I dream of Rambha

 Genre boundaries in Indian cinema are famously fluid, but Ramba Oorvasi Menaka (2026) presents an unexpected mix.  The movie is by turns a devotional movie with a clear moral that is not presented subtly, a supernatural sitcom like Bewitched, and a black comedy with a rapidly rising body count.  Normally at this point I would be saying that tone is an issue, but it really isn't; there are highs and lows, but it's best to just relax and enjoy the ride.

Ages ago, an ascetic performed powerful devotions to gain the attention of Rambha (Raashi Singh), Oorvasi (Vishnupriya Bhimeneni), and Menaka (Prisha Singh), the three most prominent Apsaras of the court of Indra.  His devotions are successful, and the three appear and grant him a magical book; by tracing the correct pattern on the book's cover, he and his descendants will be able to call the Apsaras from heaven to perform favors and grant wishes.  Generations pass, eventually the proper pattern is forgotten, and the book becomes a curious family heirloom, treasured but best left on the shelf.

Suri (Allari Naresh) does not want to leave the book on the shelf.  He's obsessed with unlocking the proper pattern and then asking the Apsaras to make him a star.  In the process he has run the family theatrical company into the ground (largely because he refuses to perform personally) and racked up a mountain of debt, but it's all going to be okay once the Apsaras arrive.

Suri also has a personal nemesis, police inspector Appala Naidu (Tarak Ponnappa), who hates the theater and is holding a bitter grudge against Suri for stealing his girlfriend Chinni back in Primary school.  After the local orphanage loses its well because of an overly enthusiastic theatrical performance, Appala sees the chance to finally get rid of his rival, but his supervisor intervenes and instead Suri and his sidekicks CEO (Naresh) and Parimala (Srinivasa Reddy) are sent to work at the orphanage for a week under the supervision of the orphanage's strict but beautiful headmistress (Surbhi).

Naturally the headmistress is Chinni, and she still loves Suri after all these years for some reason.  Her father is not impressed with the young man, but Chinni has made her choice, so he decides that Suri can marry her in a month if and only if he can clear all his debts first; otherwise she'll be married off to Appala.  That's no problem - if Suri can summon the Apsaras.

Naturally Suri finally stumbles across the right pattern and manages to summon Rambha and the others, but before he can do any proper wishing they are summoned back to Indralok by Indra (Vennela Kishore), who is angry about all the abuse Suri has shouted at the heavens over the years.  Before they leave Suri gets them to promise to return at the same time the next night, and he spends the day preparing a long, long list of wishes.  He's late to the next night's meeting, though, and when he arrives Rambha explains that the Apsaras have been stripped of their powers for a month and exiled to earth.  Indra did not want to leave them defenseless, though, so he left them with a curse: any man who touches Rambha, Oorvasi or Menaka with lust in his heart will immediately die.  

Suri has a month with Apsaras and no magic, so he has to find a way to dodge his creditors (many of whom keep discovering the Apsaras and then dropping dead), find a way to clear his debts, outwit Appala, and (of course!) find a way to pay for an operation for his terminally ill mother. Meanwhile in Indralok, Indra and sage Narad are rooting against Suri while Sachi Devi (Hari Teja) wants to see the mortal succeed, and Yamaraj, the God of Death, is getting annoyed at all the dead creditors.

There is a lot going on here, but the tone remains surprisingly consistent.  It helps that the Apsaras have promised to bring back all the dead creditors once they get their powers back, so dealing with the bodies is more of a temporary inconvenience than a serious life changing event.  The romantic track is silly, but Surbhi is perfectly charming and gets to have a distinct personality most of the time.  The divine comedy is fun, and while this isn't exactly a Yama movie per se, I am always glad to see him show up.

Does Suri learn his lesson and learn to succeed by his own efforts rather than seeking to get rich quick without any effort?  Of course he does.  But the journey is the fun part.

It's not a saga, it's a love story.

 Jaane Tu . . . Ya Jaane Na (2008) isn't trying to be a grand sweeping romance.  It's a quirky little post-college romantic comedy about young people confronting life in the big world outside, but it still managed to become an enormous hit, beloved by an entire generation of young Indians.  (Except for some girls named Aditi, who quickly grew tired of their classmates singing a certain song at them all the time.)

