Countries SRK Has Been To

Shah Rukh, you should visit more countries since you live in airport. So far it is 35, will add more if I find out more.


1. India (doh)
2. Pakistan
3. Bangladesh
4. Nepal
5. Sri Lanka
6. Indonesia
7. Guyana
8. Malaysia
9. UAE
10. USA
11. UK [including Scotland, Wales]
12. Iceland
13. Bulgaria
14. Germany
15. Netherlands
16. Canada
17. Croatia
18. Oman
19. Australia
20. New Zealand
21. Morocco
22. Turkey
23. South Africa
24. Mauritius
25. Switzerland
26. Norway
27. Greece
28. Seychelles
29. Singapore
30. Macau
31. France
32. Italy
33. Thailand
34. Trinidad & Tobago
35. Spain

Dilwale

I don't know how and where to begin at. Even after watching three times, I just don't know if I will be able to describe it well. One quality of Dilwale is that it was made to make people happy. First time I watched it, I felt speechless. My family kept asking me what is wrong with me and I was like....nothing. Later my friend helped me figure out that I was spellbound by SRK & Kajol. The most romantic couple on screen.

My first SRK-Kajol film was My Name Is Khan. While the film was outstanding, the story was something very different. Which is why, we did not see SRK-Kajol in the avatars they are most famous for. But Dilwale turned out to be the best tribute to this couple. Their charisma is inescapable. I am one of those kids who always believed that they were a real life couple too because whenever I would watch TV, their films would be on. And yes I thought Rakhee Gulzar was SRK's mother because I always seen him dying in her arms (Baazigar ending). Anyway, I would love to thank Rohit for introducing SRK-Kajol to us who were too little to go to theater and watch KKHH, DDLJ, K3G, etc.

What I liked about this film is how it doesn't begin to make you laugh your pants off right away. There is some comical scenes but mostly the drama and romance. Then in the second half is where the best comedy comes. Next, I loved how the most amazing twist has become my favorite. I think it should be the scene of the year. Who would have thought we would get to see SRK-Kajol in such action packed drama. I loved their date too, was smiling like a skeleton. Another favorite scene is in the rain where Kajol was so damn good that I felt like hugging her. She deserves an award for that scene. Gerua looked breathtaking on the big screen.

After interval, I believe Ramlal & Pogo scene was totally epic. If the scene went on any longer, it would become the reason of my death LOL. Janam Janam kind of supports my claim about how this film is a tribute to SRK-Kajol. Not because it is black and white but because of the atmosphere of the song, the intensity matches up to the one they are known for. Daayre was my favorite song before the movie release so there is no way I would not like it. I loved the shot of Kriti crying and laying on leaves. It was beautiful. I admired the new brothers in town, SRK & Varun. I would have never thought they are step brothers because there was so much love and care between them. Varun's tone change when he is trying to act sad was hilarious. Same goes for Kajol & Kriti. The similarities between them were striking in terms of their actions and thoughts. Varun Sharma is my latest favorite this year. Tamboo Mein Dhoom Dham was nicely advertised. But bas...it is okay, I will keep it till google search only. Gareebon ke Jackie Shroff, Anwar, Chintu's father, Purushkar bhai, Jenny, Kingu, Joshua, all were awesome.

One quality I always liked of Rohit is that he makes sure everyone has dialogues. It is not that they were there to give expressions only. I loved Shah Rukh. His flamboyant pretty boy or ever cunning gangster personalities 15 years ago and then the melancholic but loving elder brother hiding his dual personality. His intensity as the gangster was so remarkable that I can't tell you. The way he changed from Raj the bade bhaiyya to Kaali in one scene will give you chills. The way he beat up people, phew. Totally superb.

I still have a few more times to watch. I'm really thankful that I had such a deserving good end to this exhausting year. Now chalo, I gotta sleep because I have to go pick up my Dilwale CD from the post office... :D

What is SRK's fault?

So, instead of writing my review of Dilwale, I decided consciously to write about the ongoing stupidity which is harming the business of Dilwale. It is highly disturbing to me because when I was hearing the interview which started all this ruckus, I had a fear that it would be blown out of proportion. My fear came true and how.

Let me start with how the conversation started.

Barkha: But is it frightening to you as a product of the syncretic background that today this country is trapped in battles over cow meat and whether Mumbai should ban a certain kind of meat during the certain kind of festival...that there is violence attached to this. This is no longer an academic debate. I mean, the current raging debate is intolerance. And do you believe that there is rising intolerance? Do you believe you live in an environment where it is getting tougher and tougher to just say something and not be attacked and not be assaulted?

