‘It’s been 30 yrs, but the SRK of Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa is the bumbling hero our world needs’
The film builds an idealistic world in which there are hiccups but no disharmony, says Anupama Chopra. The star is a version of Shah Rukh we rarely see.
Thirty years ago this week, Shah Rukh Khan loved and lost. Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa was released on February 25, 1994.
Shah Rukh played Sunil, a bumbling, naïve, aspiring musician in Goa who falters at pretty much everything. Year after year, he fails in class. He loves the local beauty Anna (Suchitra Krishnamoorthi), but makes a mess there too, lying to get his rival—the richer, smarter, better-dressed Chris (Deepak Tijori) out of the way.
Sunil plays in a band with his mates but can’t even get to practice in time.
Exasperated, the local priest Fr Breganza, played by Naseeruddin Shah, asks him, “Tum hamesha khidki se kyun jaata hai. Khidki se pehle darwaza kyun nahin try karta kabhi.”
But Sunil simply isn’t the type to take the standard route. In the eyes of the world, he is a loser. But Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa celebrates the fact that he walks to the beat of a different drummer.
This was the second film by Kundan Shah. It came 11 years after his first one, the satirical modern classic Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro.
Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa had some of that same absurdist comedy, but here, Kundan and co-writer Pankaj Advani offer a less curdled view of the world. There are no bad people in the movie. Even the gangster Anthony is a good-natured music lover who recognises a kindred spirit in Sunil. Anthony has lost the woman he loves too. “Tu toh ek saccha lover hai yaar,” he tells Sunil.
This film was released after the 1993 hits Baazigar and Darr, but it was shot before those two. Shah Rukh hadn’t yet become a star. His performance has a rawness and a vulnerability to it that he was rarely able to summon again (though you can see flashes of it in Fan and Chak De! India).
Sunil does foolish things, including faking an exam result. (Anthony secures a marksheet that declares he passed with first-class results and, in a hilarious moment, a dismayed Sunil says the lie should at least have been a bit more credible.) But through it all, his generosity and inherent goodness remain unchanged. There is a purity to this character that makes us root for him. And Shah Rukh makes his foibles endearing.
In the end, even as Anna marries Chris, the man she loves, Sunil won’t really give up hope.
In church, Chris drops the ring and, for a moment, everyone is looking for it. Can he see it, Anna asks Sunil. He sees it, hesitates, looks at her a few seconds too long, and shakes his head, no. There is such sweetness and longing in his face that one half-expects Anna to switch grooms on the spot.
Three decades ago, Kundan was advocating for a kinder, gentler world in which inclusion and acceptance are the norm. Tellingly, Sunil’s band includes Christians (Anna and Tony), a Muslim (Imran, played by Ashutosh Gowariker), and a Parsi (Yezdi, Sunil’s best friend). Naseer’s Fr Breganza is a friend and confidante to people beyond his parish. Sunil routinely confesses to him and the priest helps him get past his worst mistakes. Despite the many hiccups, there is harmony.
This humanity that Kundan built into the film’s DNA is an ideal to aspire to. It would be a far better world with more Sunils.
(To reach Anupama Chopra with feedback, email feedbackforanu@gmail.com)
