Those DDLJ Days

Today, the movie starring my favorite actor celebrates 500 weeks of uninterrupted screening at Maratha Mandir theatre, Mumbai. It is also an apt occasion for me to recollect memories inseparably associated with this magical movie !

If my memory serves me right, DDLJ (Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge) was released during the Diwali of 1995. The entire nation was still recovering from the charm of Hum Aapke Hain Kaun... ! The popularity of Madhuri Dixit was at its peak. The songs had mesmerised everybody and the popular tunes of Didi Tera Dewar Deewana occasionally rented the air in the alleyways. The strategy of the production houses to delay video casette releases and prohibit cable TV broadcasts had worked wonders. Audiences were again entering into the movie halls ! Needless to say, expectations from Bollywood were at an all-time high !

Yashraj Films clearly knew what the masses were looking for. They stepped up their nation-wide pre-release publicity drives. One of the eye-catching posters of DDLJ depicted Raj and Simran hugging each other in the backdrop of a mustard field and inviting audiences to watch the movie with the tag line - Come... Fall in Love. Yashraj Films also acquired a prime-time slot on the national channel - Doordarshan - to telecast The Making of DDLJ. Since this was something very unique in the history of Indian cinema, it attracted a lot of attention and I remember recording it on our VCR. If you have missed it, watch-out for NDTV's re-telecast of the making episode in the coming week.

As for me and my friends circle, 1995 was our first year in junior college. We were undergoing metamorphosis into young adults and we were desperately trying to shed our school kid image. As we recall them now, those were our crush-prone days. So when we first listened to the music of DDLJ, it set our senses ablaze and injected a mystical feeling of elation. The beautiful lyrics accompanied by the sweet strains of the guitar mischievously tickled our hearts and soon we were all whistling to the tune of Tujhe Dekha to ye Jaana Sanam...

Following the hype and hoopla, the movie opened to full houses all over India and audiences got more than what the posters depicted. It literally took the audiences for an entertaining trans-continental ride around the world - starting from cold surroundings of UK and reaching the lush-green lands of Punjab via the exotic locations of Europe.

The characters in the movie managed to captivate not only the Indian audience, but also the NRIs living in UK and USA. Every role had its own importance in the movie and helped in moving the story of Raj and Simran to its logical conclusion. The wedding months of November and December reverberated with tunes of Mehndi Lagake Rakhna... . During the college annual gatherings, it was common to see an item with girls were dancing to the beats of Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye. Boys did not lag behind either. They too were trying hard to wear the cool-dude persona of Raj. One of my college-mates actually suggested that if you watch the movie with your girlfriend, by the end of the movie, she will definitely propose you ! Whatever the purpose, people kept watching the movie again and again. Because the movie was a full paisa-vasool film ! Not only for the audience, but also for the distributors.

Post-release the movie changed the careers of the star-cast and catapulted them to glory. The SRK-Kajol pair joined the club of most popular leading pairs in Bollywood. We saw a simultaneous rise in the fortunes of both Kajol and SRK. Especially for Shahrukh Khan. After excelling in negative loser type roles and playing second fiddle to leading heroes, SRK for the first time had got an opportunity to potray a happy-go-lucky chocolate hero. He gratified his fans by playing the role with style and grace. He was well on his way to become the Badshah of Bollywood !

The movie also received rave reviews and went on to win numerous awards and also gathered a huge fan-following. One review comment, that I vividly recollect, sums it all - if HAHK reminds you of a Gujarati Thali, then DDLJ serves you an inter-continental buffet !

If you want to read more on what the fans of DDLJ have to say, visit this link.