SRK: I think the one reason for it also is that the platforms have increased. Maybe, there were similar attacks then but there were not enough platforms to hear the voice. Now there is social media, television has become much bigger, radio, everything...everyone speaking. Everybody is talking. Everybody has a right to talk and put it out there. So I think maybe, it might have been there earlier, I hope so. That it is not a modern phenomena, it is not a recent phenomena. I am assuming ke chalo yaar, pehle bhi aisa tha lekin sunayi nahi deta tha. Now you hear it a lot more. Second part of it is..yeah I think that just because you can hear it a lot more, like in my case, I think we should speak a little more sensibly. I think we should be a little more tolerant. We should give each other some levee. And what each other yaar? If this "our country" and religion...keep on talking about then we are going to go back to the dark ages. There is NOTHING, there is NOTHING less important than religious intolerance. It is shocking to me. I can't imagine. Yes, people tell me that maybe in smaller towns, the way people are brought up, it's different, blah blah blah. But I meet people from everywhere, maybe from the place I am is not enough. But I still meet people. Yeah, of course you can make their way of thinking different by public speaking or being larger than life and changing mindsets. But I don't think religion intolerance is any which way forward for any country. I think it's the worst kind of thing that can happen. And intolerance of any kind...and now we're looking at such small issues. And like you said, these are not small issues because they are leading to violence. It's really really shocking. And how do Indians go and show their face...you know when I'm outside, and people say...you guys don't do this? And I am not saying that this is what defines my country. Because I can tell you one million things that define my country beyond this intolerance part. But when somebody is asking me, you've got to answer it. And it doesn't auger well for us as Indians. To even answer in joke. What answer do you give to this? You certainly don't become serious about it. Because I rather talk about India in a manner which India really deserves to be spoken about. 

Barkha: And India's image is being hurt in the world. But that's not the primary reason to change it, we have to change it for ourselves?

SRK:  The change is for us. We don't have to change it for others, the imagery is okay. The imagery will be bettered or lessened by different things. The change is for us.

 If you are curious to hear those words from the man himself, this is the video to watch. Let me know when you hear him say "India is intolerant."

What did he say wrong? Is killing people over what they eat, something to be proud of? In any sane person's opinion, no my friend, it is actually quite shameful. You know, there is some level of intolerance in every corner of the world. Racists, ethnocentric people and xenophobic people are everywhere and they do ridiculously unethical acts. Such acts do attract criticism from people. Shah Rukh has done the same.

Dear Indian protesters, did you know that by protesting, vandalizing, and threatening...you are not proving yourselves to be very tolerant? In spite of not being spelled out loud, you are still adding fuel to the issue of religious intolerance. Now, you must realize some important key points. He is an Indian citizen like you. His vote counts as much as yours do. His taxes are used in the same way as your taxes are used. He has the same freedoms as you do, which includes the right to have a voice. So what wrong has he done by speaking about an issue? When other celebrities talked about the meat ban, no one decided to boycott him/her. Why SRK? Just because his father was a Pakistani born freedom fighter who chose India? Or because his parents chose to retain their original religion of Islam? What is the problem? Do you guys not have any actual serious problems to be concerned about? It is absolutely pitiful that Shah Rukh has to repeatedly say that he is an Indian and a proud one.You guys are dampening my happiness which lies in him. You all are a threat to this world, not just India alone because you guys are reproducing!!!

If you remember past hot situations, Shah Rukh has often been the victim of intolerance. People have pelted stones at his house. People have burned his posters. People have sent him death threats. People have disrupted his films in theaters. People tell him to leave India. People keep abusing him all the time. People even drag his kids and late parents when they abuse him. He has much more right to speak about any kind of intolerance because he constantly suffers because of it. But if he dares to speak about such things, he becomes the villain. In his industry and outside of it too, there is this acid like hatred for him which is very heart breaking at times. One cannot ignore negativity for too long.

Hate him because you are a fan of someone else or you think he is not a good actor or he is overrated. But stop making him the scapegoat of illogical political hate. If you disagree with him, be civilized for God's sake and respect his opinion. He is not your neighborhood dog that you can abuse and throw sandals at. He is a very important and respectable man, much more important than your alien political leaders who are not even worthy of standing on a international stage. Learn to respect the man who has made India proud. Most people know India because of him. Don't try to break the man who provides hope and happiness to millions around the world and in India through his work.
 

