I finally did it! The last day of my stay in Bombay (which was also the last day of my trip to India this summer), I hit the jackpot. Saw so many magaaaaan movies that I didn't feel so bad about not having met any of my college friends and didn't feel so bad about leaving India either!

But this one, this movie, I had been wanting to watch for a while now, all because of the ham scene that was shown in Kehne Mein Kya Harj Hai a while back, and was described to me by Subroto.

What (according to Subroto) Sajid Khan had to say about the movie Guddu:
``Now we are going to see in our ham scene section, a clip from a movie which had so many ham scenes that we can make a 54 episode serial with just the scenes from that movie! It was the movie Guddu (1997), which starred Shah Rukh Khan in the title role and Manisha Koirala as his girlfriend. Now Shah Rukh Khan of course has, as usual (are you listening, Kamla?!) performed his ham routines, and so has Manisha Koirala, but the person that takes the cake is none other than our own Bheeshma Pitaamaha, Mukesh Khanna...''

I will come to the scene that Sajid Khan was talking about in a moment. I will also explain what happens in the rest of the movie so that I give some credit to the title of this page.

Mukesh Khanna, a very famous vakeel (lawyer), and his wife (played by Bina - her photograph in this movie when they worship it after she dies, has this really really weird ``How long must I wait'' agonizing expression on her face - dude, in all the pictures I have seen of people living or dead, especially dead, they try to preserve those photos which either show the person smiling, or really serious - these are those people who probably never smiled in their lives cos they were tightasses anyway) love their son Guddu very much (still, you have to tell these people this much: let him go! He's like 20 something and you still call him Guddu!), but Bina is a God-fearing (in particular, Krishna-fearing) woman who has always believed that it is God who tests them and will deliver them whenever they are in crisis. Mukesh Khanna, on the other hand, hates ``tera yeh bhagwaan'' for some reason - I didn't get to see that part of the movie, but I'm guessing it wasn't that important.

Anyway, Manisha falls in love with Shah Rukh, and in the process goes blind (saala aisa boyfriend rahega to andhaa nahin hoga to aur kya hoga!). Guddu in the meanwhile has been diagnosed with some sort of brain tumour which might kill him if they don't operate soon. You know, the standard Hindi film fare, which unfortunately seems to be absent in the movies nowadays cos the movies nowadays are only made for NRIs - those dumb mofos who sit in other countries and have fantasies about an India that doesn't exist, obeying cultures and tradition that don't really exist or are all but dead because people are learning to open their eyes and think for themselves and parents are allowing them to do so - yeah, I'm talking about YOU dumb mofos! You NRI scum! Alright, I'm bitter, so shoot me. No one makes wholesome movies anymore that have at least one rape, some killing, some car chases, and NO FAMILY scenes. I mean, in the 80s, only Kalptaru made such family movies, and they didn't do so well. Now, everyone wants a piece of the action so everyone is making these disgusting Four Weddings And A Funeral-esque pictures. Yeah, don't think I didn't catch the similarity between this movie and HAHK! Moving on...

At this point there is some spat between father and son and father being a very successful lawyer, decides to take it to court. Son also decides to battle his father, at which point wife can do nothing but what she knows - turn to that statue that's coloured blue and waste some more money in inviting obese priests to try and talk to God and ask for his blessings and make sure everything turns out well... Alright, I'm bitter, so shoot me.

This is where things get interesting. A magaan yinsaan is Mukhesh Khanna's assistant: Vijayendra Ghatge (yes, Veerawali's lover from Hum Log!)...

On the day of the big court battle, Mukesh Khanna is leaving the house at 9 am sharp, when he sees the wife and son in front of Krishna bhagwaan, starting some sort of yagna. After giving some big sermon on how the empty stone statue in front of them is useless and has never given his wife anything in her life inspite of the fact that she has prayed to him so much, MK says ``dekhna, aaj main yeh case jeetke hi rahoonga!'' and sets out in his car. As soon as MK starts blaspheming Krishna, there are these temple bells that start clanging in the background. This part is really hilarious. It sounds like there's a bhel-puri wallah on the set right from here until the end of the movie.

