Silly Sunday: Knitting Fanfic!!! In Honor of Visiting My Sister (Including Shahrukh Sexy Sweater Story)

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Happy Sunday!  Much later than usual.  Because I am visiting my sister and I was busy learning how to crochet and stuff.  Which brings me to this post!  In honor of my sister industriously knitting away next to me, and our conversation on the TGIF post of the lack of nice handmade sweaters in the world, a knitting themed fanfic post!!!!

Sanjay and Salman Learn to Knit and Escape From Captivity

This one practically writes itself!!!!  Salman, after a massive action sequence, is captured by Kashmiri separatists and thrown in a cave prison.  Where, coming out from the Shadows, is longhaired and slightly crazy Sanjay.  They used to be best friends, as we see in flashback.  Happiness, hijinks, etc.  Sanjay falls in love with and marries (with Salman’s help), beautiful Karisma Kapoor.  But, then he is thought dead in an explosion!  Salman, who previously was a frivolous playboy, decides to join the army in his honor.  And also marries Karisma because she is all suicidal and thinks she has nothing to live for.  That was 10 years ago, now Karisma and Salman have kids and are completely happy and so on and so on.  But now Salman knows Sanjay is alive!!!!  What to do?

(Yes, very similar to Chal Mere Bhai.  Not Saajan, because I decide Karisma over Madhuri)

I know what you are thinking, “that is all interesting, but what about KNITTING????” See, the only thing they are allowed to do to stave off madness in their cave-jail is knit.  And Salman flashes back to Karisma telling him about how she and her friends used to send messages to each other encoded in knitting.  Salman and Sanjay learn how to knit and master a binary code that they can use to send messages.  The captors take their beautiful scarves and sweaters out into greater Kashmir to sell to tourists in order to raise money for their fight (the little known connection between fiber arts and funding violence!).  Meanwhile, Karisma, unable to face losing another husband, has come to Kashmir to look for Salman.  She sees a scarf on a little girl and recognizes the message!  She buys the scarf off of her and then rushes to the shop where it was purchased and quickly buys all the Salman and Sanjay-made scarves.  And then takes them to the army commander (Sunny Deol) and explains what it means.  He is grateful, but tells her it is now a secret mission and she can’t be involved.  However, in order for Sunny to understand the code, he ALSO has to learn to knit!  He tracks down a local Kashmiri widow who makes and sells knitting (Dimple) and has her teach him how to knit.  There is much frustrated emotions involved, Dimple comforts him, they grow closer.  Sunny finally learns how to knit and is able to understand the sweater-messages.  He takes a sweater, and then purposefully damages it, returns it to the store and makes a big angry fuss.  The separatists, angry at being yelled at, bring the sweater back to Sanjay and Salman and yell at them for their inferior knitting.  However, Sunny had altered the sweater with a new message!  Rescue is imminent!!!!

And then they are rescued (yes, someone is stabbed by knitting needles), Sanjay understands that Karisma has moved on, Sunny marries Dimple, they all retire from the army deciding that the better way to help Kashmiris is by giving them industries, and they come together to open a handmade sweater workship thing.  And, one of their first buyers from a fancy European store, MADHURI DIXIT!!!!  Who immediately starts a flirtation with Sanjay over the end credits tag, so we know he will have a happy ending too.

(I just love them together)

 

Prabhas and Anushka Shetty Fall in Love Over Knitting Needles

 

Prabhas, a westernized urban type, is in love with Taapsee, another westernized urban type.  However, they fight because he makes fun of her knitting, saying it is a waste of time.  She declares she won’t agree to marry him until he makes her a whole sweater by himself.

Coincidentally, while he is still trying to recover from this fight, his father Prakash Raj guilts him in to going to the ancestral village in order to visit his ill great-great-uncle (also Prakash Raj in make-up, double-role!).  Prabhas is a nice guy, he goes and is polite to his great-uncle and tries to be nice about the weird food and no a/c and all that.  However, Anushka Shetty, the distant relative young woman whose widowed mother helps take care of Prakash Raj, catches Prabhs making sour faces and hates him for not loving the village.  And also because she thinks he is going to come in and try to move her family out of the house and take care of his great-uncle himself.

