Monday Morning Questions: What Do You Want to Ask Me the Last Week of Shahrukh Month?

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Happy Monday! I get to have coffee today and then go home to my nice clean apartment (I had a productive weekend). So yes, Happy Monday!

This is the place where you can ask me anything at all. What streaming service I recommend, what I think of a particular news story, if I have seen a certain movie or not, anything you want! And you can keep swinging back to this post as you want all week, any time you think of a question.

Now, question for you! Simple one, it’s the last 6 days of Shahrukh month, what posts do you still want me to put up? Could be a review, a discussion question, or a countdown I have missed.

Oh, and to start our week with a bang, here is a fun Shahrukh song for Diwali yesterday!

And a scary ghost SRK song for Halloween on Thursday!

81 thoughts on “Monday Morning Questions: What Do You Want to Ask Me the Last Week of Shahrukh Month?”

  2. I love Shah Rukh Month and am saddened it ends soon. But all good things and all… meh! It’s a lot of work though and I thank you, Margaret, for all that creative hard work!

    Other than that, here’s to wishing everyone a good start into the week!

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  3. I rewatched KANK last week and have decided that I just do not get Karan Johar’s sense of humor. The “humorous” bits in the movie (and there are far too many of them) are not at all funny, and usually cringeworthy. All of the “sexy Sam” stuff with Amitabh. The Rani S and M thing. The Black Beast.Does he not have a sense of humor, or is this one of those culturally specific things I am just doomed to not get?

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    • I’m with you 100%. It’s embarrassing even. Hate the hospital scene where he is given the sedative accidentally. It would be okay for a Laurel and Hardy movie, but for a supposedly serious adult themed film it’s just stupid.

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    • Maybe Karan is over compensating? Trying to go heavy handed with the humor in order to please his imagined audience? Because the funny bits in ADHM and even MNIK and SOTY worked for me. Maybe it is just another are of KANK where Karan steered away from the natural tone of the film in order to make it “massy”?

      On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 8:20 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  4. I watched Chamatkar last week. My DVD version is quite hard to follow as the cemetery scenes are very dark, but watching it on Netflix was like switching the lights on.
    It’s so very silly but I enjoyed it.

    It’s quite a while since I last saw it and what really stood out was how totally basic the special effects were compared to now. Startling how much that part of the industry has changed in 25 years.

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    • Chamatkar is so fun! And yes, the special effects are cheesy. But it’s such a cheesy film, it doesn’t bother me. If it were made today I would judge them, but it’s not like other movies where the special effects are the whole point and having bad ones makes the movie fall apart.

      On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 9:17 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  5. Do we need a question out of this? How about: Apart from Ra One and Fan, which ShahRukh movies have the most impressive special effects?
    ( and yes, still totally into ShahRukh month. Could happy live through ShahRukh year 🙂 )

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    • Thank goodness someone is still happy with SRK month! For good special effects, there’s the obvious example of Zero too. Needlessly good (I think) because the whole Little Person idea is so odd, but then I am on record as being a Zero cynic. Anyway, the way Shahrukh is seamlessly inserted into not just romantic scenes but action scenes and science scenes is amazing.

      On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 9:23 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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    • HNY has some fantastic special effects too. It’s like a festival of special effects, even if not as spectacular maybe as in Zero, Fan, Ra.One.

      And HURRAY for another SRK month lover. Yes, I’ll join the all-year club.

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      • Ooo, good choice! The HNY special effects are so fun, and so varied, everything from fire exploding in a love song to a rooftop fight scene.

        On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 11:44 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • Yes, HNY was a good one.
        Then there is a Om Shanti Om. I saw a Red Chillies video about how they did the fire scene and some others. It was very impressive.

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  6. What movies are you planning to catch in theaters coming up? Are you excited about any of them? VJS’s double-role masala film, Sangathamizan, is releasing on Nov 15. If it’s anywhere in the DC metro area I’ll be there. Excited to see him on the big screen. Apparently the release has been pushed a couple of times. I hope that’s about positioning and not wanting to clash on Diwali, and not about problems with the movie.

    For the rest of Shah Rukh month–I hope you’ll repost your “reasons I love Shah Rukh” post, maybe on Nov 1 or on his birthday. Maybe a post about his longer ad videos and non-movie-related songs? Tricky because they don’t have very stable homes online, so links may go dead.

