Indian english aggregator | Indian english news | Indian english blogs | Indian movies | Indian songs | Indian poem

Watching Deewana

Author : Kumar Luv Blog :Vakrokti Date: 9/5/2012 6:38:00 PM

Netflix Summary: Kajal (Divya Bharati) has a crush on a wealthy singer named Ravi (Rishi Kapoor) in this rousing romantic comedy. The two meet, fall in love and eventually marry, but evil family members attempt to kill both the young couple and the groom's mother! The trio constructs an elaborate ruse to ward off the family, but Ravi must go underground in order to save their lives. Will he find Kajal waiting when he reappears?
…
As I watched Deewana on television yesterday, I was trying to remember how I felt when I first saw Shahrukh Khan’s debut. My first memories of SRK are from Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman, by the time I got to watching Deewana – somewhere in 1995, I was already a huge fan.

Then, as now, I sat through a routine first half only because I would be rewarded with Shahrukh coming in at some point in time. The first half isn’t all that bad thanks to some really good song-and-dance sequences – something you saw in all Rishi Kapoor films. Here was an actor who could turn such routine treatment into something marginally watchable, Divya Bharati’s presence only adds to it all.

Soon enough Rishi Kapoor dies a very unheroic death, and Shahrukh’s introduction is on hand. It is a very nothing-intro, but it does capture that super energy that he had. Nervous energy fills up the screen whenever he is on, though nothing impressive happens – he laughs his trademark laugh, making him seem more like a villain.

Then it happens. The one scene that would have turned me into a SRK fan, if I wasn’t already one. The father-son confrontation. Now, such scenes were staple of 90s masala flicks – but the way Shahrukh attacks it is different. The screen is crackling when he says – aa raha hun, aap hi ke paas aa raha hun. Those famous lines – Sunte hain aap, magar samajhte nahin hain. Ke ye ek ittefaq hai, ek hadsa hai, ek ghatna hai ke main aap ka beta hoon aur aap mere baap hain. Not the first time those lines were heard onscreen. But the execution makes them stand out in my memory.

I still watch them often, the scenes with young Shahrukh, that is. And the songs.