Good news! I’ve decided I’m not sick any more! I mean, I really am feeling a lot better. The only strong COVID symptom left is weird tiny muscle pains in my torso. Anyway, time to get back to Normal Life, starting with Silly Sunday FanFic.

Varun Dhawan’s Birthday FanFic! Carpenter Activist Fakes Death

For the Varun version, I think we start right when things get going around age 30. He was raised by his mother Hema Malini and stepfather Anupam Kher, a carpenter. He has always felt something greater within him, a desire towards writing and teaching and talking, but he has suppressed it because he loves his carpenter stepfather. His mother was a teen single mother when his stepfather married her, and although they had children together after that, his stepfather has always treated him as his oldest son and heir and loved him. Now they live in a midsized town and Varun is a skilled carpenter but yearns to see the world and do more. He also constantly avoids marriage, arguing that he has to get his stepsisters married first and various other reasons. We learn all this backstory through the preparations for his last stepsisters marriage, Big Song Number!!!!!! After the wedding, Varun’s stepfather comes to him and tells him that he knows he wants to travel and see the world, and his love for his parents should not keep him at home. At age 30, no college degree and no experience in anything, Varun leaves home to start traveling.

Varun starts traveling through the small towns around him and slowly makes 12 friends who are drawn to him. Varun makes his living as a traveling minstrel, singing songs with lessons for life in them. His friends are changed by his songs and become his backup singers. But the establishment doesn’t like it, his songs go viral and the state police think he is inciting revolution. Varun struggles within himself about this, his words and beliefs do seem to demand a better world, but at the same time he abhors violence.

And in the middle of all this, he falls in love. A naach girl at a small town he visits, Shraddha Kapoor (so sue me, I’ve come around to liking her). She is singing a sexy song and he goes to her performance and flips the lyrics to be about his philosophy. She sings back to him, challenging him to enjoy himself, and it turns into a joyous duet. The next morning, she comes to him and asks if she can travel with his group as another follower. She thinks their message needs a little more joy to it. With the addition of Shraddha, their videos become even more popular, and they gain a larger and larger following. They arrive in Lucknow (largest city in Utter Pradesh) to crowds greeting and celebrating them. But that night, Varun is betrayed by one of his followers and arrested and taken off by the police, spit upon and ridiculed thanks to arguments about him being a “terrorist”. And then he dies in custody “by accident”. Shraddha and his poor mother go to see the body in the morgue. But when they return 3 days later, it is gone. And then two of Varun’s friends are walking down the road when they see him waiting for them. Ooooooo! INTERVAL

Post-interval, we see Varun’s version of events. Weeks earlier, he got a what’s app message from an unknown number. He opened it to discover….Amitabh!!!! Amitabh explains that he is his father, he is a mysterious and powerful man who controls India through blackmail and secret powers. But his powers are weakening, he believes it is time to stop being so cruel and authoritarian and instead be forgiving and loving and teach the people a New message. 30 years earlier, he was in a small town in India in order to coordinate a complex land deal. He and a young village girl bonded, she knew there was no future for them but wanted the brief relationship (flashback song, Amitabh and Hema playing their own young selves). Now, he recognizes Varun as his son from that relationship. And he thinks Varun’s message is powerful and important, but knows the government is planning to kill him. Only, he has a plan.

Varun goes to Judas (Sid M), one of his closest followers and explains that he needs Sid to turn him in to the cops so they can control when he will be arrested. At first Sid refuses, but eventually he is convinced. Varun also goes to Shraddha and asks for her help, she agrees but only if he finally admits that he loves her. Varun resists, believing that love for a follower will unbalance his group, but Shraddha convinces him to admit the feelings he has felt all along. And then they have a love song.

The plan works, Amitabh sneaks into Varun’s jail cell and gives him a pill that will mimic death. Shraddha comes with Hema to identify the body and sneaks the antidote into his mouth. Varun escapes the morgue, leaving behind a mystery. His final step, to visit his followers days later and convince them that he has overcome death, that his message is proved by his miracle. Varun does this, and as we see a montage of his followers continuing to spread his message, videos and massive public gatherings and writings and so on, we see Varun and Shraddha living in a village, raising children, and running a small carpenter shop. HAPPY ENDING!!!

I think that mostly works, right? I feel like I should work Paul in somehow too. Ooo! Bonus end credit scene!!! The Hero Cop who never met Varun but argued against his followers who incited revolution meets Varun by the side of a road after his “death”, and is convinced by their conversation, quitting the police and starting a blog. Maybe Ranveer?

UPDATE: My friend and I just had a text convo and recast for the 80s. Ready for genius?

God: Dilip Kumar

Mary: Raakhee (she always plays older than she is)

Jesus: Amitabh (duh)

Joseph: Om Prakash

Mary Magdelene: Hema Malini

Paul in a Cameo: Shashi