I loved the last bit of the last section, and the first bit of this section. But I am a bit ambivalent about the rest of it. (full index of JHMS coverage here)
Previously: Whole movie! Almost! Shahrukh and Anushka are in love, not just passionately in love, but deeply truly real-y in love. They somehow went from fighting strangers with a spark, to infatuated teenagers, to a couple on their honeymoon, to a couple married for years. That’s where they are now, a couple so bonded that it is as though they are one soul, and facing a separation. Only, not “really”. In reality, they are just a tour guide and his client who have been traveling together for a week and somehow got caught up in this wild ride which made them into different people, with a deeper relationship, every day. And now their time together is almost over. The ring that Anushka lost, the search for which was their excuse for this adventure, is going to be given to them the next day and then she will have to leave.
Way back in the scene I don’t like right before the interval, Shahrukh told Anushka that she had to promise to leave as soon as the ring was on her finger, no matter what happened. Anushka laughed at him then (which is why I didn’t like that scene), but that’s been their unspoken promise to each other ever since then. They could fall in love and be everything they wanted to be to each other, so long as she left just as soon as the ring was found. And it’s kind of helped their relationship to have this artificial deadline. Every time they think they have come close to the ring, it accelerates their closeness, brings about another epiphany. But that just means that every false ending is that much harder than the last.
And now let’s talk colors again! Our last scene was them in love listening to beautiful music with hands clasped at a tiny cafe. It was all suffussed with this beautiful deep warm intimate red. And now we are in a harsh black/blue. But the thing is, the black/blue was within the red and the red is within the blue. Not just that Shahrukh was in black in the club and now Anushka is in red sitting on a dark beach. No, the two colors have that relationship. Really deep reds can have a touch of blue in them, and really deep blues can have a hint of red. If it had been, say, yellow and black that were chosen for these two scenes, then we wouldn’t have that. But instead Imtiaz chose a red and a blue filter. And so we feel the shock and pain of leaving that cozy cafe and their hands entwined for this cold lonely beach, but we also feel somehow that the two are the same, that lonely cold deep blue was always within the warm passionate red, and that red passion is still here somewhere, muffled in the blue.
(See? In the color tones in this shot? The blue and red that somehow down deep feel related?)
But very muffled, because this good-bye they are preparing for seems about as painful as it could possibly be. And the worst part is that they are dealing with the pain separately. They are already preparing themselves to say good-bye by drawing within themselves, thinking about what it will be like tomorrow. That’s what we see in this moment, Shahrukh standing facing the sea, and Anushka sitting away from him, at a greater distance than I think we have seen her from him in about 2 hours (ignoring enforced separations like when she has to go to the bathroom or he goes to talk to “Gas”), kind of huddled in on herself.
Shahrukh is yelling to the seas, calling out “Hello India!” And then switches to Hindi/Punjabi to say hello to his home town. And then “Hello Kulwant Kaur! Sat Sri Akal! I still miss you!”
Now, time for us all to fight with each other! Because some of you see this scene as him admitting the great love of his life that he has never recovered from, and I don’t see it that way. We can all fight it out in the comments.
The way it happens is Anushka asks him who is Kulwant Kaur, if she was one of the people he met in the fields (or something like that, I can’t remember exactly, but a gentle way of teasing that he must have romanced and had sex with her). And Shahrukh jumps in to correct her, that it was a real romance, he only saw her/met her twice, and then she was married. But he has to miss someone, so he misses her. And he has never told anyone else about it, because “Kulwant”? They might think it was a man. Okay, I have my own interpretation of this whole exchange, but that doesn’t mean you can’t give yours in the comments!
Shahrukh is shouting, and Anushka is drinking wine and huddled up and sort of looking at him and sort of not. They are both so sunk in misery that they can’t even connect to each other any more, but still want to be around each other. Shahrukh’s calling out Kulwant Kaur, that’s kind of an opening in an odd way, she knows his other references, she knows about India and he has already told her about his home town. But now he is throwing in something/someone new. Leaving a space for her to ask about it. I think that’s why she asks, because she can’t resist one more small piece of information about him, and because he offered up that information. And naturally she assumes it is a love story, from what he said.
Shahrukh’s response I find really fascinating. First, he is quick to clarify that it wasn’t the kind of love story he has now, just sex, it was “true love”. But he says it with a kind of acknowledgement that this is a certain kind of “true love”, a pure and wonderful thing that he is proud he experienced. But something he has now outgrown. Or, not exactly outgrown, grown past. He looks back on it fondly, but it is not a pain for him, as I see it. And yet he is still proud that he was able to have it at some point.
It is the “I have to miss someone” line that is most important to me. This man is so lonely that a tiny little dream romance from his youth is all he has to cling to. If this was a Great Romance, if this was the one woman who broke his heart and destroyed his life, I would find it less sad, less meaningful. Interpreting it as, instead, this tiny scrap of a relationship is all he has to comfort himself on lonely nights, he is that starved for love, that is what makes it touching.
(Kind of like this. My favorite part of Citizen Kane)
And I think that is what is breaking Anushka’s heart as well. She doesn’t care about this woman, we saw in the Karla interaction that she has moved past jealousy and even curiosity about his past. She just wants to know about him, what matters to him. And learning that he has no one left to miss but this woman he barely knew, that is heartbreaking.
And it is even more heartbreaking when he switches to calling out for Anushka. He says it almost casually, that “Sejal” sounds better. After she is gone, maybe he will call to the seas for her. And then he does, “Sejal! Kaise Hai Tu?” He does it so well! The tone of voice and the words he chooses are just right. Because they are so carefully unpresumptive. A casually, “How are you?” Not a “I am missing you”, or “I love you”. Just calling out to her to keep that connection after she is gone. And, in this moment, telling her that he will think of her after she is gone, but without putting pressure on her to feel sorry for him. Only, he can’t stop his voice from cracking a little bit.
