This is just total indulgence for me. As a thought experiment, I want to continue my discussion of sex and power and class from these two posts and see if I can come up with new SRK plot ideas that continue to explore them.

Shahrukh the Sexually Harassed Head Servant Fights for Fair Labor

Shahrukh is the educated loyal highly skilled head servant for a wealthy international family. He has worked for them his whole life, like his father before him. The old man dies, and Shahrukh now works for the younger generation, American born and educated millionaire son and his Indian born but American educated wife. They take over the house and start making changes, want to bring in a lot more servants to take care of their young children and help them host their fancy parties and so on.

At the same time, while the husband is traveling, the wife starts making inappropriate advances on Shahrukh. He isn’t sure how to handle them, tries to pretend he doesn’t see it at first, and then when he finds her in his bed one night, he has no choice but to reject her as gently as possible. She is still insulted and wants to fire him, lying to her husband that he has been faking household accounts. But her husband trusts Shahrukh too much and is sure there is an explanation. Instead, she settles for demoting Shahrukh. Instead of running the household accounts and organizing the storage of the extra furniture and so on, the really high level tasks requiring a trusted person. he is now supervising the cleaners and the kitchen crew.

Shahrukh is miserable at first with his demotion, struggles to wake up early and do the hard labor required, but then slowly starts to regain his working class identity. After years of wearing a suit and speaking perfect English at all times, now he is in the kitchens speaking Punjabi and singing folk songs and all. And because he is in the kitchens and working with the new staff members he starts to notice things that aren’t right. Some of the workers are very young, not yet 18, and they are working long long hours. And they don’t understand it when he talks about “paycheck” and stuff like that.

Eventually Shahrukh figures out what is happening. The new head servant has brought in cheap illegal labor, teenagers brought to America on faked up Visas, a tiny amount of money is sent back to their families in India which is what keeps them working here, but it is a gross abuse of power and highly illegal. Shahrukh confronts his bosses with the evidence, only to learn that they knew it was happening. They try to explain that these kids lives would be hopeless in India, they are doing them a favor by bringing them here. But Shahrukh is still furious, they are so very very wealthy, why pinch pennies and refuse to pay a living wage to their employees?

Finally, one of the young girls in the kitchen almost dies. She is so tired and overworked, and under trained, she sticks her hand in the garbage disposal not realizing what it is. Shahrukh rushes her to the hospital, and his employers refuse to pay the bill or acknowledge they have any connection to her. Shahrukh is inspired to go talk to an American attorney and works with her as an informant creating a federal case against his employers. Naturally, he and the attorney (I’m thinking Rani maybe) also fall in love.

Shahrukh and Young Arranged Bride Romance

Shahrukh is an aging NRI who returns to India because his uncle is dying. He lands into the middle of a village feud, his uncle has spent his entire life trying to end the feud and now before he dies, he wants it to be over. He has brokered a peace that relies on Shahrukh marrying a very young village girl from the other family. Shahrukh refuses at first, because marrying a village girl who cannot even speak English, has not studied beyond 10th grade, and is over 20 years younger than him is clearly Wrong. His uncle finally convinces him by explaining how deadly and terrible this feud has been. But Shahrukh comes up with a plan so that he will feel morally okay with this marriage as well. He explains to his wife during their “first night” that he sees himself as her friend and guardian, not husband. He is going to take her to America, but once they are there, she is free. He will settle a large amount of money on her and help her achieve whatever she wants in life.

What he doesn’t know is that his young wife saw him a few nights earlier, she snuck around the grounds of the house and looked through the window of his room and saw him changing. Since then, she has been obsessed with him and was enthusiastically looking forward to their “first night”. But she is also an intelligent young woman with pride and so instead of telling him that she wants to be “really” married and risking empty sympathy instead of true affection, she pretends to accept his terms.

In America, Shahrukh quickly realizes that his wife is not ready to be on her own yet. He takes her into his house and gives her a room and feeds her American food and takes her shopping for American clothes and generally just takes care of her and eases her through the culture shock. He enjoys spending time with her, but any time she makes the smallest move towards something romantic, even as simple as sitting next to him on the couch, he shuts it down immediately.