(Like Mr. Perfect, but with Anushka instead of Kajal)

Anushka sets him up for failure, sending him off across the fields knowing he will fall in a hole, asking for ingredients that are impossible to get from the local farm stand, etc. etc.  Prabhas is furious!  And figures out and gets evidence on her phone that it is her who set him up for all this.  He threatens to tell his great-uncle, Anushka is upset because she doesn’t want her family to lose their place.  So instead she offers to make it up to him, and he asks her to teach him how to knit.

They have to sneak around the terrace at knit, because he is embarrassed to be seen during the day doing something so girly, he gets frustrated, she soothes him, there are moments when he has to reach around her and hold her hands on the needles to see how to do it right, they get tangled together by escaping yarn and fall down, he has to measure for the sweater by using his hands to go around her hips, waist, and breasts, you know, all the many flirtatious romantic knitting possibilities.  But, all along, she knows he is only doing this for his girlfriend and anyway, a big city guy like him would never be happy in their little village with a village girl like her.

He goes back to the city, sweater finished, and gives it to Taapsee.  Who laughs in his face, because she is past the whole knitting thing, it’s a silly hobby, you can just buy stuff in stores!!!!  And anyway, what intelligent person works with their hands?  Prabhas, naturally, is infuriated!!!!  He declares that knitting is harder than anything else he has ever done, more challenging than engineering, how dare she?????  She gives him another ultimatum, that he has to apologize or they are through!!!!  Prabhas says “like knitting, love should always have do overs.  You may have to unravel and start fresh sometimes, but you never throw it out.” (wisdom that Anushka had previously taught him)

Back in the village, Anushka is surprised by a strange sound outside, and goes out to see Prabhas!  With a bunch of sheep!  He is going to open a yarn factory in the village, teach the villagers to raise sheep, and bring the joy of knitting to the whole world.  And he needs her help to do it.  Anushka is delighted, but asks if she is the right partner for him.  He throws her the sweater he made, she tries it on, he says “perfect fit.  It’s a sign.”  They embrace.

And over the end credits, Anushka and Prabhas travel the world in a series of inventive sweaters in a final happy love song.

 

Sexy Shahrukh Sweater Story

 

Well, this is stumping me!!!!  How the heck can I make a sexy story revolving around Shahrukh and sweaters?  But I know there must be a way!!!!  Hmmmm.  Oh!  I have it!  Shahrukh-The Sweater Model.

We open with Shahrukh sad and forgotten and unnoticed.  He has the kind of Rab Ne look, and in the first scene of the film, we see him buying groceries at the local Indian store in London.  He and the guy behind the counter are chatting, Shahrukh explains that he is making a homecooked meal tonight to surprise his girlfriend, the store owner is surprised they aren’t married yet, Shahrukh says that she doesn’t want that, and he is just grateful a woman like her is even willing to date him (clearly he has deepseated self-esteem issues).  He comes home with groceries  only to find his girlfriend (Lisa Haydon) with bags packed.  He asks what she is doing, she uncaringly explains that she is done with him, he is old and boring, and she was offered a modeling job in London and is taking it.  Shahrukh tries to argue that he can change, he can do more, whatever she wants.  Lisa is all “don’t you understand?  You disgust me!  You would disgust any woman!  You are too short and your nose is too big and your chin is odd and your body is horrible!  I don’t want you and no one will ever want you.  I was only with you because you paid for my college tuition and it was a way to stay in Bombay.  But now I am done with you!  And I am taking all the jewelry you bought me, and the household money, you owe me that for forcing me to look at your disgusting face for the past 5 years!”

Shahrukh, broken, sits alone in the apartment after she has gone.  He looks at himself in the mirror and then, in disgust, rips off his clothes to study his body.  He touches his breasts, his stomach, his face, and then lets out a sob of frustration and turns away.

Image result for shahrukh shirtless

(Like this, shirtless but all fragile and tender and insecure about it)

The next day he calls in sick to work and then instead starts wandering the rainy city.  He sees women everywhere and imagines them turning away from him, hating him (Sad Song).  He finally takes shelter from the rain in a shop, which turns out to be a yarn shop.  A woman (Kajol) is knitting behind the counter.  She looks up when he enters and makes some comment about how they don’t get many men in there.  He starts to leave, apologizing, and she stops him, saying he can help her, she is working on writing a pattern for a men’s sweater, but she doesn’t have the measurements right, and he looks “average”.  Shahrukh sadly agrees that he is “average”.  She asks him to take off his jacket and put on the sweater.

