Wednesday Watching Post: What Are You Reading and Watching and Thinking and Listening to in the Middle of Shahrukh Month?

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Happy Wednesday! My pipes are (mostly) done! Next week, new sink gets installed finally! Ever since the whole “my kitchen flooded and the floor was destroyed” back in February, I’ve been using a really funky temporary sink and it is time for a real one. And then NO MORE KITCHEN CHANGES EVER.

I’ll start!

Reading: Finally finished Ponniyin Selvan! Thank you to those who commented on my discussion post and are helping me figure it out. And now, time to start SCARLET PIMPERNEL!!!! 10 days until our DCIB Book Club discussion!

Watching: I finally finished Deep Space 9! I have now watched every single Star Trek episode EVER, except for The Animated Series and Picard. Which of those two should I attempt next???? Or, do I change gears and do Farscape? Oh, I also watched Jawan for the 4th time in theaters and did Guddu as a watchalong, so my SRK love is still strong.

Thinking: I’m halfway done with Misery Week! Pipes are mostly done, then tomorrow plasterers put our walls back up, and this weekend I clean plaster dust off everything. Or not? Because Sink Man is planning to start soon and that’s just gonna be more plaster.

Listening: It’s Shahrukh Month, after all. Although weirdly, the best song from his newest film is more of a Dips song than him. But still a sign of his greatness that he signed on for a movie knowing Dips would steal it from him!

Okay, question for you! SRK themed, of course. Do you prefer him playing a Father or playing a Son? Which is more touching?

This probably says more about me than him, but I am more touched in his Father scenes. He has this great way of playing fatherhood that says “I am just trying my best to find my way through and enjoying the journey”. The opposite of the usual “Wise Perfect Parent” trope. He’s a good parent (except in KANK), but he doesn’t act like he knows everything, he acts like he’s making it up as he goes along, lead by his heart. Oh, and he clearly ENJOYS being a parent! We don’t often get to see male parent figures on screen seemingly enjoying being parents.

48 thoughts on “Wednesday Watching Post: What Are You Reading and Watching and Thinking and Listening to in the Middle of Shahrukh Month?”

  1. Reading: I finally am a little free so I am reading the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Its a great book and all about mothers and daughters and what it means to be a women. I think this would be a brilliant bollywood film as well, perhaps a story about post-partition?

    Watching: I finished Khiladi 786 which was perfect as always. Then I watched Koi Jaane Na which is so wonderfully camp and stupid. This is a masterpiece which people need to watch as its mostly just people being hot and stupid. Reminded me of some Fardeen Khan movies I used to watch when I was young.

    Listening: I am obsessed with this song from the kannada movie ‘Saptha Sagaradache Ello” which is very sad and depressing. However the song is wonderful.

    Thinking: Just how happy I am that I am actually free to do things. Also I wonder why Akshay Kumar while being very good looking never really became a ‘chocolate’ boy. I think it’s because he is not so good at romance and excels more in drama generally.

    I actually prefer him playing a son. Somehow he is able to bring this sense of Indian duty as well as realism into that roles. However when he is playing a father, I think I am just too drawn to him as a person that I cannot focus on anything else.

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    • It’s like 3 weeks that I’m in the middle of Saptha Sagaradache Ello and I don’t have strenght to continue because I know something bad will happen and I don’t want to know what.

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      • It has that feeling but with movies like this it is better to force yourself to finish it. Like 30 minutes a day and you have a phone next to you. However I will say the last scenes are beautifully shot and there is a part 2 coming out in a week so hopefully not so sad 😦

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  2. I usually prefer son roles, but in Jawan I liked daddy SRK more.

    I saw 2 great movies I must share. The first one is tamil crime thriller Por Thozhil. It’s a story about an old, tought cop and a rookie who work together to catch a serial killer. Some movies you can say are good from the very beginning. Attention to the details is great and even the random characters who are in the movie for 3 minutes have interesting dialogues that not only keep you interested and make you know them, but also come handy in the second half. I loved it. The actors are very good. Ashok Selvan plays the young cop, and man, how good he fills this khaki uniform 😉

    The second movie is Bhediya, Varun’s werewolf film from Stree Universe. Why nobody talks about this film? I enjoyed it a lot. It was very funny, has awesome music, Varun was good and very sexy and the rest of the cast was great. The first half was awesome. The second is missing something but is still good. A must watch!

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    • Bhediya is already on my watch-list, but thanks for the Tamil movie…it is the first movie of the director and very often, the ‘first movies’ are very good (I made this experience). It is available with subtitles…and I like the thriller genre 🙂

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      • I can’t wait to read what you think about both movies.

        I also noticed that young directors are becoming better and better nowadays. I love it. And I like that they are there on social media to hear what people say about their movies. Vignesh Raja is now following me on letterboxd because I wrote nice things about his movie. LOL I bet he hasn’t seen that my fav movies are Half Girlfriend, Mehbooba and Prem Aggan 😉

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    • I talked about Bhediya when I watched it, but nobody had seen it so no discussion! It’s quite unique for a Hindi movie in so many ways and I loved that everyone took those risks. I wished for more of Kriti’s story though!

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      • I was thinking for days about the movie, because on one hand I loved it, but on the other I felt there is something big missing and in the end I realized it’s Kriti and her story and the story about her feelings for Varun that are missing. There should be more about they falling in love, and there definitely should be more after the twist. They should have a big talk after. Instead it was just the twist and right after the end.

