Kabhi Alvidha Na Kehna

I loved it. It is three and a half hours long. So what? Three and a half hours long intense, gripping, dark, funny, flashy, emotional, bittersweet, potentially trend setting movie. Why should I complain when I get extra good minutes at the normal ticket price?

The movie has six wonderfully etched characters.

Dev Saran (Shahrukh Khan)
Dev Saran is neither the chocolate hero (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and many more) nor the evil villain (Baazigar, Darr, Anjaam) Shahrukh has performed earlier. Dev is a normal human. Well, not exactly normal. He is an eternally frustrated person. He becomes scornful when his flourishing career is crushed by his leg injury. His wife, Rhea, takes over the responsibility of the breadwinner of the family and she does extremely well in that role. We all know what a demon ones ego can be. He finds a fellow frustrated soul in Maya and ends up having an affair with her. Rhea throws him out of her life and house.

Rhea (Priety Zinta)
She supports her family after Dev’s accident. She puts up with Dev’s annoying sense of humour. She finds her marriage at the verge of failure and tries her best to save it. She feels letdown when she knows about Dev’s affair with Maya. She decides to part from him and raise their son all by herself. But, at last, she helps Dev and Maya to join in life. She is the rare bold woman who would do all within her reach to save her marriage but wouldn’t forgive her husband for his mistake.

Maya (Rani Mukerji)
I know a few characters like Maya. They are too idealistic for practical life. They could never be happy with their lives. Maya is the darkest character in the movie. She falls for Dev in spite of being aware that her husband, Rishi, adores her and Dev is self-destructive.

Rishi Talwar (Abhishek Bachchan)
He is undoubtedly the best character of the movie. He is the ideal husband any girl would dream about. Still he finds himself rejected by Maya. But, he accepts it graciously and moves forward in his life.

‘Sexy’ Sam (Amitabh Bachchan)
The flamboyant dad of Rishi. Amitabh gets a variety of roles to play nowadays and boy, HE ROCKS. His devil-may-care attitude fails to take him through his dear son’s crisis. When succumbs when he sees his son suffering for no fault of him.

Kamaljit Saran (Kiron Kher)
Dev’s mom. She accepts that her daughter-in-law did the right thing by splitting from her son.

Karan Johar is at his sensitive best. This is a story about four protagonists who are basically good at heart. They find themselves in what they fell as wrong marriages. They split and go for what they think as perfect match for them. Brilliant performance by his whole crew. Music is wonderful. ‘Mitwa’ and the theme song ‘Kabhi Alvidha Na Kehna’ are awesome.

I think that the solution suggested by Karan is the best when it comes to failure of marriages. The key is – ‘Go for what you want. If you try to sacrifice for the sake of others you would end up in spoiling everyone’s life’.

Should Rishi and Rhea have forgiven their spouses?
No. Dev and Maya do not want to live with their respective spouses wholeheartedly. They try to do it because they feel guilty of leaving them.

Should Rishi have gone back to Maya?
No. Rishi understands that Maya would never be his. He leaves Maya on her own. And he goes on to find someone for himself.

Would Dev and Maya live happily ever after?
I doubt. Dev is too egotistic. Maya is too idealistic. They may find that they can never be happy no matter who they are with.

What about Rhea?
She has just started enjoying being the mom to her son. She may one day decide to marry someone.

KANK runs full house in The Hague. I had to sit in the fourth row to watch it. My neck still hurts. It is different experience to watch an Indian movie with the crowd that does not shout/clap/whistle but laughs heartily at jokes and gasps noisily at sweet moments and groans noisily at bitter moments of the movie. The crowd let a collective gasp when Kajol appeared in a song. John Abraham received a louder gasp when he appeared in another song.

In short, I think that KANK is a wonderful movie.