And suddenly he is handsome!  He has to take off his glasses, it ruffles his hair when it goes on, and his body goes from looking skinny in the oversized dress shirt to perfectly proportioned within a sweater.  Kajol is struck by him, and tells him how good he looks, he doesn’t believe her, but she swears it’s true and asks if she can take a picture to go with the sweater pattern on her website.  Shahrukh sadly agrees, still not believing it.

Image result for shahrukh sweater

Naturally, this picture becomes a viral sensation!  Shahrukh finds out about it when he goes to work to see his co-workers gathered around a computer exclaiming, and recognizes himself in the photo!  He is embarrassed and rushes to the knitting shop to yell at Kajol.  Interrupting her knitting class (Fun Song, Lady Knitters chasing him around).  Finally Kajol throws the randy lady knitters out and talks to Shahrukh seriously, telling him that she was contacted by yarn companies, major knitting pattern companies, even a specialized handmade sweater company.  They all want him!  Shahrukh is stunned, he could be a model?  He doesn’t believe it.  Kajol convinces him she is telling the truth.  But he is shy, not sure he can handle the attention, wouldn’t know what to do.  Kajol offers to go with him to help.  Besides, the knitting pattern company has promised to work with her patterns if she helps deliver him.  They can be a team!  And she really needs this, she’s been trying to keep this shop going and her patterns can help with that, she has nothing else.

The first photo shoot goes poorly, Shahrukh is shy at first, reluctant to let them shave his mustache or gel his hair, but Kajol convinces him to trust them.  And then during the shoot he has a hard time relaxing on camera.  Until the photographer (Aish) comes to help.  She explains that she used to model and tells him he has to make love to the camera.  Look at it, and picture the woman he loves.  Shahrukh explains that the woman he loves does not love him, that makes him feel ugly and unhappy.  And then once he starts talking, admits to her that the woman he loves thinks he is disgusting, does not even want to touch him.  Aish starts talking him up, tells him that he is handsome, sexy even.  Shows him that she has no problem touching him, tells him he is good to the touch, his shoulders are strong (as she squeezes them).  His chest is nice (she caresses it).  His arms, his hands, and his face, all good (she lightly strokes them all).

Image result for shahrukh sweater

Shahrukh is looking slightly turned on, and Aish says “That!  Keep that look, think of something that makes you feel like that, while I go to the camera”.  Shahrukh keeps the sexy look on his face, and looks past her, suddenly seeing Kajol in the background, smiling encouragement, and turns the sexy up as he looks at her.

The photoshoot goes live!  Knitting magazines and blogs through out the length of breadth of England suddenly feature Shahrukh!  In a whole variety of sweater poses.  Kajol’s store sells out, they go out together with Shahrukh in “disguise” (in a jacket instead of a sweater) and enjoy the success.  Shahrukh keeps looking at her all sexy when she isn’t looking because he is all in love now all of a sudden.

But then, complications!  Shahrukh comes by Kajol’s store to take her out for lunch, she tells him she has received so many phone calls for him!  All the major sweater companies want him to model for them, he can make some nice money off of it.  He says something about her getting a percentage, she says no, she doesn’t need anything, now that her shop is back on its feet, she is happy.  Shahrukh awkwardly hints around about maybe she should save money for a wedding, Kajol laughs and says “it would have to be an awfully good groom to take me away from my Raj!  No, the two of us are happy together.”  Shahrukh is suddenly sad and excuses himself.  That night, we watch Kajol close up the shop, walk home, buy flowers and groceries, and go home to her little apartment, calling out “Raj!  Raj, I’m home!  I got us dinner!”  And then she keeps talking about how Shahrukh came by the shop again, but he left suddenly.  Probably just tired of wasting time talking to her, when he can be off with those models, even the photographers on the photoshoots are gorgeous, it was nice to have a friend for a while, but she shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up, better to just be happy with her knitting store and “you”.  And as she finally finishes the speech, we see “Raj”, a big fat black and white cat.  And Kajol puts food in his dish and sits down with a glass of wine and her own little meal on a plate and smiles sadly.

