Back before my Malayalam obsession kicked off, I was working through a full and detailed summary of every single SRKajol film.  After 5 parts, I had just made it about an hour into DDLJ (I really have a lot to say about this movie).  And then this week, I wasn’t able to watch a Malayalam film last night (church quilting group instead), and I wasn’t able to see Jai Gangaajal, so I can’t write a bunch of posts about that either.  So time to check in with DDLJ again!

(part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, part 7 here, part 8 here, part 9 here, part 10 here, part 11 here, part 12 here, part 13 here, part 14 here, part 15 here, part 16 here)

I left off with Shahrukh staring after Kajol when she ran off to catch the train after buying the bell.  To recap their interactions to this point, there was a strong initial spark when he pulled her onto the train, which went away when she wrote him off as an evil eve-teaser type and he wrote her off as a prudish wet-blanket.  When they meet again at the party in Paris, he ignores her entirely and focuses on her more receptive friends.  She is angry at him for acting like they never met and using the same lines on her friends that he tried on her, but also, I think, she is a little angry at herself for not knowing how to be the kind of girl that could have fun at a party like this with a bunch of boys.  And then there is “Ruk Ja”, which is when Shahrukh really seems to get interested in her for the first time, because she got him really angry and challenged him to step up his game a little.  And Kajol gets into him too, because she can’t shake off “Ruk Ja” as just a joke, like her friends do.  And then we have this scene in the bell shop, where Shahrukh is obsessed with Kajol, doing everything he can to get her attention, literally unable to take his eyes off her as she walks away.  And Kajol is trying to ignore him, but also literally spinning out about him, constantly making herself turn away and then finding herself turning back against her will.

Post-shop, Kajol runs down the platform as the train pulls out.  Funny looking train, by the way.  Looks more like a streetcar or a subway kind of train that a big cross Europe train.  But, I’ve never ridden the train in Europe, maybe this is what they look like there?  She stares after the train looking all heart-broken and Shahrukh comes running up after her, all disorganized and floppy.  He is not nearly as upset about the train going.  And I don’t think it is just because he has a crush on Kajol at this point.  But I do think that when she starts to cry and he starts dancing around and ringing her bell in her face and saying “cheer up!  cheer up!”, that is because he has a crush on her.

I am going to guess that the crying and bell ringing scene was mostly improvised and this cut feels a little abrupt because they let them do a couple of shots and just grabbed the best bit and cut it off before it ran too long. Instead of the tightly scripted way most of the other dialogue scenes run out.  On the other hand, even if the dialogue was improvised, the visuals were definitely not.  Kajol is centered in the frame, with a reddish dress and light straw hat (I think this might be the hat that comes back later to go with the hideous flouncy white dress in the middle of “Ho Gaya”?).  She is staring ahead after the train crying.  Shahrukh comes running up on the right side of the frame, with a black jacket over a red shirt.  While she is still, he is constantly moving.  On the left side of the frame, we can still see the empty train tracks.  There are all kind of visual messages here. Kajol is between two choices, the train she missed on one side and Shahrukh on the other.  She is mourning what could have been, looking into the past at where the train was.  Shahrukh is looking at her, the present, what is here.  In terms of colors, it is not obvious, but the way Shahrukh’s shirt picks up the red in her dress makes their two figures flow into each other, makes them feel related despite the surface differences of jacket/hat colors.  Oh, and then Shahrukh starts switching sides, so that no matter where Kajol looks, she can only see him.  It’s like a foreshadowing of the whole rest of the movie!  Or, actually, it’s showing that Kajol already knows in her heart of hearts where this movie is going.  She is crying not just because she doesn’t want to spend time with Shahrukh-as-Raj (who would?  He’s super annoying!), but because she is realizing that she can’t escape him, not in this one moment, but also maybe not for the rest of her life.

(notice even when he is looking after the train, his body is oriented to face hers.  Also, notice her nice earrings!  I want!)

And then we go to the ticket counter scene which is where you realize that Kajol is really really really really short!  The guy on the other side of the counter is leaning over because it hits him at about waist height, and the same counter is around boob-level for her.  Oh, and she also find out that there are no other trains.

Back to the platform (they really got their money’s worth out of this location!), Shahrukh pops up from the right side of the screen again and immediately starts talking, offering that they can either take a bus or rent a car, which would she prefer?  Kajol stops and says she would prefer if he just left her alone!  Shahrukh ignores this and reminds her that they are going to the same place, and besides, a boy like him should travel with a girl like her!  Kajol stops again and says no, since they met he has been nothing but trouble, now he has made her miss the train, she just wants him to go away!  Which is when he grabs the back of her dress to stop her and it tears off.  They are both upset, Kajol screams and goes to stand with her back to a pillar, Shahrukh freaks out to, puts the scrap in his mouth to hide it, then offers to sew it back up again, she keeps yelling at him to just leave her alone, and cut to Kajol standing by the side of the road trying to flag down a car in a new outfit.

