changed Hindi film business and not for the better.
This movie earned the benefit for Aamir and Saif; Saif, as the idiot-comic; and Aamir, blowing to smithereens the image of a thinking actor.
Too bad, he left the ground bare-threaded for a mediocre actor like SRK to reap the benefits for the next 4 years; else, it would have been a fantastic game between the two.
I think Aamir being a thinking (or overthinking man\actor) has a lot to do with why he took those 4 years off. It’s hard to impossible for him to overcome failures, personal or professional – then it was the break up of his marriage and life being a mess and now he seems to have gone into hiding again after the double failures of TOH and LSC and another divorce. I think SRK being a more “spontaneous\testosterone driven” person (which reflects his acting style also) with a reasonably stable personal life can pick himself up quickly and move on. Also, when SRK is in peak form as an actor, he’s miles ahead of Aamir. Aamir can never come up with a performance like Swades , Kabhi haan Kabhi Naa or the superstar act in “Fan” with the same ease and naturalism\realism as SRK does. Aamir tends to get bogged down during the more intense\brooding portion of the character , as seen here in DCH as well- the opera scene when he realizes his love for Preity and the final proposal scene are not his best moments in the film, otherwise it’s true that his performance was great fun. I also agree that if Aamir has continue to do films after the one-two punch of Lagaan and DCH then it would have been a great contest between him and SRK and us, audiences, would have been the winners.
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Jai
April 19, 2023
Nice writeup, Kartik. Coincidentally, I’d watched DCH again on OTT quite recently, after a long gap- had seen it twice when it released in ’01 (was quite a bit older then than your 3 years then!) and then once again probably around 2011 when ZNMD released. (I found DCH far better & ZNMD to be a rather pale, albeit pretentious, imitation).
It’s interesting that Aamir was not even the first choice for any role in the film. Sid’s role was supposed to be played by Hrithik IIRC, and Aakash’s role by Akshaye. When Hrithik opted out (highly puzzling choice, given his preference to do the likes of Yaadein and Na Tum Jaano Na Hum), that role was offered to Aamir (apparently after having been offered to Abhishek as a stopgap).
Aamir insisted on Aakash’s role and thereafter the swap between him and Akshaye for the respective roles – which, as others have observed above, worked superbly for the characters as well as the film. Part of it is retrospective judgement, sure, but it’s difficult to imagine how Akshaye could have carried off Aakash’s role. And Aamir would probably have been way too mannered and brooding as Sid, maybe painting him much more of a misfit than just a sensitive and reserved individual.
The one thing I didn’t like about the movie then and the same today – the scene at Shalini’s wedding where Aakash finally declares his feelings for her and slaps Ayub Khan’s character. This was quite at odds with the fresh tone of the rest of the film. It seemed to a jarring dose of melodrama from other films, where such resolutions happen at the 9th hour at the shaadi mandap.
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An Jo
April 19, 2023
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musical v
April 19, 2023
I dont think Sameer was idiot-comic. He was naive and he was bullied for that. He was harmless. Sid’s story is not phony or pretentious. Even Sameer’s story is believable. How can we blame DCH for the problems bollywood film industry faced? Just like how can we blame Telugu and Kannada industries for bollywood woes? Change and change in tastes are inevitable whether one likes them or not. I think that this current phase is the last phase with VFX taking over in a very big way. What next will be interesting.
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Madan
April 19, 2023
Agree with MANK on almost everything. I felt the climax was rather flat even back then. Farhan couldn’t make the switch from the casual multiplex-y tone to the suddenly melodramatic emotions in the climax well and it was jarring. It did have very interesting characters, though, compared to what Bolly films usually had at the time (actually, mainly Sid, Dimple’s character and to some extent Preity’s). And that’s where we can’t be too indiscriminate in bashing multiplex cinema, because a movie like Life In A Metro wouldn’t have happened either without there having first been DCH to show the way. But that Anurag Basu film has aged better for me because it grappled much more with difficult emotions where DCH, in spite of some interesting passages mostly to do with Sid’s arc, did feel like everything was way too hunky-dory (including the resolutions, like the climax that wasn’t). I am not talking about the lifestyle again but the issues and emotions themselves being too pat. That said, Bolly did need something new in 2001 and DCH provided it alright.