Which just makes it worse. Again, the heartbreak is in how little he has. He is going from this woman he saw twice as a youth, to a woman who he doesn’t even feel the right to say “I miss you” to in his dreams. One week of togetherness, a little laughter and a little comfort, and that will have to keep him going for a long long long long time.
I wonder what Anushka would have said after this? From her posture, and the crack in her voice, and the way she is drinking the wine, it feels like she is beginning to sense his pain as well as her own. Heck, that she is back to asking him questions, pushing away at him to try to get closer. I wonder if she would have said “Don’t call me over the seas, call me on the phone” or “I will miss you when I am gone, so much it will kill me” or simply stood up and walked over to him and embraced and comforted him.
But that doesn’t happen. Instead, suddenly, Shahrukh is hit on the head from behind and the camera tilts and whirls and we in the audience don’t know what is happening just as he doesn’t. And then the camera comes back up, we pull back and see from above two groups hustling them along, and threatening Shahrukh saying, “You will report me to the authorities? You will have me deported???”
The deportation threats really bothered me every time I saw this movie. Partly because that is such a real fear for a lot of people I know and love right now. And it’s not “ha-ha, take an airplane home!” kind of thing, it’s really bad. Scary, families torn apart, never seeing your children again and your children becoming orphans kind of bad. I mean, I got an emergency alert on my phone to call an INS office and ask for the release of someone as I was leaving the theater one of the times I saw JHMS (not someone I know, I signed up for a phone tree to get emergency alerts like this so I could call and complain as a member of the public).
(go here to sign up for the same thing: https://unitedwedream.org/action/join-us/)
They still bother me, and part of that is just the situation in which I am watching this film, which of course the filmmakers couldn’t have predicted. And shouldn’t have predicted, this is a massive global release that will probably be a cult classic for years. Why try to make it exactly right for one person in America in 2017?
But maybe this scene is an attempt to deal with that. “Gas” and his gang are attacking and confronting Anushka and Shahrukh not because of the ring or anything else, but just because of those threats. Not even because they are “criminals”, he wasn’t threatening them with any crime they had actually committed. Shahrukh broke the unspoken bond of the immigrant, to protect each other against the “others” because the only way you can survive is if you stick together. Only then it goes away in the next scene.
Well, first there is a small moment when they are being hurried through the streets and as they turn a tight corner, Shahrukh and Anushka are briefly able to see each other and their eyes meet. And then Shahrukh is taken and tied to a chair, still disoriented, looking around, and “Gas” says to him “she’s here, she’s right here, see?” See, by this point they are so clearly locked in as a couple, even “Gas” knows exactly what Shahrukh cares about the most.
I love this moment! First, did you notice this is the first time we have really been in Shahrukh’s head, not Anushka’s, since “Hawayein”? The perspective was strictly him for the first 15 minutes or so of the film, then switched to her when she overheard his argument in Amsterdam. Then went back and forth for a while (for instance, in the Amsterdam club scene we follow Anushka into the club, then watch him once we are inside the club, then switch to being with Anushka as she tries to hide from him, and so on). But since “Beech Beech Mein”, it has been the two of them straight through. Even when Shahrukh was speaking with “Gas” alone, we in the audience were constantly aware of Anushka waiting outside, and he shared all his knowledge with her almost immediately. Except for that one tiny moment when Anushka talks with her sister.
That tiny moment from Anushka, that was important, bringing us into “Phurr”, into the time when her awareness of herself suffuses both her and Shahrukh to the exclusion of all else. And in the same way, this tiny moment from Shahrukh is important. We are briefly within his head, and it is a confusing scary place, until he can see Anushka, at which point it all begins to make sense again. We need to be in his head now, because his fear and pain are now suffusing Anushka. He is completely focused on doing what is needed to keep her safe, aware of all the dangers around them, his own failure so far, and his own weakness, all of that. Whereas Anushka is purely focused on him, on his injury and fear and so on and wanting it to be better.
I’m not sure I am explaining this right. Let me try another way. Have you heard about this mapping study from a few years back? They tested men and women on their ability to understand spatial relations related to maps. Like “two miles from here in that direction is this thing, there is a stream over there, the highway is that way”, etc. And men were generally better at it than women. But, if they did the test in a matriarchal society, the women were better (study here).
(Unless you are a NASA scientist in rural India, in which case you are totally lost until a wandering seer gives you directions)
See, if you are raised in a patriarchal society, as a woman, you are trained to think small picture. Which isn’t even necessarily a bad thing! Someone has to think about what to give the kids for breakfast every day and how to paint the living room and so on. But then someone else has to complement this by thinking big picture about the kids’ college fund and getting a second mortgage and so on.
That’s what’s happening with Shahrukh and Anushka in this scene. Shahrukh is thinking big picture, he’s got this whole map in his head, how many bad guys there are, what kind of place they are in, probably trying to figure out how far they are from the hotel, what neighborhood it might be, if it makes sense to call for help. Ultimately, this is still focused on Anushka, the goal is to keep her safe and get her out. But he has all these moving parts he is keeping track of related to that.
But for Anushka, no mapping! She is thinking of one thing, that injury on Shahrukh’s head. That’s it. And all his actions to save them are meaningless to her except as they relate to his injury, to how he is putting stress on himself, dragging this out, showing his weakness, etc. etc.
You can see it in their exchange of glances. Shahrukh looks at her a little wild and then calms down and starts looking at everyone else and working his plan to get them out. Anushka, she just looks at him, almost pop-eyed in her intensity.
I hate Shahrukh’s actual scheme. Like I said, a little too raw for me. Shahrukh pretends to be a government agent, says that he has been “tracking” them, and throws around accusations of them being in the country illegally, not having a gun license, etc. One by one, the gang gets spooked and leaves. Which would be funny if I weren’t sitting there thinking about the fundraiser my church is having to raise bond for a 20 year old woman sitting in jail after fleeing political persecution in her home country. There are two things that make it slightly okay for me. First, Shahrukh goes back and forth a little between a straight up immigration official, and tracking them as actual criminals, indicating that they are aware of some master plan or something. So it’s not just that he is feeding on their fear of deportation, there is also a fear of their real criminal activities being found out. And second, Imtiaz made sure to put in a speech for “Gas”, in which he explains the economic desperation which has driven him to leave home illegally, losing everything in the floods, coming here, only to struggle again.
