Rab Ne Banadi Jodi (2008)

and how "Pyar To Rab Di Meharbani Hai" (love is a gift from God)

YRF©

Welcome to my final analysis of the year, hopefully you guys have been enjoying what I’ve been writing. I may not be fluent or constructive with my thoughts but enjoy writing so what the heck. Now onwards to my favourite romance.

I believe I watched this film for the first time in 2009/2010 (I was either 7 or 8). I think I originally thought that this film was hilarious and would enjoy the company of my family as whenever it was on airing on TV, we would re-watch it together and laugh at the many jokes and gags that Aditiya Chopra wrote into the script.

But when I rediscovered the film many years later, I realised it has the truest form of love that I strongly believe in. That you should just be yourself and the people who believe in that love, will treasure it.

Also, one of the rare examples of a rare character being a complete soft and gentle-man. Suri has to be one of my comfort characters and sort of makes it okay to be a man whose unapologetically wholehearted.

Let’s talk about the film for a bit.

(As always read at risk of being spoiled).

The film starts with Suri and Tani getting of a train, Tani is wearing clothes that makes it quite evident that she’s a newly wed and they go to Suri’s house. He opens the doors and welcomes her in. She walks in while Suri grabs all the luggage. As he closes the door, we hear Suri’s internal thoughts. Or he’s telling the audience that “kal main ney ussey pehli bhaar dekhata, aur ussey dehktey thi love hogaya tah”. Which translates to ‘I saw her for the first time yesterday, and whilst seeing her, I fell in Love’.

Just that line alone, and how we see Suri meet Tani. It manages to reaffirm the believe in me that falling in love by first sight is an actual thing. I mean what a magical way to show someone falling in love when you see them dancing and smiling and everything in the air feels magical. Time seems to slow down, but you have to push your feelings aside because you’re at their wedding. We learn that Suri is attending the wedding of the daughter (Tani) of a former professor that Suri had. Suri is visibly nervous and once the professor introduces each other and Tani says “Oh so you’re the famous Suri” and scolds Suri for the constant comparisons of how she should act like him. He shrugs of the nerves and Tani is interrupted to get ready and she leaves.

But then we learn that the alleged Groom faced an incident and the shock of that sends Tani to a deep depression and her father to his deathbed. His final wish before he dies, he wanted to see Suri and Tani get married. Tani’s father knows that Suri is someone capable of taking care of her. They oblige with parting advice from Tani’s father “Some relationships we choose ourselves, and some relationships god choose for us, think of it as Surinder was chosen by god to be with you”.

In Islam, we believe that Allah has created us in pairs and that in due course we will meet our life long partners. In Christianity, its believed that relationships are decided by God’s providence. Similar views are shared in the Jewish religion. Buddhism says that relationships encourage personal/self growth. Hinduism mentions that relationships can be influenced by divine will or karma. In Sikhism it is said that they are not said to be husband and wife, who merely sit together. Rather, they alone are called husband and wife, who have one light in two bodies. There is of course the concept of a soulmate too, the fact that there is someone destined to be with you for the rest of your life.

The point I’m trying to make is that you may see Tani’s father’s request as emotional manipulation, especially when she’s lost a person who was going to be her husband and is on the verge of loosing her father. But you can’t deny the fact that divine intervention does come into play when it comes to the choice life partners, and if you don’t believe, well, lets just call it fate.

Back to the film.

Tani of course struggles with her new life but realises that she has to move on in life, as she tells Suri herself that “to become a new Tani, I’ve to bury the old one” and she also shows gratitude to Suri for what he’s done. Tani adds that “I’ll try my best to be a good wife, but I don’t think I could ever love you” she explains that she doesn’t think she could ever be able to love after losing so much. Suri adds that he’s never had the chance to experience love to the fullest and that he actually doesn’t no many women. He was just grateful that Tani allowed his dignity to stay in front of his friends and he accepts that as love and doesn’t need any more. Tani says that he’s lucky to not to have been in love because there’s nothing more painful. Also adding “there’s nothing more painful in this world than love”. She walks away. Suri then says to himself “Now I understand why I’ve been in pain for the past two days Tani ji, I fell in love with when I saw you for the first time” while we hear Salim Suliman’s voice in the background score.

It’s the next day and Tani make’s breakfast. Suri slowly falls in love more and eats breakfast. He gets on his scooter and marvels at the lunchbox and goes to work. We then hear the national anthem of hopeless romantics deubt in this film with the song of Haule Halue.