Image result for black and white cat

(Somehow, this is the exact cat I picture)

Meanwhile, success song montage!  Shahrukh is getting job after job, tons of sweater photoshoots, with gorgeous young models crawling all over him.  Aish is there too sometimes, and they kind of smile and chat together, like friends.  And one day as he finishes a shoot with her, he looks over and sees Lisa Haydon standing there!  She comes over to him and starts talking immediately, saying that she always knew he was special, isn’t it wonderful that they are working in the same industry now, it’s like it was meant to be.  Shahrukh is looking more and more unhappy until finally Aish comes over to rescue him, grabs him by the arm and kisses his cheek and says “ready, darling?”  Lisa is stunned!  Aish turns and is all “oh, are you an old friend of MY BOYFRIEND?”  Lisa fumbles away.  After she leaves, Shahrukh immediately pulls his arm away and says “Thank you!  I know that was hard for you, I hope your girlfriend won’t mind”.  Aish smiles and says, “Not at all, Sayani loves you!  See?” and she points across the room where Sayani Gupta is putting her camera equipment away, and cheerfully waves at them.  Shahrukh waves back, Aish laughs, everything is fine.

Image result for sayani gupta shahrukh

(Sayani Gupta.  Love her!)

But what they don’t know is that Lisa is meeting with an evil paparazz0!  Telling him a whole tale of love and loss, how the top male model used her connections to get a break in the industry and has now moved on to a top photographer, probably planning to use and then throw her away too.  Kajol sadly reads the story aloud to Raj, and then sets down the paper and tells him “well, that must be the woman who convinced him he was no good.  And I guess Aish is the woman who has convinced him he is again.  She seemed nice, I am happy for them.”  Raj gives her a quizzical look.  “No really!  I am!  I swear!!!  Anyway, beautiful people should be with beautiful people.”

Shahrukh is having a hard time with this too.  Aish tells him to ignore the story, but suddenly he no longer feels sexy, something is wrong.  The photos are missing the certain something special.  The young model opposite him (Alia) pulls him aside and offers “we could just have sex right now, would that work?”  Shahrukh is all horrified “no!  You are like a daughter to me!  NO!”  Well then, Alia asks, who does make you feel sexy.  And Shahrukh sighs and says “the woman who doesn’t want me.”  But he doesn’t realize that Sayani is assisting on this photoshoot too and has overheard it all!  Sayani goes home and kisses Aish hello and then as they go around getting dinner together tells her that she overheard Shahrukh at the photoshoot today, he is sad, he says he doesn’t feel sexy any more and has lost the one woman who could do that.  Could he mean that horrible Lisa Haydon.  No!  Aish knows just who he must have meant.  Maybe she can fix this.

Aish goes to Kajol’s knit shop the next day.  Kajol is immediately flustered and tries to hide behind the counter, but then knocks over a big basket and yarn goes flying everywhere, and Aish finds her scrabbling around on the floor.  Kajol doesn’t know what to do and just starts to cry.  Aish immediately comforts her, telling her it’s all right, don’t feel bad.  And it all comes flowing out, Kajol talks about how she isn’t beautiful or special or anything like Aish, but she thought for a while maybe Shahrukh saw her that way, only of course he didn’t, of course he belongs with other beautiful people, not just her.

Aish listens to all of this and says “First, you are beautiful.  You are very beautiful”.  Kajol is all “you’re just saying that”.  So Aish kisses her.  And while Kajol is still trying to recover, she says “see?  I’m not just saying it.  And if Shahrukh ever told you that, he wasn’t just saying it either.  He only left because he didn’t want to get in the way of you and Raj.”  Kajol is confused, “in the way?  Is he allergic?”  Aish is all “huh?”  Kajol keeps going, “If he is, I suppose I could try to find Raj a new home.  My knitting women are always wanting to kiss him and stroke him when he comes to the store with me.”  Now Aish is really “huh????”  And finally Kajol says, “but did Shahrukh really think I would choose a cat over him?”  And then Aish just laughs and laughs while Kajol is going “what? what?”

Image result for aish kajol

(Look what a cute threesome they are!)