Anyway, Shahrukh’s plan works. Until finally Gas and he and one other guy and Anushka are the only ones left in the room. And, finally, Shahrukh is able to get Anushka untied. I don’t remember exactly how that plays out, but I think he doesn’t actually directly ask for it, again “Gas” understands him and Anushka and knows that is what he will want most of all.
I do remember what Anushka does. As soon as she is untied, she bursts out of the chair, knees “Gas” between the legs, and runs to Shahrukh to look at his injury. I wish we got a close-up on her face at this moment, so we could see her emotions, but then we would miss the full body effect of her lunge out of the chair and efficient attack of “Gas” followed by immediately refocusing everything on Shahrukh.
This is what I mean by her “mapping” being so limited. She doesn’t care about “Gas” (besides one quick revenge attack on him), she doesn’t care that they are trapped in a dangerous place with dangerous people, she doesn’t care about anything at all besides treating Shahrukh’s injuries. Shahrukh, now that she is freed, is still thinking big picture, saying they should get out of there, eyes moving back and forth as he plans. But Anushka’s whole world is him, she is blind to everything else.
Which is what makes her terrifying! I mean, this is why women are terrifying in general, right? That small map effect. If your child is sick and needs to see the doctor, you aren’t going to think “well gee, the healthcare system is flawed, there are probably other children who need to see the doctor more, let me sit down and logically consider all angles”. No, you are going to make a huge scary scene until they are terrified into seeing your child. It’s not just that right at that moment you do not care about anything else besides your child being in pain, it’s that the doctor’s office knows it too, there is a certain wildness in the eyes which tells them “yeah, I am not reasoning with this woman, she is completely out of control and only wants one thing, and the only solution is going to be giving it to her.”
(Actually wasn’t thinking of this scene when I first wrote that, was thinking of the time my mother so scared a doctor that my Dad had to bring me to the next appointment and apologize for her. But hey, I got the good pain medication! So it was all worth it.)
That’s why “Gas” and his gang are terrified of Anushka, not because she kneed “Gas” in the groin, but because of how she did it, like she didn’t even think about it, there was no logical “I will disable him so we can escape” sort of thinking, she was free, but she paused to make sure “Gas” was punished for hitting Shahrukh because he deserved it. And yeah, she probably would turn on any of those other guys if they crossed her or, even worse, seemed to be harming Shahrukh in any way.
Which is kind of what she does, Shahrukh is trying to get her to leave, and she is looking at his injury and snapping for “Water, WATER” because she has to clean him up before anything else. And the guys are hustling around doing what she says, because it is terrifying. And then even when she has water, she snaps “antiseptic? Antiseptic?” But, see, she isn’t mad when they don’t have any. This is a strange kind of rational/irrational anger. She isn’t going to waste time being angry if they truly can’t help, she is going to move promptly on to the next step.
This is the thing that people often don’t get about this kind of anger. In this state, revenge is a wasted emotion. Achieve your goal, then move on to vengeance. This is also what the movie Mom got so beautifully. She didn’t run out looking for vengeance for no reason, that’s just plain stupid. She took care of her daughter. And when she saw that the continued existence on this earth of these people was hurting her daughter, THAT is why she killed them. To kill them out of anger, that’s ridiculous and pointless. No, you kill to protect.
I am spending a lot of time setting this up, because something is about to happen which makes sense, to me, if we have aaaaaallllllllllll this background in mind when it happens. But which otherwise might be a little stupid. See, they don’t have antiseptic. And Anushka can tell, with her panic heightened senses, that they are telling the truth. So she orders them to give her her bag and dumps it out on the table, hard. In a way you would never normally treat a bag, only she is so crazed right now that she isn’t thinking about anything logical like “my wallet is going to split open, my lipstick might break”, she is just dumping it out so she might be able to find the one thing she wants and doesn’t care about the rest of it. And that is when she finds the ring. Yes yes, it was in her purse all along.
A couple of things here. First, on second and third and fourth watches, I confirmed that this was the same purse she had at the airport at the beginning. But she changed purses off and on since then. So I think we can assume that it fell off at the airport, right before the loss was discovered. She hunted through the bag and didn’t see it. Later, she transferred her wallet and make-up and other basic essentials into another bag, and then another, as she changed outfits and situations. And now she has happened to return to this same bag. It’s not exactly been with her all along, it’s been packed in a suitcase or thrown in the back of a closet part of the time. She hasn’t had it with her every day with a million opportunities to search through it. She may not have considered searching through it after that first hunt at the airport.
So, why is she finding it now? Well, it’s that panic. The way she shakes that bag out on the table is the way you would never normally treat something unless you were so crazy that you lost all common sense. I’ve lost plenty of things and I haven’t shaken out my bag like that. I’ve emptied it item by item, felt along the seams and the lining, gently shaken it, but not like that. Heck, I just recently thought I lost my driver’s license, and all I did was empty my bag piece by piece, and then put it back together again. Because the fear of having to stand in line for 3 hours and possibly go through the hassle of filing a police report was not quite enough for me to lose that instinctive “be careful of the things you own so they don’t break” sense.
What’s important is that here we have Shahrukh with a bleeding head and it is making her insane, so that she throws around this bag, no doubt shaking the ring loose from inside the lining or a back corner where a simple search wouldn’t have found it, but when her fiance threatened to leave her forever, she didn’t do this kind of a search. That I find believable, and interesting, and probably on purpose. She had it with her all the time, including that moment when she ran out of the airport. Yes she was scared, yes she was panicked, but not enough. Not as much as she is right now. And that panic has been lessening and lessening their whole time together, “Rupen” has been fading from her mind, this whole ring quest has become a matter of routine, not desperation. So why would she bother to go back and hunt through the purse again?