I love this song! It’s sort of reinforces the hope that many of us of falling in love that it will happen and it will be worth it. I mean the chorus literally means “slowly and softly love will happen”. What is more hopelessly (or hopefully) romantic than that?

After the song Tani shows Suri a dance poster and asks Suri for permission and Suri gives her the fees to attend.

We then go to a saloon owned by Bobby Khosla, Suri’s only friend and played masterfully Vinay Pathak. We see him in the beginning for a bit but this the first long conversation they have. Suri openly declares his love for his wife, but adds “she’ll never love me back” Bobby suggests that he should give her two slaps so she’ll love her and Suri scolds him saying “the day I lay my hands on her, cut my arms of with those scissors of yours”. Suri goes on a wonderful monologue which I won’t mention because it’s beautiful and does not deserve to be spoiled but at the end Suri requests if Bobby could give him a makeover.

And it leads to this moment. Hilarious moment.

And that’s how Raj is born. Raj is the alter ego that Suri realises he can use to try and get close to Tani. I should add that he has amazing fashion sense.

Look how cool he looks.

Bobby is sceptical of this plan, but Suri reminds him, that Suri and Tani’s love story has been started by God.

I’ll stop there because if you’re reading this, you know what happens. The film gives Suri the chance to show his love for Tani as Raj. A motorcycle ride where he drops the line “your heart wants the chance to not hurt as much”. Which leads to Tani letting rain drops reach her heart. A motorcycle incident including Dolly and Tiny, just mentioning those two guys brings me laughs. The act of Suri, a nerdish guy who can’t dance, taking the time to actually learning/practicing to dance and a wonderful gag that consists of ‘Raj’ and Tani having a Gol Gappay competition.

Then when Suri comes back home as Suri from the competition, Tani has made Biryani. Suri realises he can’t escape from that fact he now has to eat the amount of two people and eats the biryani while constantly saying that the dish is “A1”, it then cuts to him being bloated and in pain. Poor Suri, I don’t blame him, that Biryani looked too good to be wasted.

More moments go past before ‘Raj’ and Tani go shopping for outfits and ‘Raj’ proposes a question “What does a girl want after all?” a deep and meaningful question as all his attempts had failed before and Tani simply says “A girl only wants to be loved unlike anyone else has been loved before” I can’t attach any honesty to that as I am only a lad so I will leave that to you guys to decide.

But after that conversation Suri says “Suri loves you more than you can imagine Tani Ji, but you can’t see that. Never mind, now I’ll show you Suri’s love as Raj and no macho!” Suri asks Tani to accompany him the next day on a birthday trip but that’s a ruse because the most beautiful song plays after that exchange.

I shared the video instead of the song because the song is a visual treat. Although saying Tujh mein rab dikhta hain, I see god in you, to a person for me would be blasphemous (in Islam we don’t believe god has any form) but the ‘romantic’ meaning to that is so overwhelmingly beautiful. Even some of the songs lyrics, Tu hi rooh ka sukoon (You’re the peace of my soul), Tu hi aakhiyon ki thandak (You’re the soothing of my eyes), Tu hi dil ki hai raunak (You’re the brightness of my heart), Tera saaya chhed ke choomta (I tease your shadow and kiss it). Jaideep Sahni, (the lyricist for the film’s music) what a writer you are!

After the song there’s a scene where Suri takes Tani to a mountain side and surprises her with turning the whole of Punjab’s light off and on again but in the form of a pattern and it says ‘I love you’. ‘Raj’ mentions that he had no ill intentions and just wanted to say how he felt but it won’t change his respect for Tani and treat her as a friend as ‘Raj’ always had before that moment.

Tani rejects that, while saying “when a girl starts to dream with her eyes open, then her whole worlds changes” I can attest to that. As a guy, I know how beautiful it is to dream and how happy this silly heart gets after those dreams. For a girl, I can just only imagine how overwhelming that feeling is and how beautiful her world becomes.

I have to mention Suri’s face when Tani says this. He’s reacting as Suri when he’s meant to be Raj. He realises his mistake, he made Tani fall in love with Raj. He didn’t make her fall in love with Suri. The way Suri reacts, with his face falling and we see Suri’s yearning melancholy breaks our hearts. Khan Sahab what an actor you are!

Suri and Bobby bicker, Bobby says Suri should tell Tani but Suri wants to see this go through. To see whether Tani loves the idea of Suri being ‘Raj’ or if she just loves ‘Raj’.

