Love SRK, not Raaes

February 3, 2017

Budget time means everyone is on tenterhooks. Will it be good for us or will we suffer consequences? In the midst of attending wedding celebrations, I wandered around picking up snippets of expectations. Many hoped he would walk the talk and actually put in place measurements to ensure actions such as demonetization are successful. Many hoped for lower taxes declaring the budget should ensure sustainability along with tax benefits including lower income tax, dividend tax and establishing the GST. In a sangeet induced stupor, it is difficult to carry on a serious conversation and many people asked me to shut up and enjoy the dancing because they did not want to allow budget thoughts to disturb their fun.

Talking about fun and one thing I did this week that was certainly not fun was watching Raees. If there is one thing people can be sure about it’s my adulation of Shahrukh Khan. People can call him arrogant, a ham and what have you but I love the man. Whether he makes a brief five-minute appearance such as the one in Ae DIl Hai Mushkil or whether the movie revolves around him, there is something about Shahrukh. I have only walked out of an SRK movie once, Chennai Express and came close to doing it again in Raees. Though I did not, I kept hoping the movie would improve. While watching I kept pondering the need for such a movie. It felt dated. Possibly because I do not live in India, the publicity hype missed me completely because it was only post the movie I found out it was loosely based on the life of a Dawood man. Given that, I can see why the movie was made but I do question Shahrukh’s choices. On the one hand there is the endearing Dear Zindagi and on the other hand this movie. As an ardent SRK fan, I felt totally let down. However, he did look amazing. For his age, the man is in superb physical condition and he played the character with characteristic SRK aplomb.

Watching movies in theatres is always more fun but it becomes a tedious experience in India because of the advertisements. An easy half hour is added to the movie-going experience with the advertisements, which are cleverly aired post intermission so people have no choice but to sit through them. In the US on the other hand, there may be a few advertisements before the movie begins and then 20 minutes of preview after which you settle into the movie and it runs through with no intermission. And the advertisements generally are to promote the cinema house such as AMC, Regal etc. Once the movie starts, nothing distracts from that experience. Even Bollywood movies in the US run without the mandatory intermission. It would be so good if the number of advertisements in Indian theatres are reduced. And if they have to air them, I wish the quality of the ads would improve. Not only are they lengthy, but most of them are quite ridiculous. In some cases, there seems to be no connection between the products advertised and the ad itself.

And no connection inadvertently makes me remember the man we have installed as the 46^th President of the United States. His disconnect with the masses and the media is increasing if the news is anything to go by. I have a self-imposed Trump news ban because everything he says or does is like a red flag to me. Angrily I watched how he rudely ejected a media man from a press conference. Does this kind of froideur behavior become a President? This attitude of cold superiority or haughty aloofness just adds to his negative image. And the less said the better of the immigrant ban on seven Islamic countries. America may be the land of the free and the brave according to our national anthem but the reality is quickly changing. Unfortunately, we have no choice but to wait and see the course taken by this Pyrrhic victory.

Just as we have to wait and watch whether the latest Union budget will lift India out of a slump and propels it towards growth.

In the meantime, I will continue attending weddings and dancing at sangeets. That is a whole lot more fun than anything else happening in the world right now.