Earlier she said that you can find anything if you search for it, and this scene is proving that. If she had really wanted the ring, down deep, she would have found it in that first instant. She would have fallen on the floor and dumped out her purse like it had no value next to the thought of losing her fiance. But, it did have value. The standard social norms held sway over her, the silly invisible norms we all have like not shaking your purse out on the airport floor.
(Speaking of airports, that’s what’s important about the grand airport finale moment in films. That you are willing to run and run and break through security and make a fool of yourself, because nothing else matters but getting to the person you love. All the other petty little rules of society are forgotten)
Let’s take a moment for the ring itself. It’s a great prop, we only see it for a moment, but it looks exactly the way it should look. Heavy, old, valuable, gaudy, and not at all something that Anushka, either the “new” Anushka or the old one, would want. It is one big large diamond with a necklace of smaller diamonds around it set in old gold.
(It’s not exactly like this, it’s even gaudier with a band of diamonds around the central diamond. But the effect is the same, something huge and impractical, not something you would or could wear every day)
The “old” Anushka, the silly innocent girl in the red coat, she would want something bought just for her, something like her “romantic” restaurant engagement, not terribly thoughtful or meaningful, but at least a gesture towards something different. A new ring for a new relationship, instead of an old ring that was always going to be more about Rupen’s family heirloom than being Anushka’s own. But Rupen didn’t care enough to even do that, you can look at this ring and see a whole story of the old family ring that Rupen was given and told he should hand to Anushka, with neither party really being considered as individuals. 
(Old Anushka would want something like this. Flashy, modern, clearly bought just for her)
And then the “new’ Anushka, the real Anushka that was hidden all along underneath the childishness, she wouldn’t want this ring. She wouldn’t want a shiny expensive new ring either, because she has learned to value herself more than that. She would want a ring picked out just for her that shows something about herself. Years from now, after the movie is over, if Shahrukh is visiting Old Delhi and finds a small delicate ring in an antique shop, not that expensive, but unique and lovely and something that reminds him of Anushka, that is what she would want. The ring equivalent of the Fado club they just visited, something beautiful he wants to give her which becomes more beautiful to him seeing her reaction to it. Not this huge heavy thing with the weight of family expectations and history that has nothing to do with them, and not some new gaudy thing that is only about value and show not meaning to the couple.
(Don’t know why, but I am picturing something like this. A ruby instead of a diamond, in an older setting, something practical that she could wear everyday. Something that she would like, but which the rest of the world wouldn’t even necessarily identify as an engagement ring)
It could be that all of this is going through Anushka’s mind, a realization that she doesn’t even like this ring, that it has become valueless to her. Or maybe she is just trying to process the shock of going from being entirely 100% Shahrukh focused to having this new idea confronting her. Probably a combo of all of that. I think what is definite in how the scene plays out and what her face says is that, at the moment, she is making no conscious decisions. She sees the ring, registers it, picks it up in her hand and almost slips it on her finger but not quite, holds it loosely. And then turns and says nothing. Instead, she goes over to Shahrukh and goes back to dabbing at his injury.
There is a lovely moment here where she slowly winds her scarf around his head. What it reminds me off more than anything is a wife putting on her husband’s turban. And I have to think that is on purpose, the way it is filmed with her holding the fabric in place as it goes around and carefully keeping it level. It’s just one turn around the head, it could have been done in a quick knot, and filmed without the loving capture of her fingers holding it steady. Anushka is his wife in this scene, more than ever before, and she is taking on a very specific wifely duty for him.
I said that every time they say good-bye and then end up still together, it deepens their relationship. That’s what is happening in this scene. Shahrukh is kind of muted afterwards. He has confronted his over-whelming fear for her, and her over-whelming care of him. He submitted to a loving intimate touch he probably thought he would never have. And now he has to somehow keep going, talk to “Gas”, look at the rings in the case that might be hers. “Gas” admits that all the rings here are fake, he doesn’t know which is the Budapest cafe ring, they are all the same. And Shahrukh slowly realizes that this probably isn’t the end, again. And he is so caught up in his emotions, he doesn’t notice Anushka’s. Because she has a much harder discovery, the ring isn’t in the case, but it is in her hands. I think the question is never if she will say “oh by the way, I just found it”, I think she is past that now, the question is if she will be able to confront within herself WHY she isn’t saying that, what has changed, and is this a change she can live with.
The way she is holding it behind her back for much of the scene is just right. It’s like she wants to let it drop, wants to let it slip from her fingers, but is holding herself back from it. And at the same time, can’t bring herself to slip it onto her finger, or put it back in the purse, or otherwise definitively keep it safe. And that is the same conflict in her head, and in her face. She wants to let go, to say to Shahrukh “I found the ring, but it doesn’t matter, I love you and I will throw away all my past life”. But something inside isn’t quite willing to let go yet. At the same time, it is equally impossible for her to say “I found the ring, I am leaving you.”
And then they leave the workshop in the scene I already covered yesterday, Shahrukh following and guiding her with enormous care. And as they enter a street car, “Yaadon Mein” starts. A song in Fado style, but in Hindi, just for them.
I will cover that tomorrow (or later today, depending where you are in the world), but I just want to point out one thing about it. This section here that I just wrote is my longest one so far. Not because this is a super good part of the film, but because it is a super confused part of the film. A lot of things happen in rapid succession with a lot of shifting tones. And at the end of it, the characters are exhausted and so is the audience. That’s why we need a song here, this song in particular, a slow beautiful love song where they just stand there and feel what they are feeling and don’t do anything else. They need that pause, and we in the audience need that pause, in order to understand where we have come on this journey.
dontcallitbollywood 
Nice post.
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Thank you!