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    • Boy, upcoming movies! Not a lot. Kind of a dry end of year. I don’t even remember what the Christmas release is supposed to be. There’s a lot I am excited for that are currently filming (Sadak 2, the Meghna Gulzar-Dips film, even Dabangg 3), but not a lot that are about to release that I care about. I did manage to see Bigil this weekend, that was super fun, highly recommend it for fun stupidity.

      I’m planning to have a day long birthday celebration, I know in the past I have reposted movie reviews once an hour, maybe this year I will repost thought pieces once an hour?

      On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 9:43 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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        • Well, the movie was suffering from the problem that no one spoke except for Vijay, which is more of a Vijay problem than a gender problem. Of the not-Vijay people, almost all of them were woman and they got to say a lot of stuff. It still wasn’t what I would consider a feminist film, but it wasn’t infuriating like Mission Mangal.

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  7. propositions: 4 days = the 4 cities where he lives/lived, has/had appartement/houses, places where is often is there etc.
    3 days = happy pics of/with his kids growing up…or – as alternative – what is special/ confining for the 3 decades of his work in movies
    2 days = quotes about Gauri and/or ShahRukh from both of them
    day 1 = what we which for him/us

    And from my side, too, a very big THANK YOU 🙂

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  8. Any Chahaat lovers here? I watched it a few days ago and I really like it. It’s a small movie but the score is to die for. Definitely one of the finest.

    The plot isn’t anything special but I enjoyed it. I loved observing his struggles, the love for his father, the transition from intrigue to repulsion for the slightly older, obsessed woman, how he prostitutes himself in order to survive and create a life for himself and his partner. It’s a perfect lazy Autumn weekend film for me.

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    • I found the relationship with Anupam too troubling. It seemed all one-way devotion of son towards father, with very little empathy, compassion, or support from father towards son. I liked the relationship between Shah Rukh and the doctor, and thought the brother-sister relationship was interesting and different, though disturbing.

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    • Me, I’m a Chaahat fan :). Its wild in the most entertaining way. And such a great cast – Naseeruddin Shah and Pooja Bhatt outdoing each other as the most villainous villain. I really liked the zany Anupam-SRK dynamic too, it’s one of my favorites of them together.

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    • Siddharth Malhotra right? Oh totally. Around ADHM when KJo claimed the story was partly autobiographical, there were all these rumours that the Ranbir character= KJo, Anushka = SRK (who he could never have) & Aish = Sid (the fling to get over his true love). It was whacky as hell.

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          • what does that mean, “had to mouth”? Sorry if I’m being a pest but it’s all
            so fascinating to me. And it would explain the jokes they made in a Koffee with Karan episode I watched with Alia Bhatt where Karan enlightens Alia about rumors and stuff and SRK and KJo joke about it.

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          • Sorry, I should back up: Karan Johar is gay, but has not officially come out, instead chooses to joke around it without really saying the words. Because he is the most famous gay man in India, there are constantly kind of gross rumors about him and any man he spends time with. Those rumors are particularly high with Shahrukh because of their close friendship. Rather than denying them obviously (implying there is something wrong with being gay), Shahrukh and Karan delight in joking around about it all, showing how it really doesn’t matter to them. I love that about Shahrukh, and Karan does too, he talks in his memoir about how he offers to back off, hide their friendship so Shahrukh won’t have to deal with these rumors, and Shahrukh won’t let him do that.

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          • Sorry…ShahRukh had a cameo in the movie with Ranbir and Aish visiting an exposition. ShahRukh played the former husband of Aish still loving her, but his love was unrequited. Ranbir asked if that isn’t painful, an unrequited love and ShahRukh answered with no and explained why.
            I think that Karan was in love with ShahRukh, but had to resign to a brotherly relationship because the kind of love he felt was unrequited.
            As for Sid, I equally think that Karan was in love with him…and maybe for a certain time, Sid responded but then the relation changed.

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          • Oh! Okay! Thanks for the additional information. I’m intrigued, to say the least. It feels like everything around SRK is so intense, it’s quite uncanny.