My Obsession with Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

It is shameful that in all these years of this blog, I have not written a single post about the love of my life, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Like I was stumped, how could I do this????? I knew this blog lacked something!!

Let us begin from the beginning...!

So it was I guess October 2nd when the poster of the movie released. The girl was mystery, hiding behind this very average looking guy. I wasn't extremely curious back then so I didn't really research on who the girl is. I will tell you something, I grew up with YRF films. I loved the grandness yet the homely connection their movies would have. When someone would say "Yash Chopra movie", you knew it is a quality film. And if it has SRK then yeah, a sure shot winner. Do realize that I am talking in past tense here. :P Well, here is the first poster.

To make things way more special, YRF decided to release the first promo on Shah Rukh's birthdaaaaaay. But no trailer yet, ok?

Most of the things were released on their website which I really liked. And the first song promo was Haule Haule. Shah Rukh and Anushka had some amazing chemistry in that promo. But the story was not apparent from that promo itself. Like doh. I didn't like the song that much but the visuals were really nice. Ten days or so after the promo, they released the trailer of the film.

I loved the trailer. I LOVED IT. The colorful visuals, lots of emotions and background score...all of these were extremely promising. And hello? Shah Rukh Khan. I wasn't the kind to pause every second though or take screenshots. I couldn't say much about Anushka but I loved how there wasn't so much hype over her. Or at least I'd like to believe so. Did I say that I could die for the background music in the trailer? Yes, I died for it actually.

Then more promos started coming out. My personal favorite was the Dance Pe Chance promo because it was so funny and the song was awesome. The stern face of Anushka and the goofiness of Shah Rukh at the end of the promo always brought a smile to my face.

Let's fast forward to December and I get to know that I can't watch the movie on the 12th. :( But Saturday was fine.

It is then when I saw a film which would forever be my favorite. Plenty of films come out every Friday, but only some films leave an impression in your heart. This was the one for me which made the biggest impression.

It was a fun filled ride with only a few characters. That was interesting. Shah Rukh played double roles many times but both Suri and Raj were absolutely poles apart in their presentation of love. That was interesting as well. No one had heard about Anushka til this movie but I felt I knew this Taani ji from a very long time. That was interesting too.

My favorite character from the movie is Raj. I know he's not the most popular character but the reason why I admire him is because he is similar to many loud people in real life. You need to keep in mind that he is Suri himself. And who is Suri? Suri is the quiet and shy person. It takes a great deal of effort psychologically and physically to transform yourself into a flashy person from a person who even takes a bath in his kacha and banyan. Just because you think you have to entertain your wife who has gone through two or three tragedies in a matter of few hours. Love makes you do a lot of things, so Suri did that as well.

One argument people kept making and even make today is that how come Taani never recognized Raj. Taani hardly even looked at Suri to figure the difference. Mustaches do make a whole lot of difference my dear. Taani never thought she would marry Suri, the man who had grown older much before he was supposed to. When you lose people in your life, it takes a while to get out of the trauma and for sometime, you just don't care about anyone.

I never thought though, that I would be defending Taani in this manner but I have learned that recently. Anyway, coming back to the movie, even its music was outstanding. The theme music was fantastic and filled with some sort of passion.

My favorite scene is the pani-puri competition scene. Then the biryani one as well. It was hilarious and Mr. A1 ji had to pay a tummy full of price for being two different men.

I remember how scared I was to see the floating umbrella at the beginning of Phir Milenge. It was scaaaaaary. But I still loved the song because it was a fitting tribute to yesteryear icons.

But you know I loved this movie so much that I had to watch it for a second time in theater. Yes, this was the film which kicked off my habit of watching a movie in theater more than once. And this movie...it gets better with each watch.

Another reason why this film is so close to my heart is because I had randomly entered a contest to win an autographed CD of this movie's music and on a cloudy January 24th of the following year, I got it in mail. It was one of the best surprises ever. You can read more about it here.

Then I can never forget the epic war I had over the DVD. I bought the DVD from a local shop and it was damaged. I tried ever trick on the net to make it work. From bananas to toothpaste, nothing seemed to fix it. So my dad and I went to get it exchanged but the guy refused to do so then my dad and he got into a great heated argument. In the end, the man agreed to give us a new copy although he kept blackmailing us that if his boss found out that he exchanged it, he would lose his job. Pfffffft.

I was really sad that Anushka did not win Best Debut Award because she truly deserved. Asin already had experiences in working in films. But the award people are just ridiculous. Oh and I knew very well that Shah Rukh would never win best actor because he clearly didn't do great in the film.