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Wonderful. I’m with you on Harry’s “true love”. It is more about his loneliness than a past heartbreak. Magnificent acting from Shah Rukh here. The way calling Sejal’s name turns from teasing to desperation. It actually made me a bit uncomfortable, like, worried for SRK that he was revealing too much of himself. Often he’s a big old ham, but then sometimes his acting just connects. To me it was a relief when he gets hit on the head. 😶
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Shahrukh really seems to have a great loneliness available to him in certain scenes. This scene, the speech at the end of Billu, something in the way he talks about his parents in Dear Zindagi. It all makes me think about how he clings to Gauri and Karan and his other old friends, and just generally reminds me of people who lose their parents young. Part of the reason I tend towards thinking he has never actually cheated on Gauri is that I don’t know if he has the ability to connect on that level with a new person, someone who didn’t know him back before his mother died, when he was just a funny kid in Delhi.
On Sat, Aug 26, 2017 at 7:45 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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That’s what I tend to think too but then Jacketgate happened. Now I’m just confused. Wonder what you thought of that.
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What the heck is Jacketgate? I probably don’t want to know, but now you have peaked my interest.
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Priyanka went on a tv show called Dirty Laundry in America. She was supposed to bring some pieces of clothing to talk about. One of them was a man’s jacket. She claimed she took it from her ex-boyfriend and refused to give it back to him even though he wanted it back. Then the internet found pictures of SRK wearing the same jacket. Priyanka liked one fan tweet naming SRK as the jacket owner and then deleted it an hour or so later. Since then, a lot of people have been mad at him.
Here’s the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otZuMB_YNfs
And the pictures: https://www.pinkvilla.com/entertainment/video/379408/it-shah-rukh-khans-jacket-priyanka-chopra-referred-dirty-laundry
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Oh, okay, that doesn’t change anything for me. I’ve always been on a “I don’t know whether or not anything happened because ultimately it’s not my business” side of things, with a strong coating of “feels an awful lot like Priyanka and her team are milking these rumors for all they can which is kind of a jerky thing to do considering it also involves Gauri who is an innocent party no matter how you look at it and doesn’t deserve to be publically embarrassed”. So I am sticking with the first half, still don’t know whether anything happened or not ranging from a location fling with Gauri’s approval to a brief actual relationship that ended to absolutely nothing at all beyond the usual closeness between co-stars. I mean, pretty sure I have a jacket in my closet that someone left in my apartment at some point and I certainly never had an affair with them! And I am feeling the second half even more strongly.
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That woman is nuts! I believe she wanted an affair (such as she apparently has had with other co-actors) to advance her career as she is not, in fact, exceptionally talented; misread the situation, was spurned & is now going to haunt him forever.
BTW~this does not even look like the same jacket. And what is the point of her constantly inspiring this kind of gossip? I think they had a friendship based on a similar ambition level but SRK is friendly with all his co-stars. It’s as though she is seeking revenge for her delusions.
And, btw~I am an American–the blonde, blue-eyed kind of American (not the NRI kind) and she’s not really that big a deal for us. She was the flavor of the month for a while as a novelty~’an Indian who actually speaks English!’ You can tell that because she keeps going back to Mumbai. She wouldn’t bother if things were going to plan here.
One good thing DID come out of this whole mess: SRK found the true love of his life, the one with as pure & gentle a heart and soul as his own: AbRam. He probably counts it well worth the price. One last thing, if I may: I firmly believe that AbRam is Yash Chopra come back to continue his friendship with SRK.
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As a fellow blonde, blue-eyed American, I have the same feeling about PC here. She seems about as popular as any number of other TV actresses, but it doesn’t feel like her career is really expanding past that, you know? Plus, we have that odd prejudice against TV stars that makes it harder for them to break out into film, and if you aren’t doing film, you really aren’t doing that well. Purely from a career perspective, it was a good move, because she was entering an age range where in India the next step was to get married to some producer/businessman/sports guy, and semi-retire and only do a few super artistic films. But coming to America gives her another good ten years, especially as a lead on a procedural TV show, where actresses can keep going for years, well into their 40s.
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I don’t know if there is any truth to the affair or not, but PC dated Shahid Kapoor, so the jacket could be even his. Today I saw pic of SRK and Ranbir wearing same jacket. So it’s not impossible. Plus SRK is never alone… bodyguard, manager, driver, policeman, spotboy somebody is always with him. And he’s shy of women.
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Exactly, the whole thing really doesn’t make any sense, which is part of the reason it feels as though Priyanka (or her team) must be pushing the story a little.
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Having trouble with how the replies work. I can’t seem to able to reply to certain comments.
Anyway, yes, it does seem like something PC and her team are really encouraging. The rumors really didn’t matter much as that is pretty normal but the jacket thing was pretty over the top especially with the weird tweeting and finger pointing. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do it so blatantly with the possibility that they might face some wrath from the other side.
But then she gives me serious bunny boiler vibes. Never liked Ms. PC much. hah
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There is a limit of 5 replies on any thread, I picked it kind of at random just because there had to be SOME limit, or else all the text would, as someone else put it to me once in the comments, “spaghetti-fy”. So that might be what you are seeing.
I have a hard time with her too! But I’ve learned that’s not a universal opinion, so I will say it to you in the comments just between us, but not in an official post. Something about the way this story has played out, and the way she presented herself to the American press, just feels strange to me, like she is playing her personal life for the cameras in a way that somehow bothers me more than when other celebrities do it. And whether or not the rumors are true, from a PR perspective, she’s kind of backed the other side into a corner. Any acknowledgement at all at this point would be a loss, so the only possible response is no response, and that means PC gets to keep setting the tone. It’s a tricky situation. If I were a PR person, I don’t know what I could recommend besides staying the course, continuing to present a united front as a happy family, and ignoring it all. Which is a lot harder than being the attacker who gets to drop these little bombshells.