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          • “uncanny”…yes, I can understand that.
            If I would be asked about Farah’s statement that it is easy to fall in love with ShahRukh, I would answer with that it is because of his intensity: intensity in his eyes, in focussing on people, in acting, in speaking, in listening, in his body language, in his kindness, in his warmth, in his smell, in his expression of feelings…

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          • Smell? Smell is such a significant aspect. I haven’t a clue how he smells nor is my imagination strong enough. I agree with all your points. I will add his brain and wit. I am learning so many new things about him every single day, it seems. He’s just so… hmm.. actually, I currently don’t have words. As the British would say, what a great chap!

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        • Complicated answer. Clearly Karan sees Shahrukh in a way that acknowledges him as a sexually attractive person. It was Karan who helped Shahrukh figure out his look, his romantic moves onscreen, all of that.

          In his memoir, Karan goes into detail about his relationship with Shahrukh. It is something special and impossible to describe, there was an immediate meeting of the minds between the two in a way that does feel like “falling in love”, but in a kind of friendship/family/creative collaborator sort of love. But on the other hand, Karan also talks about how hurtful it is when people try to describe their relationship as “lovers”. Karan sees Shahrukh as the brother he never had, to think about sex in that context is disgusting and insulting to him.

          I have landed on describing their relationship as “muse but more so”. It’s sort of an odd combination where creatively they are two halves of the same whole, but at the same time they are also two lonely orphan boys who found a family with each other. Shahrukh was “adopted” by Karan’s father and mother and Karan himself, and at the same time Karan is considered a third parent to Shahrukh’s kids. So you see them working together all the time, but you also see Karan picking the kids up at the airport and planning birthday parties for each other and stuff.

          I should say I do think Karan fell in love with Shahrukh in an unspoken way back when they first met and that lingering feeling is still there. Infatuation at the start, but transformed into something far deeper.

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          • Muses. That’s highly romantic in a non superficial, solely sexual kind of way.

            Wow. Thanks to you both for filling me (us) in. I had no clue about any of it except that I did know about KJo’s sexual orientation.

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          • What’s really interesting is that another young director who Karan has mentored has the same relationship with Ranbir Kapoor. For ten years now, everyone knows they are…something. Where Ranbir goes, so does Ayan. Ranbir has had multiple serious relationships during that same time, but Ayan is still his primary “person”. Muse and creator, and also best friend and closest soulmate. But not romantic. Fascinating.

            On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 2:01 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • I always think the brother thing is something Karan started with SRK to stop people from making gross rumors when SRK is clearly not gay and no matter how nice he is about it, I do think he gets annoyed after a point. There was at least one incident with a female journalist – an old grandma type of woman – asking him if he’s gay and he completely snapped and told her he can take her to a hotel and show her how gay he is. She got really offended and started talking about how he can speak this way to a such a senior old woman. And he said then she should display the respect that should come with her age.

            Now Karan always addresses him as ‘bhai’ everywhere. SRK also says frequently that Karan is Gauri’s friend more, not his.

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          • I don’t necessarily think Shahrukh is clearly not gay. That is, he could be bi, most people are. But I think he is clearly in love with his wife and not interested in a romantic relationship with anyone else, especially not with his best friend where it would destroy all their relationships, with Gauri, with each other, with mutual friends, and so on. I tend to read his anger (and Karan’s anger as well) as more about defending the importance of what they do have together. Why does a friendship need to be gay? Why even bring that up? Although I also think Shahrukh has grown into being more comfortable with jsut not caring how he is seen as he ages, and as the world moves forward. Now he embraces the rumors almost while before they made him angry.

            Agree with everything you say, the “bhai” and constant mentions of Gauri being on purpose. While also of course being sincere, I don’t doubt Karan and Gauri are as close as Karan and Shahrukh in their own way and that Karan and Shahrukh do call each other “Bhai” just as they also call Adi “Bhai”. But I think they have chosen to highlight that part of their relationship more and more to try to get people to better understand who they are to each other.

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          • What? Oh my… Was this an article or a TV interview? You don’t happen to have a link, do you? I would love to see / read that! I’ve never seen him snap before.

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          • To be honest, the rumors of SRK and Karan have totally died down now anyway. Nobody speaks about it anymore – only SRK himself makes jokes sometimes but I think it’s easy to do now since it’s really not a thing anyone considers anymore. For example, when SRK was joking about it on KwK, Alia did not even know about the rumors and had to have it explained to her.

