I have really and truly never heard of this artist. But some nice person in the comments told me that he is really really famous even outside of India? So now I get to do a post that maybe/hopefully gets picked up outside of my Indian blog by people who are the opposite of me, having heard of Marshmello but not Shahrukh Khan.
It features a song written by Pritam, one of the top composers in the Indian film world. Really, the Top composer for Hindi film, at least for the past few years. This is not Pritam’s first international collaboration, he previously worked with Diplo on a song for one of Shahrukh’s recent films.
The Marshmello video starts with a tribute to Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Shahrukh’s most successful film, still running after 23 years. This is the film that created Shahrukh as a superstar, and as an international star. The reference is specifically to this song, in which Shahrukh and his true love are reunited in a mustard field. The cowbell she is carrying is their love symbol.
And then it moves on to a tribute to Devdas, a period drama in which Shahrukh played a depressed alcoholic loved by two women. It combines two songs, one in which Shahrukh watches his dancing girl lover dance, and the other in which his respectable ex-girlfriend and the dancing girl dance together.
The in between sections with Marshmello dancing in a gold jacket don’t really have a reference, the closest I can find is this tribute video to Hindi film for the 100th year anniversary.
And then it moves into a basketball section. In the Shahrukh romance Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, he and the tomboy heroine play basketball together.
And then it moves into “Chaiyya Chaiyya” from Dil Se. Dil Se was Shahrukh’s first bit crossover hit, especially the “Chaiyya Chaiyya” song. It became so popular it was even used in the Spike Lee movie Inside Man.
And then it moves into the violin song from Mohabattein. In that movie, Shahrukh plays a music teacher at a school who plays music to remember his dead love and imagines her dancing with him.
Weird thing is, in the middle of that section Shahrukh also does a little dance move from Dabangg, which is not a Shahrukh movie but rather a Salman Khan movie. But it’s also a really cool dance move, so I can see the temptation.
And then Pritam, the composer, shows up at the end and is greeted by Shahrukh in a Marshmello mask. And yes, I can recognize him just by his hands and gestures even before he takes the mask off. I was watching it thinking “hey, why is Shahrukh here and why is he wearing a weird mask over his face?”
Now, the reason I wasn’t very excited about this video when someone first sent me the link is that it’s kind of business as usual for Shahrukh. He is so iconic at this point that there’s a new Shahrukh tribute video of some kind releasing on a regular schedule. It wasn’t until I learned this is a tribute video from and for the international market that I started to pay attention to it. Already in existence, for instance, is “The Shahrukh Song” which was written by an international fan and is just titles of his movies strung together.
Or this song which was made for a real actual Hindi film.
Or this, which is from an actual Shahrukh Khan film in which he plays a superstar, and uses clips from his old movies to represent his superstardom.
So now, if you don’t know Shahrukh, hopefully you have some context. And if you do know Shahrukh, you can read this and go “yeah yeah yeah, I already knew all that”.
dontcallitbollywood 
The gold jacket is a reference to Om Shanti Om!
I think this is part of the Western world recognizing how truly big India is. Their own market is saturated. Where else are they going to go where there is already a large English speaking population? They really really want to get into the Indian market. Marshemello’s youtube subscribers grew by 4 or 5 million in just the 3 days that he released the SRK video.
Do you know Drake (the rapper) keeps posting thirsty comments on Athiya Shetty’s (of all the people!!) instagram? Gwyneth Paltrow is following Tiger and Disha (!!) on social media. Gully Boy was executive produced by Nas (American rapper) and he obviously got people like Will Smith to hype it for him. Will, btw, is going to make a cameo in Student of the Year, the strangest collaboration ever. Will’s son Jaden is now in India. Pharrell came to India to do some Adidas advertising thing with Ranveer and did a magazine cover with Aishwarya. Pharrell had a huge media fail when he attended a Holi party and looked SO UNHAPPY that his pics went viral. For example –
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2018-03/4/3/campaign_images/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/pharrell-played-holi-with-ranveer-singh-but-he-wa-2-27702-1520152791-0_dblbig.jpg
I don’t think most of them know quite *how* to do it.. I mean you’re not going to get far chasing Athiya Shetty.. but they sure are trying.
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Drake posting thirsty comments on Athiya Shetty’s instagram feels totally equal to Diljit posting comments on the younger Kardashian’s instagram. And I totally want a real life crossover thing, where Drake and Diljit meet on an airplane some day and make a pact to help the other meet their global crush.
I couldn’t decide if it was an OSO reference or not, because the OSO reference is really a Rajesh Khanna reference and then I got distracted by the whole meta nature of it.
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I was thinking Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi but it’s also a meta reference.
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This is definitely a good move to get more known in a new market…and it will go both ways because Marshmello has a huge fanfollowing that may know nothing about ShahRukh (or about Indian Cinema in general). I even would bet that more urban Indians know Marshmello than no-desis in the US know ShahRukh.
Anyways, it is a fine tribute (I also thought of OSO, btw).
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Well, so far this particular post hasn’t gotten as many views as I was hoping for. so it didn’t help for me with crossover! But, early days yet, maybe it will build.
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Thank you so much for this! I was hoping you would do a post like this. I was trying to decode which dance steps were from which SRK movie. 😀
“And yes, I can recognize him just by his hands and gestures even before he takes the mask off.“
A true fan if there ever was one 😛
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i am positive I am not the only person on this site who can do that.
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Thank you so much for this! I was hoping you would do a post like this. I was trying to decode which dance steps were from which SRK movie. 😀
“And yes, I can recognize him just by his hands and gestures even before he takes the mask off.“
A true fan if there ever was one 😛
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My reaction to this post: Who the h3ll is Marshmello? I know Diplo but Marshmello is not on my radar at all. Cute video but the music was utterly forgettable.
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Thank goodness, it’s not just me! Some commentator whose name i don’t remember told me he is a very very big deal, but i had never heard of him.
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