Clocking in at three and a half hours long, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham is a remarkably swift Bollywood experience. In fact, the 2001 film could be seen as the perfect introduction to the gloriously kitsch, melodramatic musical genre.
Watching it is one of my earliest and most significant memories of Indian cinema, shovelling down a bucketful of popcorn while shrill yet ineffably catchy musical numbers played out, outfits and locations were changed at will, and a deluge of onscreen tears fell. For an Indian born and brought up in London and surrounded largely by people who looked nothing like me, this was a window into a new, fantastical life. One which I couldn’t understand a word of, since I didn’t speak Hindi.
Like any Bollywood film worth its salt, Kabhi Khushi is really three films in one. Film one: the older, adopted son of the fabulously wealthy Raichand family, Rahul (played by the Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan at the height of his hair-swishing power) is the apple of his father Yash’s eye (played by the elder statesman Amitabh Bachchan, sporting a leathery toupee throughout). Yash has Rahul swanning around town in the family helicopter and he has his bride picked out – the high-society, docile beauty Naina (played by my childhood crush Rani Mukerji). So far so good, but a brush with the working class, bolshy Anjali (played by Kajol, Mukerji’s real-life cousin) in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk market soon spells trouble. Rahul falls in love with Anjali and tearfully confronts his powerful dad, who disapproves while foreboding thunder erupts in the background. Dad gives Rahul a choice: dump Anjali and remain part of the family, or leave forever. Rahul chooses Anjali, weepy goodbyes ensue and dad’s toupee remains.
Film two: some years after Rahul was adopted, Yash and his wife, Nandini (played by the peerless, glassy-eyed Jaya Bachchan, real-life wife of Amitabh) had a biological son, Rohan. Rohan grew into a rotund preteen who very much looked up to his older brother, who he never knew was adopted. Once big brother was banished, Rohan was sent to boarding school to transform into the washboard-ab-toting Bollywood hero Hrithik Roshan. Upon returning home from school, the nowripped Rohan overhears the truth of his brother’s banishment and seeks to find him in the UK, where he has been living for the past decade. Cut to Rohan in London, where he soon falls for “hottest girl in town”, Pooja (her friends call her Poo), played by the nonchalant Kareena Kapoor. It turns out that Pooja is Anjali’s younger sister and has been living with her and Rahul all this time. There ensues a convoluted half-hour of Rohan gaining Rahul’s trust before he reveals that they are brothers by secretly inviting his parents from India for a meeting in the Bluewater shopping centre. Tears fall again, this time in the food court.
Film three: this is where things really come to a head. Rahul still vows not to return to India since his father has upheld his promise to never welcome him. News of the death of the boys’ grandmother soon prompts a joint trip back, though, where the denouement ensues. Rahul and Yash avoid each other in the halls of the palatial Raichand home while Nadini fends off the tears and does much hand-wringing with her daughter-in-law. In a final scene before they are set to fly back to England, the thunder cracks once more in the room where Rahul was first banished, but this time it is his father at last begging for forgiveness, having realised his mistakes with the help of his wife finally breaking her silence. All is forgiven, blessings are exchanged and as the credits roll, Rohan and Poo get married too.
Never let it be said that Bollywood films aren’t good value for money. If you hadn’t guessed it by the tagline – “It’s all about loving your parents” – this is a film about blindly fighting for your parents’ acceptance, even if they have tried to deny you your happiness. It’s not the most progressive narrative but this is an emblem of a bygone era of Bollywood film-making, one on the cusp of modernity yet still inhibited by tradition. There may be a narrative of immigrant assimilation and the hint of sexual frisson, but nothing goes beyond a kiss and the ultimate pleasure is your father’s blessing, back in the eternal home of India. It is ultimately melodramatic and packed with libidinal capitalism but it will hold your attention. It did for the millions that flocked to see it on its release, making it the highest-grossing Indian film that year.
If nothing else, after three and a half hours of viewing, only the most heartless will find themselves dry-eyed. The rest of us will be weeping into the remnants of our popcorn and remembering to call our parents soon.
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham is available on Netflix in the US and UK
