Let’s see if I can manage a thinky post after two days of light non-thinky posts. Fingers crossed!

This isn’t Shahrukh and Marriage Offscreen, that is a whole different post. Although they are related, the way Shahrukh’s real life persona relates to his identity as a husband and relationship with his wife is always there connected to his onscreen performances.

Most Indian films follow a certain pattern. Hero is feckless and carefree, hero falls in love, hero pursues heroine, hero wins heroine, hero confronts Authority to defend his right to love, hero makes a final commitment to the heroine, hero and heroine fight the world together and achieve a happy ending. This is based on the 4 stages of life from Hindu philosophy.

The 4 stages are the kind of philosophy that very few people consciously learn but has so completely invaded society that everyone subconsciously understands it. Your first stage is student/child. Your next stage is householder. Next is Retired. Then Renounced. What this means on the ground is that so long as you are in school, your only duty is to be in school. Once you marry, you are the “householder” and your duty is to your entire house. Once your child marries, you move up to “retired”, you are still part of the household but not responsible for it. And if you live long enough, you finally reach “renounced”, when you walk away from the household concerns into a higher consciousness.

Being a householder suuuuuuuucks (to put it mildly). You spend all your time working, if you are a woman you work yourself to the bone for your in-laws and children and husband, put up with abuse, and the actual danger to life and limb (many many daughter-in-law murders in India). If you are a man, you work from dawn to dusk, barely see your family that you are doing all of this for, and put up with constant “advice” from the older generation that sits around all day while you support them. Being retired is kind of awesome, but boring. You are retired, you aren’t supposed to have any goals out in the world. Renounced, well, that’s the most boring movie of all! Just watching someone sit and think a lot. So this means most movies are about Students with the grand finale of when they turn into “householder”. And how do you turn into a householder? Marriage!

A marriage is a big big deal in Indian society because it marks the creation of a new householder. And so the moment of marriage plays out again and again in movies, our hero falls in love and slowly grows up, ending the film as the leader of society, the “Householder”, instead of the lowly student.

Shahrukh’s movies started out following this same pattern. Chamatkar, Zamaana Deewana, Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman, over and over he is worthless, falls in love, confronts the powers that be, unites with the heroine, HAPPY ENDING. But what about the movies where he gets married? Where he becomes a Householder on film, complete with wife? What is he like in those?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOkxFizBgT8

Shahrukh married in his very first released film, Deewana. That was an oddity to begin with. But then, it wasn’t a real “marriage”, he married a widow and continued to stand back from her and woo her even after marriage. The process of becoming a “householder” wasn’t fully completed until the final frames when they embraced and officially completely committed to each other. He married again during King Uncle, but we barely see him post elopement, there is no real sense of a life change. It is Kuch Kuch where he first plays an actual husband. After Kuch Kuch, he has had 36 more films. In 14 of them, he played married. 38% of his films. Compare that with his contemporaries, Salman has only played married 12 times in that same period, out of 67 films, only 19%. Aamir, 20 films total, 4 married, 20%.

This isn’t any shade on Salman and Aamir, They had a few significant “married” roles before 1998, Dil, Akele Hum Akele Tum, Raja Hindustani for Aamir, far more significant than Shahrukh’s faints towards marriage in Deewana and King Uncle. And Salman had Khamoshi and Jeet. What I find remarkable with Shahrukh is that he spun out his “youthful unmarried” period for so very long, but once he broke that boundary he broke it harder than the other Khans. Why was that?

I think it’s because Shahrukh figured out how to make the householder feel like a real person. He was married, he was adult and careful and responsible, but he was also still vulnerable, he could make mistakes. Shahrukh became a “householder”, but not a patriarch. There’s a difference.

Let’s look at his marriages one by one:

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai: A fascinating start. Shahrukh marries and becomes a “householder”, but without a wife. We see him playing with his daughter, still youthful and charming. And we see him talking with his mother, but different from his “mother” conversations in other movies. He isn’t asking advice or permission, they are talking as equals. Shahrukh makes his own decisions now, he is an adult. Straight through, he decides what he wants and what he is going to do. That’s the tension of the film, his daughter and mother want him to remarry and marry someone particular, but Shahrukh is the head of the household, they cannot directly order, or even ask, him to do it.

Asoka: This is a really interesting take on marriage! There’s the Shahrukh-Kareena marriage, but that never has a chance to be a real “marriage”, they are separated immediately before Shahrukh transitions to being responsible. After that, Shahrukh is violent, powerful, in control. And then he is surprised by an obligation that forces him into another marriage, one that sticks. Suddenly he has a person in his life that he is solely responsible before, and he has a person who isn’t afraid to call him on stuff when he does something wrong. He isn’t in love with his wife, and yet marriage still changes him.

Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham: A very married movie! By the second half, Shahrukh is effortlessly the householder. He is the one who gives permission for everything, from his wife, his foster mother, his sister-in-law, and his son. He is the person their whole world revolves around. There are plenty of funny moments when his wife talks him around or he complains about things and his sister-in-law ignores him. He isn’t a dictator, they can laugh and tease him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t the head of the household. When he is upset, they are all upset. When he is happy, they are all happy. When he is sad, he goes and talks honestly to his wife and she sympathizes and makes suggestions, but knows it is his choice.

Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam: A rocky married movie. Shahrukh is trying to be the householder, but not as part of a team. Madhuri is doing things on her own to take care of the family and he is doing things on his own, and neither of them understand each other, and the household falls apart because the center cannot hold.

Saathiya: Shahrukh has a long cameo in this, but the entire point of it is to look at a proper married man and a proper householder. When his wife messes up, she tells him, he is angry, they have a fight of equals. And then he fixes things, because that is the deal. She takes care of the emotional labor at home, he fixes things and takes responsibility out in the world. Responsibility for her, responsibility for her mistakes, even responsibility for this young couple they have damaged. That’s what a married man is, that’s what a marriage is.

Chalte Chalte: The problem here is that Shahrukh is a householder who doubts himself. For Rani, he is the center of her house and her world. That’s why she wants him to do things with her, go to family events, and so on. But for Shahrukh, it is all about making money, taking care of her, that’s what matters. It’s a very small household, just the two of them, which makes roles harder to see especially when you are starting out. Shahrukh can’t prove himself by taking care of the rest of the household, Rani can’t prove herself by putting him first (as Kajol does in K3G, for instance, always glancing at SRK to see how he is doing). How can you know your household works when it is just the two of you?

Paheli: A fascinating one! Shahrukh avoids being a householder in this one, he is a Ghost who loves his wife. That’s what marriage means to him. But living in the house with the other people, he comes to care about his sister-in-law, his mother, the whole household. And eventually, the whole community. It is not a coincidence that Rani gets pregnant at the same time that Shahrukh steps up and makes sure a new well is built.

Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna: The first of 3 failed marriage roles for Shahrukh. And all of them have a similar flavor. He is married, he is adult, he is responsible, he is going through the motions. But there is no joy behind it any more. Shahrukh’s version of the householder doesn’t do it for the respect or the power over his family, he does it because he loves them and has chosen to take care of them. In this movie, it doesn’t feel like love or a choice any more, it feels like an obligation.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi: This one comes at marriage in the opposite direction but ends in the same place. His other marriage movies have been about loving someone enough to want the responsibility. In this case, he took on the responsibility because he was a good man and she was in trouble. And after responsibility, came love. But it is the same argument as always, in the end. A marriage needs both, an awareness of the duties you owe each other, and the love underneath it all.

My Name is Khan: Love this marriage so much. And the most interesting one, because for the only time Shahrukh is NOT the head of the household, Kajol is. They love each other, but Kajol makes the decisions and Shahrukh follows. But that doesn’t mean Shahrukh isn’t a “householder”. He is caring for their family as best he can, putting the good of the whole family above himself. That’s what a householder does.

Ra.One: An interesting one. In a lot of ways it seems like Kareena is the head of household. Their son respects her more, she has her own passions which Shahrukh asks her about (more than she asks about his work), and she is more attractive than he is. Less clumsy, more charming, and so on. But when it comes down to it, Shahrukh is the head. He is the one who sets the tone, when their son disrespects him and Kareena is ready to discipline, it is Shahrukh who waves her off. She won’t go against his wishes. Because even an “uncool” dude can still be a good father and husband and have the respect of his family. That’s the ultimate lesson of the film, boring old “Shankar” had strong brave special “G,One” inside of him, it just took a while for his son to see it.

Fan: This is not a great marriage. That’s kind of the point of the film. “Aryan Khanna” can’t trust anyone, can’t let anyone in. His wife knows where the gun is hidden in the house, his wife knows she can walk out whenever she wants, he respects her as an adult person and would never hurt her. But when they are under attack, it is up to him to solve it, she doesn’t want to know anything, she isn’t part of it. Whether it is a young actor misbehaving with his wife at a party who Aryan slaps, or a crazed stalker who breaks into their house and threatens his family who his wife tells him to handle.

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil: Another failed marriage movie! The first one was a failure of love but not a failure of responsibility. This seems to have been the other way around. Shahrukh professes to still love Aishwarya, and on some level she still loves him. They have a deep understanding and connection. But they couldn’t live together, make a life together. He was a husband, but not a householder.

Dear Zindagi: His final failed marriage film (so far). We never see him with his wife, or son, which is significant in itself. He has removed himself from his proper “household”, or they have removed themselves from him. But like in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, when he was a householder without a wife, in this case he is a householder without any family at all. You can’t turn off that switch once it’s been flipped. So he finds the kids around the neighborhood, builds up a nice house of his own, and turns into a strange kind of husband and father without a wife or child.

Raees: His oldest married role, that for the first time goes through the beats of a young marriage. He falls in love, who woos her, he marries her, she tells him she is pregnant, they have a baby, they love the baby and care for it. All of these things we missed in every other film. Maybe only now, as he plays ever increasingly complicated roles, does he feel free to hit those simple human moments instead of brushing past them.

Okay, that’s what I’ve got on Shahrukh and marriage and the householder role! What do you think?