Okay, where does she get these outfits!  She said that her luggage was on the train, we saw that all she had with her was a large purse, did she just throw away the torn dress and buy a whole new ensemble, including a hat?  Shouldn’t she have spent that money on bus fare?  In any other movie it wouldn’t bother me, but DDLJ is mostly so good about the little world building touches, the way her clothes match both her personality and her economic standing, just like her house and her father’s business and everything else.  Having Kajol have all these magical costume changes, especially when the whole deal is that she has lost her luggage, is just distracting.  Although her new little white knit beret thing is super cute.

Possibly it is this cute beret that gets the attention of the cops who stop and go up to her and ask for her passport.  Kajol gets all spunky and tries to explain to them what happened, with hand-gestures and so on, but they are having none of it.  At which point Shahrukh drives buy in a red sports car.  Because of course if he is renting a car last minute in a foreign country, he will get a red convertible.  He sees her yelling at the cops as they try to put her in the police car, stops his car, looks again, and then immediately leaps out and runs over yelling that the cops have found his wife!  Thank goodness!  He grabs her and hugs her before she can say anything to contradict, then tells the cops that here is his passport, this is his wife, they are all fine!  And also pulls out the trick of saying Hindi insults in a super friendly and considerate tone so the cops don’t realize what he is saying.

As soon as the cops leave, Kajol throws him off and starts yelling at him for chasing after her and hugging her just now and all that, and he glares at her and tells her “Shut up!  Shut up shut up shut up.”  It’s the first time in the movie that he hasn’t had a light Shahrukh motor mouth tone to his voice, he sounds legitimately angry.  He points out that he wasn’t following her, he just drove by, and he wasn’t trying to come on to her, he doesn’t even want her, he just rescued her out of the goodness of his heart.  She tries to respond, he just says “shut up!” again and walks away.  And then gets in his car, slowly backs it up to where she is standing, and guns the engine.  She stands there armss folded for a moment and then walks over and gets in and he drives away, still not looking at her.

Okay, let me back up and talk about male privilege for a second.  Because I feel like that is what is underlying these last few scenes.  Not in a romantic way, but in a world-view way.  Shahrukh has the privilege of being casual about things like missing a train, and he doesn’t even realize it.  It’s more than a man traveling alone being generally safer than a woman (although that is part of it), it’s that he has been allowed to travel alone, to rent cars, to buy train tickets, to do whatever he wanted his whole life.  For Kajol, she is used to rules and procedures, because she has never been allowed to make her own way, and losing them is enough to make her hysterical.

It’s even in the little things, like the luggage.  First, a man traveling through Europe just needs a pair of jeans and a few shirts, so everything he brought is in the backpack on his back, unlike a woman who is expected to dress more formally and modestly.  Second, he has traveled more than her, so he knows to bring everything in a way that can be carried at all times, especially his passport and money.  Whereas Kajol doesn’t have that kind of freedom, or the ability to gain that kind of knowledge, so she is left open to situations like being separated from all her luggage.

Shahrukh can convince cops to let them go because cops will listen to him.  He can rent a car, he can drive a car, he can find his way anywhere in the world without worrying about his safety.  And because he has all of these things, missing a train, for him, is just an adventure and no cause for concern, not the complete disaster that it appears to Kajol.  That is the real male privilege, to not even need to worry about these things.

But then the flipside of the privilege is that a decent guy is willing to lend it to a woman.  And women can demand it from them.  Shahrukh actually says, explicitly, “Don’t worry, I am here!”  And “A man like me should travel with a woman like you.”  And Kajol rejects that.  She can’t see that, in so many ways, he can help her.  It doesn’t feel like she is ignoring her female position in the world and thinks she is as good as a man, it feels like she can’t let herself see that Shahrukh is actually a man, with all the power that gives.  And Shahrukh can’t understand why she is worried, because he just said “Main hoon na!”  She’s not a woman traveling alone who needs to freak out, she is a woman under the protection of a man, she is fine!

Compare this with Jab We Met, one of the many post-DDLJ movies that is obviously riffing on it.  In that one, when they miss the train, Shahid is casual while Kareena is panicked, just like in DDLJ, because men and women are still in very different situations.  But, Kareena has no compunction in demanding that Shahid assist her.  And Shahid does, even though he has no romantic interest in her, and doesn’t even really like her at this point.  Kareena is able to recognize her situation for what it is, to see that Shahid has more power than she, and to take it as a given that any decent man would assist her, all she needs to do is ask.  In contrast, Kajol isn’t able to see that a man her age, one who dresses in jeans and flirts with girls, might still be a nice guy who is there to help her.

(Here she is demanding assistance.  I love Jab We Met)

That is what is making Shahrukh mad here, mad enough to drop the happy go lucky attitude and pull out the English “Shut up!”  That she wouldn’t even let him help, that she refused to see that he has not just the power to help her, but the responsibility to do so.  That she sees every nice thing he does as a danger, not as a protection.  It is the culmination of every time she has misunderstood his behavior through out this whole film.  He has finally had enough of being treated like a potential rapist just because he likes to talk to girls.

And just to rub it in, even though he is mad, even though he just clearly said that he has no interest in her, he is still willing to give her a ride and help her get to her destination.  And that’s why the first thing she says when she gets in his car is “I’m sorry.”  Not just for the last few minutes, but for the last few days, when everything he did was interpreted in the worst possible way by her, and he kept helping her anyway.