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Oh I don’t think PC is liked much at all in the desi community to be honest. She never got that widespread approval she seems to have garnered in the US. (Speaking as an American desi myself)
On SRK’s part, I can’t see what options he has at this point. People will always believe whatever they want to so getting into a public and media trial is no use. It would turn into a farce like the Hrithik/Kangana situation. She has shot herself in the foot though because now there is no possibility of any future work together. Maybe she think it’s not a worry anymore since she’s established herself in HW but the entertainment world is fickle. You never know who and what you will need later on. Burning bridges by all this game playing she’s doing can’t possibly be smart.
Let’s say there actually was an affair – even so, what is there to gain by doing all this? Why would someone go on TV to brag about a married ex-boyfriend? Not to mention hurting 3rd parties like his wife and kids who had nothing to do with anything but making fools of them in a public setting. She’s such a bizarre woman.
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Yeah, it’s that last bit that I find the most fascinating. Why in the world would you ever volunteer this kind of information about your personal life? It gets you a little publicity for a while, but in the end it’s going to backfire in all sorts of ways. Just doesn’t make sense!
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I try hard to stay on the “none of my business” side of things. But I’m oddly invested in their happiness as a couple. In older interviews I think they both hinted at a somewhat open relationship, but that could have been trying to be edgy. I would love to know why he stopped wearing his wedding ring a few years back. Nice to see it in so many movies.
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Once again, I am grateful that the audience is not given every single detail. Anushka’ s reaction provided the canvas, and I filled in all the blanks from my own emotional reaction and my own experience. I would be willing to bet that each of us has a different idea of what was running through her mind at that time. It is this brilliant idea of allowing each member of the audience to become part of the story that makes it such a wonderful movie.
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It also makes us complicit in the film, I think. We are so affectionate for it, and these characters, because we had to take a part in creating it, in filling in the last bit of the story.
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Oh, and that was me, but my phone was misbehaving. Bad, bad phone!
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Another thing I noticed is that the ring doesn’t fall out the first time she dumps the bag, its when she does a double take that it falls out – so it needed a really strong plonk (for the lack of a better word) which she really didn’t bother to do before.
I agree that Kulwant kaur wasn’t his true love – its the only think close to love for him. He says now that he’s met Sejal, he’ll call out her name. I just couldn’t understand why Anushka kept holding the ring in her hand for so long though. It’s hard to miss such a huge rock, so Harry or Gas would’ve seen it. They don’t but I still feel a little flummoxed by what she was trying to do at that instant.
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Good catch! I couldn’t remember the details, but I remember watching it even before the ring came out thinking “wow, she must be really hysterical if she is knocking that bag around like that!”
The mechanics of the ring don’t quite make sense, like you say it seems like someone would have noticed, or it would have fallen again with the awkward way she is holding it. But I can forgive it for the acting/character moment, it’s so perfect to keep it in her hand, but not quite on her finger.
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I want to tell a thing about the jacket that their was certain difference fetures between the 2 jackets…..if you see at glance it seems the same jacket. but if you analyse closely their is difference in zip style…. collar…..btw that was certain brand’s jacket….and any one can have similar looking jacket….and that was jacket….and these jacket,shoe,Blesser kind of things look same many times…..
I saw a video of miss malini in you tube tomorrow where he was talking about having fun on sets….their he mentioned don 2 set in berlin and said pc’s name and was saying about playing fifa at evening after shoot….he mentioned kkhh, main hu na also…..and i think if he had affairs with pc and have been hiding that he wouldn’t have said her name by himself( no one influenced/forced him/asked about her)
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the whole thing is just so strange, PC seems to be doing these things that are hinting at a statement, but still barely deniable. At least Kangana is coming right out and saying something, instead of hinting and leaving us to fill in the blanks.
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Oh you ain’t seen nothing yet. I’ve been following SRK for a while and I’ve noticed something pretty disturbing lately with PC’s antics apart from Jacketgate too. For example, she literally copies quotes he’s given before and passes them off as her own. There’s a line he used to say – something like “I wear my stardom like a tee shirt, not a tuxedo.” Now she repeats it in American magazines (and gets praised for it). He says he mixes two perfumes with one of them being Diptyque so she also says she mixes two perfumes with one of them being Diptyque. He’s been saying for 20 years that his favorite Hindi song is “Abhi Na Jao Chod Kar” so she also says her favorite song is that one. I’m sure there’s more. I didn’t go looking for this stuff or anything. It just popped up. If someone actually bothered to research it, I bet there would be more of this craziness.
She is obsessed. Like I said, bunny boiler vibes.
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Yes! That wearing stardom like a tee shirt line really got me mad because SRK said it so long ago, and it has been quoted numerous times since. Her “obsession” with him is a little disturbing. Not to mention the other stuff she’s done. It is all a little weird.
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and sorry that I dont have the link,but the differences between two jackets shown on some other site…
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I’m with you by being grateful to get the chance to quasi live my own movie, to “fill in the blanks” like you write, G. I confess that I wasn’t only taking part in the movie I watched but also in the variations that came to my mind…their were many ways to edit the movie in another way and it would have been another story albeit always revolving around the inner journey of Harry and Sejal through the love for each other.
First I found it strange that the scene after the Fado-club was at the beach I thought to recognize to be rather far away from the city (in real world)…somehow I had to re-put me into the movie by admonishing myself that in the reel world everything is possible and…well…at night one may not see the shore at the other side. Then Harry shouted…and there was something in his voice that made me shiver. Was it the first time he did this? Admitting his homesickness, his distress, his longing loud and clear. I think it was…I think his mix of feelings had so much built up in the club that he just had to shout out his longest smoothering pain…into the night, at the sea (I like your colour-thoughts, here too, Margaret)…not in one of those cities he lived for work, were he simply survived. And when I heard the folornness and longing in his voice shouting Sejal’s name I pictured him staying above the sea alone, some time later when Sejal has gone (maybe he would live the rest of his life in Lisbon?). And then, something hit him fully against the head…no…someone…it was a complete shock for me.