“How can we blame DCH for the problems bollywood film industry faced? ” – Because it only did well in the metros and flopped elsewhere. That Bolly still doubled down on more films like DCH suggested the new filmmakers were already in a mood to just make whatever tf they wanted and screw the audience. This was ok as long as it was about Farhan’s own Lakshya, Life In A Metro or ZMND. By 2020s it has led to supporting nepokids at all cost. So Bolly didn’t just learn the wrong lesson from DCH, they learned one that wasn’t even there.
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musical v
April 19, 2023
Wake up Sid, Jaane tu ya jaane na, YJHD etc. etc. all have something common like urban centric characters. All these films mainly aim for certain audience. Ayushman Khurana films have somewhat similar arc. and he is non nepo. This is a trend. and trends vanish after a while or until they become mainstream. Now the trend is to include different gender characters and their aspirations which also cater to certain audience.
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Madan
April 19, 2023
“Wake up Sid, Jaane tu ya jaane na, YJHD etc. etc. all have something common like urban centric characters. All these films mainly aim for certain audience.” – So the answer to why Bolly is blamed for learning the wrong lessons from DCH is in your above statement. They focused on urban centric, specifically upper middle class metropolitan audience, and stopped catering to the working class in metros and other cities as well as the rural hinterland. With the predictable result that Yash and Allu Arjun are bigger stars there than any of the Bolly set.
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hari prasad
April 19, 2023
True.
Hindi cinema didn’t have that balance that Tamil cinema had in the 2000s till now.
At one side , we had the Mani saar , GVM movies , we had the Chennai 28s , the Polladhavans , the Oram Pos and at the other side , there were the CineMadurai flicks like Paruthiveeran , Subramaniapuram , Aadukalam etc.
On south stars becoming bigger names at the North , Bellamkonda Sai Sreenivas whose movies even the people of his own state won’t care to watch is a huge star at the north.
One of his movies , Jaya Janaki Nayaka which is one of the most boring and bland Telugu masala movies ever has a huge fucking fanbase there.
The craze for Bellamkonda Sai Sreenivas has become so huge that they’re remaking the Prabhas – Rajamouli starrer Chatrapathi ( which we Tamilans know as the second half of Vijay’s abominable Kuruvi) in Hindi!!
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musical v
April 19, 2023
I watched both Shehzada and Ala Vaikunthapuramulo.
Hindi version has some changes. I liked telugu version more. Sushant from akkineni family looked handsome and acted with dignity as the fake son while his counterpart in hindi was a silly cartoonish character.
An allu fan recommended Julayi, Race gurram, Duvvada Jagannadham.
Glad that allu did get all India recognition due to Pushpa though I did not like that film much.
Bollywood films lack the regional roots to go for mass films. They were lucky that their films worked well for such a long time inspite of not being rooted. The stories, music compensated and the audience accepted the films as there was no competition in the form of OTT content.
And Salman used to be massy just like Dharmendra. Salman magic will be tested this weekend.
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Madan
April 19, 2023
I think rootedness is honestly a little overrated as an indicator of success. I mean, when Rocky ‘finds himself’ for the first time in KGF1, I almost felt like saying, “Poora naam….”. It was so heavily based on AB’s angry young man films. So KGF (like Kabir Singh before it) ran precisely because you didn’t NEED to know so much about regional nuances to appreciate them. Kantara’s success was what was truly amazing because it was completely rooted and didn’t offer a VFX hook unlike Baahubali/RRR.
But South has enjoyed success with blockbusters lately (where Bolly hasn’t) because they didn’t give up on macho appeal (as seen from the reaction to Anupama Chopra citing a trade analyst, macho/testosterone are taboo words in Bolly today) and because they do action and thriller genres well. Bolly today can do noir-ish slow burn thrillers well but not pulsating, adrenaline-pumping stuff. Their idea of these kind of films are the Dhoom franchise, the Don revival, War and now Pathaan. Which works to some extent but still appeals much more to an urban centric audience by offering them a wannabe Bond/Bourne/John Wick type of Hindi film.
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Madan
April 19, 2023
Ironically enough, I don’t like KGF type of films and given where Holly’s at, I would have to look for new pastures to feed on if Bolly starts aping South (and they will kind of have to, to survive). So this is strictly my take on why South has stolen more than a march over Bolly and not about my personal preferences.