            There was also a very long period – 5 or 6 years, from Karan’s own admission when he and SRK were not close at all. Like when Karan texted him about coming on KwK, SRK did not even reply to him. He’s also said at least a few times that SRK is impossible to reach and never picks up the phone and the only way to get through to him is by calling Gauri.

            I think Karan loves/likes SRK a lot more than the other way around. SRK likes him too obviously but he’s got a million other people competing for his time and Karan isn’t at the top of the list for him. SRK isn’t the type of person *anyone* can really grasp and hold on to in the way they want though. He’ll never be able to give people, including Karan, as much as they want.

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    • Yes, there have actually been a lot of rumors about Sid and Karan to the point that people were saying Alia was just Sid’s beard when they were dating and the real couple was Sid and Karan.

      I have no idea. I always take these things with a grain of salt because nowadays every celebrity is considered to be secretly gay and I doubt that’s the case.

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        • Yeah, I think I’ve seen other photos of them like that. I’ll go with “Sid is Karan’s adopted son” until Karan says otherwise, but it’s hard!

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        • The rumors have always stuck around because as you said, there is some unexplained intimacy there. For instance, paparazzi saw Karan and Sid having dinner with Sid’s parents fairly recently. Just the 4 of them. There’s nothing particularly gay about that but how then again, how many of our friend’s parents do we go and have dinners with? I can’t recall the last time I ever did that as an adult.

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    • There were loads of rumors that I happily enjoyed, but than I read Karan’s memoir and they aren’t fun any more. He talks in his memoir about how much he sees Varun and Sid and Alia as his “children”, in fact his relationship with them was part of what made him decide he was ready to be a father. And he also talks about how painful it is that all of his close relationships with men are turned into something sexual, and how he has pulled away from friends and isolated himself in order to “protect” them from those rumors. Took all the fun out of it for me and now I look at him and Sid as just friends. If Sid really is his boyfriend I will be VERY UPSET with Karan for making me feel so bad.

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  12. I have a question for Margaret and the DCIB commenters who were at the Letterman taping. Could we please have another Letterman/Shah Rukh episode post where people who were there could share things they remember from the conversation that didn’t make the cut?

    Also, what do you think the chances are that Netflix will release any additional material in some format or another? I’m guessing pretty slim, but I wish they would.

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    • We could, but right now those who were there have said there was nothing obviously cut. Just that instead of a back and forth with talking from both sides, it was edited to just the full answers. So it’s not like there is some clear memory of a story that is gone completely, just that it is emptier than it was.

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    • I have to admit, I still haven’t seen Kaal. And the song is not my favorite, too much lights and weird hair stuff for me.

      On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 3:31 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • You cant enjoy it on its own, you need to see all the aweful mahesh bhatt horror movies in 2000’s , theb you will come to realize that kaal is a master piece , ajay was very good in it. Also do you like sharukh to do a horror movie ?

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        • Personally, I don’t like horror movies, so I wouldn’t really want Shahrukh to do one if I was being selfish.

          On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 3:44 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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    • Yeah, it’s been feeling like that for a while, hasn’t it? Or else it is still my conspiracy theory, Alia is pulling him in right up to the engagement point so she can jilt him in front of the world and then she and Kat will join arms and laugh and laugh and reveal this was the plan all along, Female Vengeance.

      On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 2:39 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • Nobody deserves to have to put up with Ranbir. He just doesn’t seem like a good boyfriend or husband but who knows. Maybe he will magically change.

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        • That’s certainly what always happens, really terrible cheating disrespectful selfish boyfriends/husbands just need to find a woman who loves them in the right way and then suddenly they magically get better (sarcasm).

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    • If he is going to announce a movie, his birthday would be the time. Like, I didn’t expect a movie announcement any time from the start of this month on, because if there was something, he would obviously be holding it for the birthday. On the other hand, he seems very sure of himself right now, I don’t think he would rush an announcement just to have something for the birthday the way he might have done in the past. If there is something he wants to do, he will announce it on Saturday. If he still doesn’t have a script he loves, I think he will let Saturday pass with the usual cake and presents and nothing else.

      On Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 2:57 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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