The whole following episode was scaring me…for both of them, for the logic of the story…in my feeling everything had been amounted to a love-making scene because of the closeness in the club…it was only when Sejal found the ring (agree to your analysis of how both their minds/feelings worked till then) that I knew this kind of life threatening and focus-needing situation was the key for the decision Sejal made at that moment. She left the ring on the table…when she returned to Harry something has changed in what she emanated (at least I felt it… and I saw Harry to be slightly somehow astonished about the way she put the scarf…I don’t remember exactly the position of the table where she emptied her bag…maybe Harry could see her back…could see her shaking the bag she had when coming out of the airport…could see the changing in her posture, the absolute standstill of any motion)…then, when she came to join Gas and Harry, latter again noticed that Sejal was deeply upset. Honestly, it was just before she made the move to hide the ring in her fist (she had it visible in her fingers when standing beside Harry) and when Harry looked at her and said her name and then takes her fist in his hand looking at her, I had the strong feeling that he knows…I remember the heat I felt inside because of those emotionally loaded seconds, where the song started just the moment she closed her hand around the ring deciding to hide it. And with everything I understood about Harry’s character I knew he would not ask her…although neither pretend to himself he doesn’t know (because taking her fist and looking at her the way he did, Sejal could have guessed that he knows)…he would leave any further decision to Sejal.
The tram-drive with the song and both apart (and yet not apart) left me in an ambiance of suspense.
Sejal’s false honeymoon was over the moment she saw the ring…she still won’t admit that she felt for Harry as if being his wife.
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I as trying to figure out how that ring thing worked! Thank you! I remembered that the intimate turban moment happened after she found it, but I couldn’t figure out how Anushka did that with a ring in her hand. So she left it on the table, went back to Shahrukh, then was at the table putting things back in her purse and held it in her hand when she went back to Shahrukh. That works really well, when Shahrukh still needs her, she hesitates a second, and then just leaves it behind. But once he is up and bandaged, the doubts start working their way in, it is harder to ignore, her focus is less clear.
I love the idea that Shahrukh kind of knows. I think for sure in any interpretation he knows something odd is happening and is worried about her. But it could be that he figured out she found the ring, or it could be just that he is worried how she is doing post traumatic experience.
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It’s abslutely fascinating to see the different possibilities interpretation can go 🙂 I think such ways you can best go in a theatre play or a movie, in a book it would demand a rather frequent change in narration.
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She is holding the ring with two fingers at her side when Harry tells her to take a look at the rings in the case just to be sure hers isn’t there. While she’s standing there, she balls her hand into a fist, holding the ring. Harry takes that hand,with her hand tightly around the ring, and begins to escort her out.
I interpreted this moment as Harry being focused on her post trauma reaction–that he saw that look on her face once they were both safe and was being very gentle with her because she looked stunned, which she was but for a different reason. But I think it could also be interpreted that he had a sense about the ring. I just didn’t see it that way.
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I agree with you
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She doesn’t kick Gas first. She first runs to Harry, examines his wound and says I need to fix this, Harry is like, no lets just leave, its a small wound and she’s like no, get me my purse, get me some water do you have antiseptic? And when Gas doesn’t react (he’s thinking, why aren’t they leaving?!) she kicks him in the groin. After that two of his minions freak out and get her the water and purse.
I remember the first time I was watching the movie- I thought she was going to throw the ring away (she was holding it so lightly!) or she was going to put it in the case and mix it up with his fake rings. I really thought she was that selfish that she would do that! But thankfully better sense prevailed and she told a smaller/simpler white lie instead. The whole time I was like Sejal, don’t get rid of the ring just so you can continue this! That would be sooo wrong!
As for Kulwant Kaur, I won’t say that she’s a small love nor that she’s made a Devdas out of Harry. She’s just his first love, and you can never forget your first love, even if you know it was not meant to be. He speaks of her with so much fondness, he’s smiling even when he says that she married someone else. So she was someone important in his life, but there was no heartbreak as such because maybe at the time he didn’t expect her to marry him, because he was a nobody he had done nothing with his life, he knew nothing.
But now he knows things, now he feels things. The difference in tone when he screams Kulwant Kaur (happy/ecstatic) to when he screams Sejal(brooding/scary/almost violent with emotion) shows that Sejal means so much more to him if she were to go. If she were to leave.
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I like your description of the two calls Shahrukh makes, the Kulwant is a happy memory, not a heartache, it was never really meant to be. But losing Sejal would destroy him.
Thanks for the reminder of how the kicking Gas goes! I remembered that it was this strangely practical kick, like not out of anger but as a means to an end. Which makes sense for your description, she was just trying to literally kick them into gear so they would do what she asked.
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It’s good that we are so many…memory is tricky.
I wasn’t sure anymore about the proceeding but I remembered it quite like you, P:
First Harry gets untied, then Sejal…she rushes to him looking at the wound…yells for water, gets a bottle from Gas and hits him when taking the water (impressing Harry who is the second time witnessing Sejal doing it), then asks for the bag, getting it, going to the table…
Yeah, it would be nice to speculate about what’s going through Sejal’s mind during all the time after she had the ring in front of her eyes.
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Absolutely! That is exactly how it happens!
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I also think when Harry is shouting Sejal’s name he DOES say he misses her. He also says something else about losing another ring that they can look for everywhere. He knows the end is coming and this is the closest he’s come, so far, to admitting his love for her. When the camera turns to her, Sejal looks stricken and has tears in her eyes. So they’re both feeling it, but there’s no chance to go further with those feelings because Gas and his gang arrive and take over.
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Oh, I remember the losing another ring line now! But he is keeping it carefully light. If it weren’t for his voice breaking so hard, this could just be a joking thing you say to make someone laugh. Only they both know it isn’t a joke.
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Yes, he is keeping it light. As has been mentioned already, we can only speculate about what might have happened if the Gas gang hadn’t shown up. But I agree that they both know he’s not joking and each is suffering so much in that moment, but they’re suffering it separately, which makes it even more wrenching.