This is where the ham scene on KMKHH started:
MK's car first gets stuck in traffic. His driver says something about there being a traffic jam. The bells are clanging. MK says something like ``take a left, go this way'' after saying ``samajh mein nahin aata yeh log yahan flaay-OVER kyon nahin banaate!'', and they head back another way. But there's another traffic jam - some minister's cavalcade is passing by - folks, this I have witnessed myself in 1991, they used to clear the freaking street in Saidapet an hour before that fat bitch had to pass by - and MK says, ``samajh mein nahin aata yeh MLA log hally-cOPTER ka istimaal kyon nahin karte!''. Bells clang again. MK says, turn the car around, go that way. Driver says, but that's a one way street and we would be going into it the wrong way. MK says screw it, we can handle it. But they can't, they are stopped by the cops. IInstead of trying to explain to the cops, MK just decides to catch a cab.

But the bells are still clanging hard, and every cab that he stops has either a Krishna sticker, or a statue of Krishna over the meter (which, btw, is always outside a cab, so why would anyone put a statue there unless they wanted it robbed?!), or a simple sticker asking the observer to Chant Hare Krishna. Somewhere in the middle of all this agony, its ten am and Shah Rukh Khan decides to leave the house for the court. Now its unexplained how this sonofabitch gets to court before his dad, leaving an hour later (more bells clang in answer!), but he does get there before his dad, and him and Vijayendra Ghatge are waiting for the great man to show up.

MK, in the meanwhile, decides it is futile to try catching a cab, they all seem to be Krishna devotees today (surprising, isn't it, when most of the cabbies in Bombay - and most anywhere around the world - are Sikhs!), and starts running towards the Bombay High Court. To see Mukesh Khanna, who was once ``indomitable'' in the role of Bheeshma Pitaamaha, trying to run is one of the most hilarious sights I have ever seen in my life. Folks, you will understand whatever Sajid Khan said about hamming when you see this scene! By the time MK gets to court, the judge has already declared a mistrial (stuff like this only happens in interschool matches, I thought, and its called a walkover victory!), and Shah Rukh and Vijayendra are on the way out. MK reaches the court, and collapses on the steps, panting. Vijayendra is trying his best to revive him, when suddenly Guddu's brain tumour is told by the director to start acting up, and he falls into a faint right beside his daddy.

The rest of the movie is a part-medical miracle, part-twist of fate thing.

Read on!

The data: Manisha needs eyes, Shah Rukh needs an operation, Bina needs her husband and son back alive, and MK needs to CHILL OUT!

Solution: First, of course, the doctors start operating on Shah Rukh. At the same time, MK is also in the ICU. News reaches Bina, who has just then said goombye to the priests. As soon as she learns of this, she locks herself in the puja room, and there is the standard mother-God standoff:

Kya yehi hai mere puja ka phal!?

dhan dhan DHAAAAN (with the camera zooming into Krishna's statue, and then rotating around so it looks like Krishna is falling down, or looks like Rajesh Khanna)!

Kya isiliye maine teri barson se pooja ki hai?!

dhan dhan DHAAAAN!

Kya meri bhakti kuch kaam ki nahin?!

dhan dhan DHAAAAN!

Jab tak to mere sawaalon ka jawab nahin deta, main yahin baithi rahoongi!

(note: its weird how she never said anything like this when she found out her son had a brain tumour, or when she found out her son was Shah Rukh Khan!)

But anyway, Bina decides that she won't budge from the statue's feet until she hears good news from the Hospital about her hubby and son. She also swears that she won't eat until that happens. Funny, her hubby and son are almost immediately cured, looks like, but by the time MK gets back home and enters the puja room for the first time (with the line ``dekh Kamla - or Shanti - , main pehli baar tere bhagwan ke chaukhat ko paar karke aa gaya hoon'') only to find her dead.

Immediately he goes into a sermon to Lord Krishna: is this the way you treat your devotees? You kill them? They die of hunger within five minutes?! Man, I hope I never go on a hunger strike in front of you! Politicians are lucky they go on hunger strikes in front of the foolish public, who never will be able to kill them in five minutes, especially with their ``rolling hunger strikes''!

And immediately, in response to his SQL queries, two lights come out of Bina's dead eyes. One light goes to restore Manisha's eyesight (Main dekh sakti hoon! Main dekh sakti hoon!) in a remote room somewhere (action at a distance is true!), while the second light... well....

A year or so later: Manisha is married to Shah Rukh, and they have a kid. That's where the second light went!

Everything is a-okay now, except that Bina's dead and MK has turned into a Krishna devotee complete with shawl and light beard and that weird photograph of Bina where she is frowning and crying at the same time!

fifty four episodes, anyone?