Grand finale, Kajol is in her store, a few customers are around, and suddenly someone throws a ball of yarn, she turns to look, and then another ball, and another!  All the customers are involved and throwing yarn, Kajol is tangled up in it in the center of a web, until Shahrukh walks in, and says “Sorry, I just wanted to make sure you would stay in one place while I talked, and I asked your customers to help me.”  Kajol is confused, but Shahrukh smoothly keeps talking as he walks towards her “you gave me back my confidence, my sense of self, and something I had never had before, the feeling that I was beautiful.  I don’t have much to offer you you in return, but I hope you will take what I have, my heart. He finally gets up to Kajol, she is looking all teary, he is looking all lip-wobbly, she hesitates, and then suddenly throws a ball of yarn around him and says “So you can’t escape either!  And, surrounded by tangled yarn, they embrace, while the knitters applaud.

And, happy end credits!  Shahrukh on photo shoots, then coming home to have Kajol measure sweaters for him and them to have dinner together, with Raj on the floor keeping them company.

 

 

Which, if any, of these should we make?

 

 

Should Kajol be our knitting store owner, or someone else?

 

 

Is it just me thinking about how great Prabhas’ long fingers would look while knitting?

 

 

Is it too sad for Sanjay to have been alone and knitting for 10 years in a cave?  Should I make it 2 years?

51 thoughts on “Silly Sunday: Knitting Fanfic!!! In Honor of Visiting My Sister (Including Shahrukh Sexy Sweater Story)”

  2. `

    Can I join in? As Sister already knows, there actually is a knitting-in-prison project (I reference it in my Criminal Justice classes). See:

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  3. The Sanjay-Salman one is pretty good. Except for the Kashmir setting. Kashmir is effectively an active war zone. The separatists imposed a bandh that lasted over 180 days last year. So tourists being there is kind of a long shot. Separatists have so far not gone into hostage taking and it’s an awful message about an already explosive situation that just shouldn’t be on film because national security.

    The film can easily be set in Punjab. Sanjay and Salman can be convicts in jail. It would be funny. A heavily moustached sikh jailer, these two built guys in jail, everyone is intimidated and then they request knitting supplies! Hah!

    But here’s the twist- they’re undercover intelligence officers and they’re in the same jail as a known drug trafficker. Sanjay and Salman know the jail cops are also involved with them so they send out messages to their unit via knitting.

    Dimple is a coordinating intelligence officer and she poses as an NGO lady whose organisation helps sell products made by qaidis.

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  4. Why is Anushka always the village girl? Why does Prabhas always go from the city to the village? I think telugu cinema has conditioned us too well to not think beyond that setup!! 😂

    OK, how about Prabhas and Anushka are married with two under 6. They’re a middle class family that lives in a middle class part of hyderabad. He is an insurance salesman and she’s a school teacher in a small English medium school. They’re ok but they want to escape the country life and the small town.

    One day, he gets fired from his job because he didn’t bring in enough sales and the boss thinks he can get two salesmen for the salary prabhas gets. He comes home dejected and tells anushka he’ll find another job and thanks god that they have her school job for stability. She reveals that she had quit the school months ago because the principal had been making impossible demands and she could make the same kind of money in the same kinda hours nannying for rich people. But even those rich people were moving abroad next month and she thought she’d have his insurance job till she finds a job. Just when they’re having this discussion, they get a phonecall that anushka’s mom and prabhas’ aunt, has had a stroke. They quickly pack up their bags, get the kids and go to her. She lives in a much smaller town that’s just a few kilometres from Ooty. The old woman is out of the hospital but her left arm is considerably weakened. The family insists Anushka and prabhas take her to hyderabad with them as she can’t live on her own anymore. They don’t tell anyone that they’re both jobless so they say they’ve taken a leave from their jobs and the kids have summer break. When the relatives leave, prabhas and anushka try finding jobs in town but aren’t successful. The mother senses something is wrong and gets a confession out of them. The mother tells them they should stay in Ooty for the summer with her and when it’s time for kids to be back in school, they’d all move back to their village. Her railway pension would cover all their expenses till then.

    One day, anushka and prabhas are cleaning up the attic which hasn’t been cleaned in years when they stumble across lots of wool balls and knitting supplies. They ask mother about it and she says anushka’s father used to knit and he sold his stuff at the railway station where she worked. She didn’t get rid of the supplies after his death.