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    • I saw Bhediya when it came out and it was great! I think about it every so often, not because the message stuck with me or anything, I’m just occasionally struck with “man, that was a fun movie”

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  3. Today watching Naam Shabana… Have any of you seen it?

    This week i watched – comedy tv show – FIR, Vadh, and some other random crap in the background. I’m homesick for India and Hindi.

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  4. Margaret: plumbing stuff is the worst, but it sounds like it’s halfway done! Really good luck with it all.

    Last week I watched Jaane Jaan. I must mention that it was so suspenseful that I had to stop watching several times, but I really recommend it. Kareena is back! Maybe she’s been back; it just seems like forever since I’ve seen her in something like this and she’s so good.

    Now I’m almost done with OMG2. I thought OMG1 was hilarious and I loved it. This one has a few too many moving parts and I don’t like it as much. It does deal in an interesting way with sex education, and the conservatism of modern vis a vis ancient India. There is a lot of talk about sex but it is not explicit. Akshay Kumar has the most fantastic dance sequence. Yami Gautam is fine.

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    • Oooo! I’m thinking about trying to coordinate a couch movie night with a friend this weekend, sounds like Jaane Jaan might be a good option!

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    • Finally someone who’s watched Jaane Jaan and I can ask this question.

      SPOILER for Jaane Jaan – Did you figure the body was swapped when they found it? I thought we were supposed to know it was a different body when it was discovered, they signaled as such. For me the curiosity was whether Kareena & co. would get away with it. Only at the end did it occur to me that the swap was supposed to the big twist.

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  5. B2 will be here tomorrow! AHHHH! I started my anti-anxiety regimen yesterday with a facial and a chiropracter appointment. I get final massage this evening and then I am going to consciously check out and trust Dad and sister to handle Mr. Toddles. Husband is there to answer any questions they may have. I am thinking of movies and books to download that will make me happy. So of course I am going to download Khoobsurat because Fawad and Sonam make me happy. Maybe an old Aamir or Shammi movie. I am also going to download a couple books from the post you did for Genevieve, maybe the Pricey Thakur Girls!

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  7. Aaaaaaaa I feel as though I’ve just been running hither and thither for months, BUT (due to having bought tickets a long time ago) I do actually have something filmi to look forward to this weekend: a concert of old Bollywood songs! A Carnatic singer from Boston area rearranged a lot of them and will be singing them herself.

    Friend invited me to Bathukamma, but unfortunately I have to work ) : A good holiday to those celebrating!

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  8. ST: Since not mentioned yet, I definitely recommend Picard. There are some underdeveloped parts of it, a few of the actors are not very strong, but there are some really good storylines with well designed action and suspense. Plus knowing the STverse well keep you more engaged I think.

    Watch: Finally finally finished watching RRR (very late to this party) and thoroughly enjoyed it!

    I’m also in the middle of watching Masoom (1960) and really enjoying the story. I also just discovered that the little sister Tunni (about 6 years old) is played by Honey Irani who wrote one of my favorite movies Darr! along with Lamhe and a lot of others!

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    • Honey Irani is related to EVERYBODY. Her kids are Farhan and Zoya Akhtar, who you will come to know and love when you start watching modern stuff. And her husband was Javed Akhtar who wrote Deewar, Kabhi Kabhi, basically every hit of the 1970s. They met on the set of Seeta Aur geeta where she was playing the comic sister, got married, she stopped acting, and then after the marriage fell apart she tried her hand at writing on her own. Oh, and her niece is the director Farah Khan, who you will also come to know and love 🙂

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  9. Reading: I’m starting a few books side by side. Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendal, Yellowface by R.F Kuang on the recommendation of a friend. And I read “Red White and Royal Blue” last month so I’ve been doing a couple rereads since then.

    Watching: It’s been oscillating between RWRB the film, and JHMS. Both of which I’m binge watching with a good friend of mine. She got me to watch RWRB, I got her to watch JHMS, and we decided to do Watch Parties where we could collectively geek over scenes 😂 (I also recently watched “Shiny Happy People” on Netflix, which is about religious indoctrination, featuring IBLP and the Duggars).

    Thinking: Kiddo has been learning a lot about monuments in school, and we have a trip to my parents’ place coming up, so I’ve been looking up monuments we could visit there.

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    • Also Thinking: Damn I wanna go back and finish commenting on the JHMS scene-by-scenes! (I sent a link to your index of it to my watch buddy last night. I think she’ll love it 🤩)

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      • RWRB has been fun. I was putting it off for a long while until my friend finally convinced me, so I wound up seeing the film first then moving on to the book. So far I have managed just two rereads coz of kiddo’s schedule (I’ve been pretty sluggish on aforementioned “highbrow” books too) and it’s quite a lovely romance. The film’s a bit different from the book (since it’s only 2 hrs), but I think it captures the essence of the story and the characters. I do need some meta in between my Mills and Boons and romances for sure 😄

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        • Oh! You should read The Scarlet Pimpernel! WE are doing a DCIB discussion in a week, and it is such a fun fast read you will have no problem finishing in time.

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          • Oooooh…I’ll try that! Navratri should leave me a fair bit of time more for now, and Diwali holidays are coming up soon too.

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