His wife is still hoping for the marriage to work out, not thinking about anything else, avoiding the English language classes he suggests and any questions about what she might want to do with her life, until his girlfriend appears. The wife sees them together and sees how sexy and adult and different Shahrukh is with her and is heartbroken. She starts planning a life away from Shahrukh because it hurts too much to be close to him and not with him. She starts taking intensive English classes, and gets her first job at a coffee shop. She gains confidence and maturity and strength within herself (while still not being able to get over Shahrukh). Meanwhile, Shahrukh misses her. He liked having dinner together every night and hearing about her day and just spending time with her. He starts asking her to go to the movies with him and so on, she isn’t sure at first what is happening, but then finds the mangalsutra from their wedding with her hair tangled in it hidden under his pillow and learns he broke up with his girlfriend, decides it means he really does love her and it is up to her to seduce him.

She tries and tries, wears new sexy western clothes and he just offers her a jacket because she looks cold, goes to a sexy disco with him and he goes home because he gets tired after 10pm. She even tries to make him jealous by going out with a customer, and that doesn’t work either. It ends up just convincing him that she is strong enough to live on her own now and he offers to help her find an apartment.

The last night before she moves out, he suggests a dinner at home like they used to have. Before dinner while she is in the shower, her phone rings and he thinks it is his, picks it up and listens to the message, which is from the customer she went out with, saying he understands that she loves her husband and doesn’t want to date anyone else but if she ever changes her mind, he’s still interested. Shahrukh suddenly wakes up to his own feelings and turns the sexy on all the way up for the first time when she gets out of the shower, seduces her before she knows what is happening, and they finally have their “first night”. And the next morning he puts her mangalsutra back on.

Shahrukh Trapped Into Marriage By Sexiness

Our heroine is a sheltered gangster’s younger sister. He never got her married because no man was ever good enough for her. She spends her days in the house with her sister-in-law and neices and nephews. But then her niece gives her a make over and she goes out to a bar and makes friends with a group of fun career women out for a good time, maybe does an item number. Meanwhile Shahrukh is movie producer cool guy out looking for a one night stand, picks her up and seduces her in no time at all, takes her back to his place and they have sex. Only for him to be woken up the next day with guns pointing at him because her brother traced her phone. It’s all a disaster, her brother is ready to kill Shahrukh, but then changes his mind when he sees the nice apartment and all the famous movie stars photos on the walls and decides that this powerful rich man with famous friends might be a good brother-in-law.

Neither the heroine nor Shahrukh actually want the marriage, Shahrukh thought this was just a fun one night thing, the heroine is scared to leave her familiar home and be part of his fancy life. But the heroine feels guilty that she slept with him knowing how much danger he would be in from her brother, and Shahrukh feels guilty because he knows no woman can resist him and he picked her. And neither of them want Shahrukh to die. A quick wedding is organized, gangsters and movie stars all thrown together, and then Shahrukh and the heroine are sent on a honeymoon together courtesy of her brother.

They have nothing in common but sex, so they have sex a lot. Shahrukh keeps his sexy turned up and distracts her any time she gets scared or homesick. She feels confident and sure and equal when they are having sex, so she seduces him a fair amount too.

After the honeymoon, they have a fragile trust between them. But then regular life starts up and it all gets confused again. She feels useless in his home, he has a fancy chef so she doesn’t have to cook, there is a full staff so she doesn’t have to clean, he even has a stylist and a tailor to look after his clothes. And he is busy all the time, trying to get his next film off the ground. They start to lose each other.

It’s not hopeless, she cooks for him one night after talking to her sister-in-law and getting advice, he talks to his actress friend and remembers to bring her flowers and gifts, they are falling in love without saying anything. But they also have nights when they fight, or just don’t talk, or he works so late that he sleeps in the office. It comes to a head when she discovers she is pregnant, and sees him turning on the sexy at a party in order to convince an actress to be in his next film. She thinks he is cheating, is heartbroken, goes back home. Her brother drags Shahrukh back to the house and locks them in a bedroom together until they solve the problem. Shahrukh turns on the sexy as high as he can to try to win her over and finally, inevitably, succeeds. They leave the bedroom united again, and happy. And Shahrukh has suggested a second honeymoon, before the baby comes.

Oh, these all make me very happy! Very interesting considerations of sex and class and power and stuff. Which one do you like best? And any casting thoughts?