    It’s a hell lot of wool and anushka and prabhas are reluctant to just throw it all away. So they decide to knit it. Some fun scenes ensue and then some difficulties as no-one buys knitwear anymore, everyone has store bought sweaters. They’re dejected again and dismantling the canopy stall at night saying they should not come back with it the next day and look for real jobs when a young man comes to them and asks where they bought the knitted sweaters from. They say they make them. The guy asks if they have anything for a newborn. His wife just delivered prematurely and there are no stores selling anything for such a tiny baby. Prabhas and anushka go with the guy and knit the baby a custom set right there in the hospital. The couple orders a whole bunch of knitwear for the baby and they get a few orders from other parents as well.

    When they come back home the next morning they realize they’ve been approaching it all wrong. They’ve been making sweaters, scarves and hats no-one wears anymore.

    So they go online and look for handmade knitted fashionwear and set about knitting sweater dresses, leg warmers, knitted bags, ponchos, throws, etc.

    They make fashionable knitwear for the kids as well. As a marketing ploy, they wear their best stuff and visit all the tourist spots and popular restaurants etc. Eventually, people ask them where they got the stuff and they say they got it online from a small brand and they’re opening a franchise outlet for it in town soon.

    So they open a store in town and set up a online store for it too. Things start looking up for them but their success is noticed by the guy who supplied cheap woollen wear to all the stores in town and he accuses them of corrupting the local culture with western fashions and incites a mob to burn their store down.

    Once again, they’re dejected and ready to quit when the mother tells them the story of how she met her husband. She had been a young village girl who got a job as a ticket window person and announcer at that small station outside of ooty. She didn’t have appropriate woollens to go with her uniform and her future husband who ran a small woollens stall at the station knit her a blouse to go with her sari. She shows them old pictures. Anushka didn’t remember any of this because she had been sent to live with prabhas’ family when she was very young since they had a better school there and there was no reason for her to wear her woollen blouses when she came to to visit her there.

    So they renovate the burnt down shop, this time using mother’s old pictures around the store as fashion inspiration and launch a new collection that features knitwear to pair with Indian clothes- blouses and boleros to go with saris, leg warmers to wear under cotton saris, knit kameez sweaters, knit maxi shrugs to wear with shalwar suits, classic cardigans for gents etc. And they’re a success again.

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  5. With little time at hand – for the moment – I focussed on (oh wonder!) the Shahrukh-sweater-story.
    Since the time I read you it’s – for me! – the most cute story I read about Kajol & ShahRukh 🙂
    A grateful thanks to your inspiring sister 🙂

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  6. You do realize you’re obsessed with virginal SRK, right?

    I read the SRK story in the morning and all day I kept thinking something was off. I finally figured it out — of the three, this is the only one where the male lead doesn’t knit. 😁

    I did try to think of SRK knitting stories and I got three! It was a great prompt. Lemme jot them down into something cohesive and I’ll post

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  7. Story 1: SRK, knitting and magic realism

    The story is set in a sleepy Midwestern town. This small town has few attractions and the local bookstore owned by SRK is one of them. SRK knows everyone in town and everyone knows him. The store also carries craft supplies and SRK often knits his regulars scarves and throws as gifts. People think of him as a creative former Silicon Valley executive who gave up the ratrace for the charms of a small town. He’s an outsider whom everyone confides in and people are always popping into his store for a chat and a cuppa and they always leave feeling better and he’s the local informal therapist. Turns out, his knits are magical. If SRK knits something while listening to someone share a problem, the knitted stuff would magically help rid that person of the problem. Once the problem is solved, the knitted stuff disappears. People aren’t aware of his special powers.

    I haven’t figured out the rest of it yet but it will involve a secret from his past, something making his knits lose their magic which wrecks havoc in people’s lives, his mentor visiting town (Danny, please!) and SRK realizing that he’d been trying to fix these people’s lives with his magic when all they needed was someone to make them understand they can fix their lives themselves. The story ends up with SRK retiring his magic needles. In the last scene, a young boy comes into the store with his mother to pick up a storybook and while the mom is busy browsing the books, the child tells SRK that he found some knitting supplies in his attic and he made himself the scarf he was wearing and now the scarf protects him from bullies at school.

    The End.