Suri attempts a thing that might impress Tani by taking her to a Japanese county fair and fights a Japanese sumo wrestler and wins against him and two return tickets to Japan while sustaining a few injuries. Tani scolds him by saying that Suri is a simple man and an office worker, not a strong man to take on a wrestler. Suri says he saw her noticing the Japanese stall, he adds that with his salary, he might never be able to take her but could try and win them.

Tani still recovering from the light incident, says he’s done enough for her and shouldn’t do more to the extent that she may never be able to pay her back.

The next morning though, they make up with the promise with a movie date. But that doesn’t go to plan. When do things ever go to plan?

Tani sneaks out of a movie (which seems to be about a nerdish guy getting the girl of his dreams, I see what you did there Aditya Chopra). Suri tries finding her and gets a call that Tani’s looking for Raj. I won’t say what is all said but there is an exchange that I’ve to mention there’s a point where Tani is astounded by how non-chalant ‘Raj’ is about everything and Tani says “How can you love me without expecting anything in return? Don’t you feel the pain of love?”

I love Suri because as ‘Raj’ he drops one of the best lines in the film “Pain? Love is a gift from God. How can there be pain in that? as for expecting love, one doesn’t love with the hope of it being reciprocated. I mean I saw God in you so I fell for you but you saw God in someone else so you fell for him. It’s quite simple”

Stop reading my thoughts Aditya. Why have you written dialogue that speaks to my thoughts and my view of love? I believe you should love wholeheartedly. Don’t think about getting anything from that love, just love. Because that will allow you to be yourself, at least for me it allows me to be my best self. Sure, many people may not share that same form of love that you show to them and it’ll hurt and it’ll make you insecure as hell but why should that matter (I’m writing that more to myself then to you guys). Love wholeheartedly and the right people will be attracted to you.

But at the end of that conversation. ‘Raj’ proposes that they run away together. Tani agrees. But changes her mind when she goes to a Gurdwara on the day of the dance competition and asks God to show her someone that makes her think that she’s looking at a form of God. Suri comes in her frame and saves the day and she falls for him. Tani then tells ‘Raj’ that she can’t run away from him, Tani essentially mentions the fact that although Suri isn’t a man of words, but he had done so much for her and can’t ignore that.

Again, I must mention Khan Sahab’s acting. He brings the joy of Suri and the heartbreak of Raj with the same expression when he’s hearing this. There will be no-one like him.

The film cuts to the dance competition. Tani and ‘Raj’ get called up, but ‘Raj’ doesn’t show up, Suri does. Suri and Tani do their act and the penny drops in Tani’s mind that ‘Raj’ was in fact Suri all along. Once the act’s finishes, Tani confronts Suri by saying “you lied to me, you lied that you didn’t know what love was. All lies. with ease you turned my sadness into joy, every tear into laughs. I gave you not a single drop of love and yet you rained your love on me. How can you love me that much Surinder Ji?”

Suri says, very honestly and earnestly “It’s actually quite simple, I see God in you, when I look at you, I see God. When I join my hands together and pray to him, my heart is at peace. When I see you happy and laugh, I feel even more at peace. If this is love Tani ji, then I think I might love you more than him” They both happy cry and wipe each-others tears.

After, Suri teasingly says/asks “By the way God won’t be mad that I love you more than him?” with the most obvious poker face, Tani says “no, not at all” with a laugh and Suri says, “then that’s the best that can happen” and they embrace. They also win the competition and Tani tells the announcer that it not Tani and Raj but rather “Mr and Mrs Surinder Sahni”

The film ends with the CUTEST end credits.

Oh dear, I’ve done it again haven’t I. I wasted your guy’s time by going over the plot again and explaining each thing. Well, you can’t blame a guy for talking about one of his favourite films.

But to honestly talk about the film, its honestly the best form of romanticising the ordinary. Suri is the king at romanticising his life and love, or should I say him falling in love allowed him to do that. He loved wholeheartedly and, in the end, his love brought him the right person. The film teaches exactly that, that we should love wholeheartedly. That life isn’t cruel to the ordinary. That the most mundane can be extraordinary. That one day, you will meet your Tani/Suri and you would want to make them the most happy and make them dream.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Suri ji and Tani ji, aap such mein dunya ka number one jodi hain (you guys really are the world’s number 1 couple)

and thank you readers 💗. I appreciate you guys so much.