The movie opens with Jiggy (Nirav Mehta), who is on a date with Mala (Renuka Kunzru).  The date is not going well, perhaps because he brought his friends with him: grumpy Rotlu (Karan Makhij), sweet Sandhya, AKA "Bombs" (Alishka Varde), and feisty Shaleen (Sugandha Garg), who is as gay as the producers could get away with at the time.  (Nobody says anything onscreen, so you have to pay attention to who she's dancing with  in the big musical numbers.)  The fact that Jiggy chose to take Mala, who is a flight attendant, to the airport on her day off to meet two other friends doesn't help either.  The flight is delayed, so the friends decide to tell a reluctant Mala a story about Jai (Imran Khan) and Aditi (Genalia D'Souza), the friends they're there to meet.

Jai (Aditi calls him Ratz") and Aditi (Jai Calls her "Meow") are best friends with contrasting personalities.  Aditi is tough and scrappy and prone to big emotions, while Jai is cool-headed and clever and a committed pacifist who solves his problems with words, a talent he demonstrates when he defeats the campus bully Vivek (Padam Bhola) without raising a fist.  Jai was raised by his mother Savitri (Ratna Pathak) to honor the peaceful legacy of his late father Amar Singh Rathore (Naseeruddin Shah), but the truth is that Amar was a brawling Rajasthani noble, and his portrait occasionally comes to life to argue with Savitri about Jai's destiny.  The Rathores have three prerequisites for manhood (get in a fight, go to jail, and ride a horse) and Jai doesn't seem likely to complete any of them.

Aditi's parents (Anuradha Patel and Jayant Kripalani) invite Jai over to ask about his impending marriage to Aditi, which is a huge surprise to both of them.  They announce that they have no intention of marrying each other, and instead decide to set each other up with suitable mates; Jai wants someone sweet and sensitive and romantic, while Aditi wants someone macho who can protect her.

Jai finds his match first.  Meghna (Manjari Fadnis) is sweet and dreamy and honestly kind of annoying, though Jai doesn't seem to notice.  Aditi does, though, and she also notices that Jai is spending all his time with Meghna rather than her, and she's not as okay with it as she thought she would be.  Aditi ignores her feelings and accepts a proposal from Sushant Modi (Ayaz Khan), who is rich and charming and has a black belt and a possessive streak, as demonstrated when he fights two Rajasthani cowboys (Sohail and Arbaaz Khan, Salman Khan's brothers) who were dancing with his ex girlfriend.  It's not as much fun as Aditi expected, but she ignores the obvious red flags and carries on.

Jai meets Meghna's toxic parents, and it quickly becomes clear that her whimsy is a defensive measure, and she really needs all of the therapy.  Aditi tells Sushant that she would like to attend film school in New York before marriage, and he does not react well at all.  Everybody knows that Jai and Aditi belong together (even Mala knows!) but will they figure it out?  (Obviously yes, since this is a story that they are telling Mala about how Jai and Aditi got together, but it's the journey, not the destination.)

So why was this movie so popular?  I have a few theories.  First, while it's a light and fluffy romantic comedy, it's a well-crafted light and fluffy romantic comedy.  The frame story is used to good effect, the friends all share an easy chemistry, and the always splendid A. R. Rahman provides the music.

Second, the movie respects its characters.  Aditi gets to remain tough and spunky and doesn't have to get "glammed up" to get Jai to notice her.  And while Jai is obviously going to complete the three requirements for Rathore manhood along the way, he doesn't have to morph into an action hero. Jai is still the same cool-headed pacifist at the end of the film.  He throws exactly three punches in his fight scene, and he makes it very clear that it's a special one time thing.

And finally, despite the frame story and a few surreal elements (like the talking portrait and the recurring Rajasthani cowboys) it's a very grounded movie.  It's not an aspirational saga, it's a look at some ordinary young people dealing with complex emotions.  It happened to come out at the right time, and like Dil Chahta Hai before it, it captured the zeitgeist.

No, the other Skaktiman.

 

 Shaktimaan (1997-2005) is a long running TV serial that finally answers the question "What if Clark Kent was Captain Marvel?", starring Mukesh Khanna as the stalwart superhero who always makes the right choice.  Shaktiman (1993) is an action movie and family drama featuring Mukesh Khanna as an ordinary man who makes a number of questionable choices.  It's important to know the difference.

