So, I am a huge huge sucker for a good fanvid, have been for years.  Going all the way back to when I was in college and I would take a break from studying to browse around and try to dig up a new SRKajol vid.

After over a decade of loving these things, I think I have figured out 3 categories of fanvids, specific to Indian fandom.

First, there is fanvid that expands on the themes of an existing artwork, for instance this fabulous one from Alina Yuvvraaj:

Or these, from lalilly:

Then there are the fanvids that expand on the particular awesomeness of a particular star.  Like this, my all time favorite from Zizi K:

Or this one from Alina Yuvvraaj again:

So, both of those kinds of videos, based on a particular movie or a particular star, you can find in any fandom.  Where I think it starts to get unique, is in the next two categories.

First, there are the videos based on a particular mood.  Since Indian film follows the Rasa theory, where the goal is to evoke a particular mood at a particular moment, rather than a cohesive mood through out one narrative, a wide variety of films might have particular scenes that flow seamlessly between the borders of their individual movies.

Like this, the moment when you are in love without realizing it yet and happy (from half a dozen different movies with the same moment).  By Zizi K again:

Or this, which evokes the specific mood of “young and drunk at a club”, by MRSEMRAAN:

Or this, which has the very specific-to-Indian-film emotion described right there in the title.  Women who are sad, and the men who love them from MRSEMRAAN again:

And then finally, there is my favorite category, the totally made up full narratives that go across multiple films and, occasionally, all the way into real life footage.  This is really unique to Indian film, because Indian film is uniquely cohesive film to film.  The same jodis play the same characters going through the same narrative beats over the over again.  And even into real life, in interviews and publicity tours, they interact the same way.  And who knows, maybe it is even related to the reincarnation in Hinduism!  According to some versions, even Ram and Sita were reborn multiple times and lived out their story over and over.

Anyway, one of my favorites, which seamlessly moves between real life and film.  Almost convinces me that Kajol really is eating her heart out, from MissCinemaObsessive:

and then I watch this from lalilly and feel better:

(see, they’re just friends after all!)

Or this one, where she actually does get him, even though he is himself and she is village-Kajol, from Zizi K:

Or this, where it’s not just SRKajol, but SRKajol vs Kajol/Salman and Kajol/Saif, from LUANSU (LUANSU was also the first fanvid maker I found, back in college):

It’s not just SRKajol, I literally screamed with delight when I found this one, hitting up the scandals old school!  And using all film footage to tell a real life story, very impressive! From TheMelicrazyy:

And this leads into the bonus subcategory, fake storylines pulling together multiple films, but with stars who never actually acted together!  Because actors and their characters are so consistent across films, and all films are so consistant with the kind of scenes they include, you can actually craft a narrative revolving around people who have never been onscreen together (my favorite of these is the Abhishek/Kajol/Rani “Teardrops on My Guitar” that was briefly posted like 6 years ago by Nouf89, and then pulled down.  My white whale!  If someone out there has it, please send me a copy!).  But these are nice too.  From rmskch:

(this is so impressive!  Remember they have only been onscreen together for less than ten seconds in her friendly appearance in KANK)

And I had never even considered these options, from 3bit89:

(none of these three has ever costarred with each other in anything!)

So, did I do this right?  Are there the same number of categories as promised in the post-title?  I think so:

1. Fanvids expanding on one particular film
2. Fanvids expanding on one particular star
3. Fanvids combining multiple films with the same mood
4. Fanvids combining multiple films with the same moods/stars into a narrative
   1. Fanvids combining multiple films with the same moods/stars into a narrative even if the stars never acted opposite each other