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    • I love this! And, in fact, I would say instead of a movie, this should be a series of interrelated romance novels. Like, 6 books, the first 5 focus on other couples’ stories with Shahrukh wisely helping them, and in the background his slow loneliness as he realizes that his heart is waking up (after a tragic love affair in the past which drove him to start life anew in this small town), and then the 6th book is all about his own love affair with the frazzled single Mom who just moved to town and he falls in love with her at first sight, but is all shy and clumsy about telling her, so the townsfolk he previously helped have to come together to bring them together. And then her son is the kid in your story who finds the knitting supplies.

      On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 10:00 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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        • I want Danny to be in every movie! So that is good for me. Plus, he has that Nepali look, so there is a kind of knitting/Nepal/mountains connection.

          On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 10:14 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • 😂 that’s mildly racist!!! He’s Sikkimi!! Sikkimi people would be highly offended by being called Nepali for sure. We got china’s enmity for Sikkim and the kingdom’s most famous actor gets called Nepali!!! 😂 😂 😂

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          • Or northeastern! 😂

            Mountains in India extend from Kashmir to the Myanmar border. You’d be offending a hell lot of tribes if you called Danny a mountainy sweater person!!

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    • I love this. I’m waiting for the other two! This one is kind of a light-sided version of Stephen King’s very dark-sided Needful Things. Basically Satan sets up a bric-a-brac shop in a little Maine town which contains something to ensnare the soul of any shopper. Really an ugly story–and somehow links to what you are saying in the Monday morning questions thread about the impact of mass production on society.

      It’s also kind of like Chocolat, but with knitting! I’m thinking SRK’s magic could also be invested in marinara sauce since he’s into the whole Italian cooking thing now.

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  8. Story 2: SRK in the Cotswolds

    SRK had been the longterm butler of this British Indian Lord in Scotland. He had joined service in his teens as the lord’s footman and he had learnt the trade from his uncle the butler and he eventually replaced him after he retired.

    The Lord and Lady, now in their 80s, decide to move back to India after their investments go bust and they have to sell the estate. They can barely pay the staff the last month’s salary but the Lady, who is a mother figure to SRK, leaves him a cottage in the Cotswolds and the Lord gets his two daughters an admission in a posh private school an hour away from the cottage.

    He moves to this new area and restores the old house to the best of his ability. His daughters, however, have inherited their mother’s resentment of his profession and they strike down his idea of turning the cottage into a BnB. He had made investments back in India which means he doesn’t have to take up a job in the UK if he lives frugally enough. His daughters cannot compete with the fashions of the girls at school so he gets into knitting. At first they’re bullied for it but he tells them about the history of the area and it’s relationship with wool and how the Queen Mother had a knitting program during the war, etc.

    Don’t have the rest of this story planned out too well but it would involve him becoming a sheep farmer and a knitwear maker, helping the Lord’s family save the estate and helping his daughters understand the value of earnest hard work.

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    • A different spin could be–rather than make clothing for his daughters, he frets and worries, and knits beautiful sweaters and soft baby clothes to while away the time, since his daughters have scorned his B n B idea. He doesn’t like being alone all the time though, so he starts going to Women’s Institute meetings–as they’re the only non-religious volunteer organization active in this little village. He brings his knitting along, and at his new friends’ suggestion, starts donating his lovely soft creations to the local charity shop.

      A buyer for an “authentic-English” type of clothing line wanders into the charity shop (Archie Punjabi?) while visiting her parents, who live in the village, and she sees Shah Rukh’s work. She is smitten. She contracts him to produce for the line, and he turns the cottage into a small workshop with him and two of the older WI ladies to produce the goods.

      A year later, romance is blooming with Archie (there could be comical mis-communications, or quality control issues, or something to bring them together more often than normally in a buyer/supplier type relationship), and Shah Rukh’s daughters have found new respect for their Dad who makes the most in-demand winter-wear and baby clothes in England.

      I really suck at this–but thanks for inspiring me to try, Margaret and Asmita!

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  9. Story 3: SRK is a woollens shop owner in Old Delhi

    SRK is the manager of a small woollens store in old Delhi. It is one of the hundreds of woollens shops in their gali alone and he’s the peppy salesman that sits just at the entrance to the shop and lures customers in and is known in the market for closing deals with the pickiest of customers.

    His son who also works at the same store as a shop assistant and is expecting his first child. SRK’s younger son has just cleared admission to a prestigious engineering college in the south on a full scholarship.