Khanna plays Diler, who manages the Shimla home of Rai Bahadur Laxminarayan (Kulbhushan Kharbanda).  Diler's wife Parvati (Anjana Mumtaz) has just given birth to a son, and while Rai Bahadur is happy for his employee, it's a painful reminder that he and his wife Lakshmi (Beena Banerjee) cannot have children.  Diler overhears his employers wishing to adopt his child, and over Parvati's objections he makes the offer, certain that this will give his son a better life.  The deal is made, and Lakshmi and Rai Bahadur name the boy Vikram, or Vicky, which is a dangerous choice.  Nine times out of ten in Bollywood, a character named Vicky is going to be a spoiled college bully, and there's a high correlation to being played by Gulshan Grover..

The Laxminarayans return to Bombay.  (It won't be called Mumbai until 1995.)  Three years pass, and it turns out that Lakshmi is pregnant.  The family return to Shimla, and Rai Bahadur is immediately called back to Bombay.  It's terrible timing; Lakshmi promptly meets with an accident and dies just after giving birth.  Diler makes another poor choice and tells Parvati that they should kill the baby, ensuring that nothing disrupts Vicky's cozy life.  She is rightly horrified and flees with the baby, and when Rai Bahadur returns Diler tells him that Lakshmi and the baby both died, and he's already cremated them so there's no need to investigate any farther.

 Parvati arrives in Bombay, but she has no idea how to find Rai Bahadur, so she settles into a life of grinding poverty in order to provide for the baby, who she names Amar.  Time passes, and then the movie becomes a college romance.  Amar (Ajay Devgn) is now a stolid working class hero who loves  his mother.  He also loves Priya (Karisma Kapoor), a lovely and charming rich girl who happens to be the daughter of the Police Superintendent (Parikshit Sahni), a fact which will be important later.

Vicky (Gulshan Grover) has turned out to be a spoiled college bully with his own little posse of henchmen.  He manages to be worse than the usual Bollywood Vicky, in fact; Adult Amar is introduced beating up Vicky to stop him from assaulting a female classmate, but nobody bothers to tell anybody about the assault, so Vicky doesn't face any consequences.  (This will also be important later.)

The college romance section establishes character, but nothing much actually changes.  Amar loves Priya, and she loves him.  Vicky continues to be a creep, and is continually plotting to get rid of Amar so that he can have Priya, but she's not interested and responds with pranks.  They go to Shimla on a school trip, and then come back.  There's a little fighting.

 

Vicky is being spoiled by his father's secretary/comic relief Dimagchand (Tiku Talsania). who does nothing to curb his bad behavior.  Diler, who has repented of his terrible choices and become a taxi driver, occasionally pops up and gives the boy Shaktimaanish advice, hoping to set his secret son on the straight and narrow, but as far as Vicky is concerned he's just a random cab driver and not worth listening to.

 The genre shifts again when Amar leaves college to become a police officer.  Vicky goes from bad to worse, which fits in with the plans of crime lord Tiger (Ajit).  Tiger lends the boy money as part of a scheme to punish Rai Bahadur for testifying against his son.  

And then things get complicated.  Priya, who is apparently still in college, is harassed by another student (Shashi Kiran), which makes her so angry that she publicly threatens to kill him.  Vicky is so angry that he actually does kill him; this is not really to protect Priya, he's just drunk and territorial.  Tiger and his men quietly take pictures of the murder, while Diler, who happens to be passing by, takes the body and sends Vicky away.  Diler drives around trying to find somewhere to hide the body, and winds up stashing it in the trunk of a parked car . . . which happens to belong to Priya.  She discovers the body and decides to hide it rather than tell the police, by which I mean her father and Amar.  And while she's trying to hide the body she's spotted (and photographed) by Vicky.  

So, Priya is being blackmailed by Vicky, who wants her to marry him.  Vicky is being blackmailed by Tiger, who wants to use the young idiot to help him get revenge and money.  Amar is placed in charge of the murder investigation, because of course he is.  Diler is tormented by his misdeeds, both old and new.  And Parvati is still hoping that she will somehow find her husband and everything will be fine.  (Everything is not fine.)

Shaktiman's plot is not anything really new or groundbreaking; it's basically four stock Bollywood plots in a trenchcoat, and each of the plots have been done better in other movies; there are noticeable plot holes.  On the other hand, the elements of the plot are presented well.  Gulshan Grover gets a bit more screen time than usual for his weasely villain act, and even manages a bit of pathos.  Ajay Devgn beats people up with style and enthusiasm and fight choreography lifted from Jackie Chan movies.  Mukesh Khanna makes a fine tragic hero.  And nobody sells a dance number like Karisma Kapoor.

 

This is a very early 90s Bollywood movie.  (You can tell by the costumes.)  It's not exactly good, but there's always something going on.