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brangan
April 20, 2023
Jai: The one thing I didn’t like about the movie then and the same today – the scene at Shalini’s wedding where Aakash finally declares his feelings for her and slaps Ayub Khan’s character. This was quite at odds with the fresh tone of the rest of the film.
In hindsight, the tonality of this scene is exactly right — it is a big, melodramatic finish to Aakash’s awakening that began at a big, melodramatic opera.
He thought he was too cool for all this love-shove stuff and fought with his best friend over this — and yet, he was reduced to doing “filmi” love-shove stuff to get Shalini.
There is no other way his arc would have made sense.
PS: One thing I wish for when I watch the film today is the intra-personal dynamics within friends. With a group of friends, there’s always something you share with one/two people more than others. I would have loved to see Sid/Aakash talk seriously about Tara for a scene or so, and he tries to talk Sid out of it and end of scene. And then when he finds out Sid is still at it, the big showdown happens. Right now, Aakash throughout the first half is that smirking/mocking guy without other shades. And a film so perceptive about behavioural nuances should have understood that we are all many-shaded people. Anyway…
PPS: Here’s something I wrote about the women in the film.
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musical v
April 20, 2023
In the past many bollywood films catered to the masses. Films like Sholay, bachchan’s movies, dharam’s movies and even rajesh Khanna’s roti, sachcha Jhoota. Thats punjabi and UP Bihar MP influence and rooted in rural cultures. Then bengalis like bimal roy, hrishikesh mukherjee came and gave bengali influence to bollywood. Hrishikesh mukherjee is perhaps the first multiplex friendly producer director. Cant discount urdu influence in that bygone era. Mere Mehboob, mughal e azam, gurudutt’s chaudvi ka chand come to mind. That gentle urdu influence became massy 3 Khan influence over bollywood cinema. OTT took away majority of multiplex audience and some of even mass audience. But the big mass audience in both rural and urban areas are still hungry for big screen experience and they gave boost to south films starting from Baahubali to RRR and the rest. War and Pathaan are mainly urban and overseas successes, especially Pathaan. Pathaan worked well even in the interiors and that contributed to its massive total. Brahmastra is also not a mass success in the true sense. By the way many big south films failed in north and no one is talking about them. So the picture is still somewhat fuzzy. The multiplex ticket prices are high and so a multiplex success is mainly about money than footfalls. Thus single screen oriented films suffered and began to vanish from the scene. Telugu and tamil films are following suit with their overseas releases to get that highest grossers tag. Especially telugu movies with cash rich overseas telugus.
And the last but not the least are religious, political, caste and huge fan influences that make some movies big successes apart from pure merit.
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Raghu Narayanan
April 20, 2023
“I would have loved to see Sid/Aakash talk seriously about Tara for a scene or so, and he tries to talk Sid out of it and end of scene. And then when he finds out Sid is still at it, the big showdown happens. Right now, Aakash throughout the first half is that smirking/mocking guy without other shades.”
But BR, if there had been such a scene, wont that have been out of line with Akash’s personality / character. He was depicted as someone who is totally immersed in himself, and his opinion was the only thing that counted for him. He was also someone who did not care about the hurt he brought to others just so that he had his fun – like his pranking Sameer over his possessive girlfriend. So someone who did not care about how he hurt others, would hardly be thinking of talking Sid out of his ‘feelings’ for Tara. And actually, he was totally convinced that Sid was only sexually interested in Tara and this conviction was what eventually led to the blow-out with Sid, who really had very deep feelings for Tara. The depth of feelings to which Akash was incapable of going to at that point in the story. So why would he bother advising Sid to not get close with Tara?
But on the other hand, you would expect Sid to give such advise to someone else, like how he explains beautifully to the girl who is in love with Akash and pines for Akash to reciprocate it – the scene on the beach.
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Jai
April 20, 2023
@ BR – wrt your take “In hindsight, the tonality of this scene is exactly right — it is a big, melodramatic finish to Aakash’s awakening that began at a big, melodramatic opera. He thought he was too cool for all this love-shove stuff …. — and yet, he was reduced to doing “filmi” love-shove stuff to get Shalini”.