    SRK is hoping to a get a raise this year as he had made his boss a lot of money last winter season. But when he goes to have the talk, he is instead told that the boss’ son was going to take over the business and staff cuts would be made. He pleads with his boss that he’s spent his whole life at this shop and he has nowhere else to go and he knows nothing but woollens but the boss’ son rudely fires him telling him his skills, his manner of speaking and his taste in woollens were all very low class and he had no idea that everyone only wears branded stuff now and the old and helpless boss can only look on.

    SRK comes home broken hearted and hell angry. The family is in crisis. They try setting up a shop of their own but the costs run way too high and to have a shop stocked fully with the kind of stuff he knows would sell is out of their budget. So they buy a thela, the older son converts it into a fully covered stall on wheels, the wife and SRK stock it with hand-knitted stuff and they park it in front of the old shop which has now been turned into a posh brand store.

    Everyday SRK and his family toils right in front of the old shop and everyday the boss’ son comes out to taunt them about how he sold 10 brand sweaters that day and made more money than what SRK can make in a month.

    Again, i don’t have the rest of this figured out but the story sees the family band together and toil harder and harder. The son who is now at college, builds them a knitting machine. Eventually, they’re able to buy the shop right next doors to the boss’ shop and SRK sits at its entrance and does his old routine and the boss’ son has to watch the new shop thronged by customers all day even in the summers while his own store isn’t that hot anymore. At the end we see the boss wearing one of SRK’s knits and him going and asking SRK if he has room for an old and gray salesman in his shop. They hug and call out “aaiye aaiye” to customers in the market like old times.

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      • Well in the summers he gets the discount shoppers and people who are visiting the hill stations and need woollens and his stuff is now famous!

        Yeah, it’s a stretch. But so is hand knits being in vogue in old Delhi in 2017! 😂

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      • I haven’t decided the cast so if you can think of anyone, do share. And I wanted it to ve an engineer daughter but then I thought engineer daughter designing a knitting machine is too saas-bahu if you know what I mean

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        • Wiktionary says, “saas-bahu:
          (India, fiction) A genre of drama fiction concerning the relationship between the controlling evil mother of a husband (mother-in-law) and her dominated, downtrodden, meek daughter-in-law.”

          Is that right? Thanks for teaching me a new phrase. Engineer son it is.

          Ok–Lara Dutta as his wife–just because I liked her as supportive bright wife in Billu. Former boss–okay, this might be out there, but wouldn’t it be nice to see Johhny Lever in a kind of restrained but poignant role like this? I know he has it in him. And he does have nice chemistry with Shah Rukh. Engineer son: Ayushman Khurana might be aging out of this kind of role, huh? How about the guy who does parody songs on youtube–Salil Jamdar? I find him cute. (had to look up his name)

          Weird casting based on my odd distribution of knowing who the heck anyone is in Hindi entertainment.

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          • Saas-bahu further info: Ekta kapoor, mentioned elsewhere today for sleeping in an adjoining room to her brother with the door open well into their 40s, invented this genre in the late 90s.

            Satellite TV revolutionized Indian Television, it went from having one state run channel to dozens, and there was this mad rush for content. Jeetendra, movie star and savvy business man, started a small tv production company literally out of his garage. He put his 19 year old daughter Ekta in charge, because she never seemed to do anything but watch tv, with her mom to supervise. After a few years of trial and error (during which they created a hit sitcom starring teenage Vidya Balan as one of 5 daughters), they stumbled on the “saas-bahu” formula. A young bride marries into a family, deals with in fighting with her mother-in-law, evil sisters-in-law, etc. For hundreds and hundreds of episodes. And now it’s become just a description for a certain feel to a narrative, saintly strong woman who never quit leaves the woman’s sphere of the house.

            Here is a wiki entry for the most famous one, be warned, it is a total wiki hole jumping from plot summary to plot summary for these things!

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyunki_Saas_Bhi_Kabhi_Bahu_Thi

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          • Well the saas-bahu genre would be better understood as the soap opera genre rather than this specific meaning. It’s more like domestic politics and unrealistic events happening within that setting!

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  10. ❤
    Love all the stories! ❤
    Cant believe I MISSED A PRABHAS POST!! AHH! I have been living under the blanket cuz winter!
    Your knitting story can be a wonderful inspiration for Mirchi 2!!!
    plus! Anything to see his beautiful hands repeatedly ❤

    thanks!

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