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Oops! Sorry, didn’t intend to post twice. Margaret, maybe you can work your magic and delete one?
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Done!
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When Harry shouts into the sea, he tries to connect with his homeland, to his memories. Kulwant Kaur must have been a first, puppy love and it’s sad to think that’s all this grown man has to miss of his home is this. I don’t think he realizes yet that he has denied his very identity since leaving his village. I found the moment Harry starts shouting Sejal’s name, saying come back, he misses her, the emotions are so raw in Harry and the look on Sejal’s face is pained. Then comes the blow and Harry is desperate for Sejal. His only concern is for Sejal and when he finally sees her the relief in his eyes is palpable. Very quickly, he realizes Gas and his gang aren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree and starts bluffing that he’s from immigration. When the men flee, they are untied and Sejal immediately jumps to Harry. She takes charge and Harry is all she’s concerned about. When she shakes out her bag and the ring falls out, she’s at first shocked and then troubled about what she should do. Now comes a part that I’m uncertain about. Does Harry know she’s found the ring? I don’t think he knows that specifically, but he knows something has changed within Sejal. Just goes to how connected these two really are. The way he looks at her, the way he holds her hand, the hand with the ring, the way he says did you find it.
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Yes, puppy love is exactly the phrase I was looking for to describe it! Real and poignant and touching and something that is always close to your heart, but nothing in comparison to the real love he has found now.
On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 3:01 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I just long for being able to watch the movie again… all those parts I am not so sure about, and especially the subtitles (although thanks to you, P, I already knows a lot about the original lines).
So, Nancy, he does ask her…ah, I wasn’t sure anymore, because all I remembered was the distinct feeling that he knew that she had found the ring but noticed her disturbance and wanted to leave it to her to decide if/when to tell it.
Actually, it is not that important for the story, only for the subjective interpretation of Harry’s behaviour following that incident. And it would cast a light on another trait of his character: giving the partner space and time and freedom to make the own decisions…he is there but not imposing (I think that is another trait of real ShahRukh).
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I think he asks her to take a look in the cabinet of rings, just in case. And then after she takes the look, he asks her if she has found it, and she says “no”. So it could still go either way, on the surface he is just asking about the rings in the case, but it could be a larger question.
What’s absolute is that she was explicitly asked and chose to lie, at this point, it wasn’t just a lie by omission any more.
On Sat, Sep 9, 2017 at 2:35 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Yes! a lie! the first, I think. Should this lie be ‘rewarded’ with making love? I don’t think so…and if Harry had noticed the ring in her hand, he did think the same…the ‘right’ time could only be when there isn’t a lie between them. (THANK YOU Imtiaz for all those possibilities your movie includes!)
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Good point! it is the first time she has clearly blatantly lied to him. She sort of lied at the Amsterdam club, pretending she had just happened to come there, but they both knew that was a lie.
On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 12:24 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Not only had she followed him to the disco, she also deliberately went upstairs passing him and then looking back to see if he had noticed her and would come (when she dances she also looks to the stairs where he would have to come). As we already wrote: teenage-behaviour (which doesn’t match her physique.
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Has Shahrukh been faithful to Gauri? That was the discussion a few comments back. It would devastate me to find out he wasn’t. But how he has managed that God only knows. Given the several dozen heroines he has worked with, only one has caused a scandal, I agree with you all that PC caused it and is the one to keep it going.
About four years back I copied out an entry I read on Shahrukh’s Facebook that I publicly thanked him for and promptly locked my heart onto it: ¬[1/6/2014 10:58:08 AM] “ I promised my wife “You can walk into any party with me without having to worry that I’ve slept with any lady in this room. There’s no girl who will come up to you and say Hello, knowing me better than you know me. It’s a promise I made in my heart.” –Shah Rukh Khan – GQ India
Can you imagine the lure and enticement of his years 25-40 when you had a much testosterone as he had. Now romancing heroines half his age, the temptations are of another dimension. We see him in the film, with everything tightly controlled. But there are weeks and months in a shoot when they are eating together, going back to the same hotel, traveling all together. He could easily make every set his personal sexual fiefdom. But he is more concerned with the creative success of the film in progress than his personal exploitations.
I think it is In the big book Still Reading SRK he says: I came to Mumbai to work with these actresses not have affairs with them.
Well for all you Super Sleuths, he apparently made the statement to GQ magazine. I saw it on that date but don’t know how much earlier it might have been spoken. Who can confirm that quote which I’ve never seen again???
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I have agreed with you, but there is something I do not understand, the bag was already there all the time she was carrying another bag together in the same time and this is something strange, only the night club time did not carry it, I did not understand why?
I love this scene. In this scene Sijal found what she was looking for and,certainly has not been the ring, the ring was with her all the time she never looked for, she was always looking in strange places where she could not find the ring, Harry was looking for the ring, Not once stood beside him or gave a description of the ring,
Here she realized that she loved Harry, found her love and purpose in life, and she didn`t want to leave him, I think the issue of leaving her family and fiancé and returning to search for the ring was a moment of explosion, she was screaming inside, In the photo sent by her fiance after Radha, shown The ring to his friends. One of them is often Robin, raising her hand to show the ring. She almost gives a finger. This is not a happy bride’s way to show her ring proudly. And when she was looking for the ring the cheese festival, Harry told her you know you will not find the ring here after a month! When she asked him what I am looking for so? He laughed and said if I told you you would not like it
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I assumed Anushka changed bags based on outfits and so on. The ring was in her everyday bag, but she had a few others. It makes me more sure that she didn’t actually know it was there until just now. She would have been carrying it always if she knew the ring was there.
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Sorry, but my English is a little weak
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lames, your English is understandable. You are right, Harry rather quickly knew that it wasn’t the ring she was seeking. I wonder what he would have answered if Sejal had asked him at the cheese market “okay, tell me, what I’m looking for”.
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