….hmmm…Yeah, I get what you mean, but I still don’t see it that way. 🙂 IIRC, there’s even a dialogue from Sameer to Sid in the film, making a quip on these lines. That Aakash kept insisting he would never fall in love with anyone, but finally landed up proposing to Shalini at her wedding with someone else! I think it’s just that I simply dislike these kind of repeated takes of love proposals literally at the wedding venue. Chandni, KKHH and what feels like a couple dozen others went down this route. Chandni I think was among the first Hindi films I saw as a kid, and I still remember sniggering at the otherwise exquisite Sri shrieking as she ran down the stairs to reach a sozzled Rishi Kapoor, to the consternation of Vinod Khanna, Waheeda Rehman and all the wedding guests. I literally eye roll myself off the sofa whenever I watch that scene!! For me, DCH was such a breath of fresh air otherwise; this particular scene seemed atavistic of an older, more melodramatic narrative style.
Also, when you say “I would have loved to see Sid/Aakash talk seriously about Tara for a scene or so, and he tries to talk Sid out of it and end of scene. And then when he finds out Sid is still at it, the big showdown happens.”…. I don’t think Aakash is shown as the friend who either Sid or Sameer would turn to for a more “serious” talk about love and feelings and such. Aakash is at that stage, a rather self obsessed guy, with a very casual take on romantic attachments. As you said, he always thinks he is “too cool for all this love-shove stuff”. Only after he realizes his own feelings for Shalini, does he begin to appreciate what Sid must have felt for Tara.
Loved your writeup on the women in DCH, somehow missed this before. Going off to that thread now to comment. 🙂
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An Jo
April 21, 2023
A couple of points: by which I mean, a few thousand words…to bore you to liveliness:
1> Slap on Aakash: Have already mentioned this before – One of the defining moments of the
films where where Aamir first shows his shock, and then, his wrath. [Remember why I said
Saif's character is idiotic-comic; because he goes along with than, and only when Aamir sits on
the driver's seat and barks: "Sameer tu aah raha hai, ki mein jaoon?" That's when reality hits not
all the 3, but the audience immensely. From that scene onwards, all that Aamir tries is to 'act', I
mean literally 'act' the man-child he was with Deepa, and projects himself onto Zinta. Then he
gets a reality-check he has to wake up and smash Ayub Khan, again, literally, if he ever wants to
be recognized as a 'man.'
2> The MILF 'authorization' by Aakash: "Are yaar to samajhta hain na hamari woh Teacher."
Point 1, is what you know happens after point 2.
3> It is subtly hidden, but WOMEN, are men's weakest strengths: Aamir weeps like a puppy in
front of his father and his dad verbally thrashes him to leave all business to BS in Australia and
come back to Bombay.
4> Supporting point 3: AB in DEEWAR finally heaves a sigh of relief when he, which he knows
as well," Maa, Mein Tumhara Accha Beta Hoon Na, Kehe do Maa; Tumhare bagair, mein Ek
Raat Bhi So Nahin Saka Maan." This, after his post-coital smoke with Parveen. The same, in
AGNEEPATH. This, in umpteen movies, a) SRK in 'Baazigar', then with Madz in 'Anjaam';
Aamir in 'Deewana Mujhsa Nahin, in 'DIL', in 'QSQT.' And of course, AB in AGNEEPATH;
"Vijay Dinanath ka bahen ko uthake le gaya." In short, on this side of the Atlantic, we men are
‘pussies’ without our women. And for a good, very specific reason.
5> Where did Farhan cop out? When he makes Dimple utter the line: "Your generation, you
think anything goes?' One of the weakest scenes in the movie, when Farhan has built a character-
arc of Akshaye not even interested in anything 'wonderfully-dirty."
6> Aamir's style statement: It has stayed on for DECADES. Post-liberalization, in an art-form,
that survives heavily on looks, Aamir's goatee –sorry SRK — has survived the test of time. And
it was important to express oneself physically: Just as SRK, Kajol, Madz, and Rani expressed
themselves. No be-grudging there!
7> Finally, letting go of the sands of time: When Aamir drives past his alma-mater, he recalls the
days with Saif and Akshay, but then there's a red signal, and he brakes abruptly, and wears on his
seat-belt. Time’s gone; gotta move on – you are no longer the perfectionist.
HARSH truths of life captured finely, enacted superbly by the 3 actors, what I do not
wish do dissolve in the false-realm of 'modernism.'
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