It is a film that has redefined love in Bollywood. A film which has made the sweet love story of Raj & Simran immortal. This is a film that made the paddy fields of yellow mustard as romantic as the snow capped mountains or the flower carpets! And it is the film, which is still running and is completing 1000 week on 18th Dec this year.
This is a film which is a part of my teen years. Just out of school (10th) and landed in a hostel for further studies in the "then big bad world of a bigger city" - Guwahati . I came from a small town - Dibrugarh; my world had been protected and confined to school, tuitions, friends and family. I was scared, nervous and the fact that my room mate was a senior from same college, did not help either. That was one day and this is today when I am looking back and smiling as I type the words. Few days back the new trailer of DDLJ was launched to celebrate the completion of 1000th week and it brought back a bucket full of memories.
I don't exactly remember which film I had gone to see when I saw big poster of the "Next change". It was a huge poster of paddy full of yellow mustards and no actors. With limited access to TV in hostel, I and my friends were clueless about this film. But in college the " day scholars" or the fellow batch mates who stayed at homes not in hostels like us would talk about the next big film of Shah rukh Khan we would be all ears. Came Friday 20th Oct 1995 and the film was released. It created a huge buzz and the film buffs all of us at the hostel were, we had to see it in the same weekend. So the planning started from Friday evening onwards. With limited pocket money we could not afford to pay the "Blacker". The only option was to make sure that we take the first few places of the queue. The theatre was Anuradha Cinema, one of very old cinema halls of Guwahati and closer to our hostel. Sunday we reached the cinema hall , believe it or not, at 7.30am for a 10am show! I was the first in the queue. There were total 5-6 of us. The sweeper was still cleaning the premises; and while standing in the queue, I was looking at the big poster which was wet! Yes wet. I tried to remember when did it rain last night. It did not. The poster was wet because they had just pasted it. It was the wet glue. All the girls were looking at the poster and giggling. That was the first time and then I have lost the count how many times I have watched this. On TV reruns of course.
And then there was Annie; my hostel mate. Crazy for SRK then and still is a big fan. She insisted I accompany her to one of shows in the following weeks. Since all the shows were going full, we had to again go through all the ordeal of standing in the queue for hours to manage tickets. She had missed coming with us the first time because of some class test. I still remember her watching the film totally engrossed, laughing and crying with Raj and Simran on screen. The most memorable part was when Amrish Puri came to know of SRK's real identity and slapped him real hard. Annie with her long nails squeezed my hand and almost went hysterical in the theatre. I tried to stop her and reason that that was not real. That was a film we were watching and people near our seats were watching us!! Annie being Annie, came out with the response " You are so unromantic". Annie would go crazy for SRK in each frame in this film. Her absolute favourite was when Kajol imagines SRK flashing his dimpled smile and waving his hand at the end of the song " Ho gaya hai tujhko to pyar sajna". If we had mobile phones and laptops those days, Annie would have gone berserk for sure.
But all said and done, that was one of those films which I had watched on big screen. In Dibrugarh, we would hardly go to the theatre to watch films. Dad had got us a VCR and we would get cassettes of the new releases from the neighbourhood Video parlour. The first film that I watched in a cinema hall without " Parental supervision" was Hum Aap ke Hai Koun. Yes, we had gone from hostel. A gang of 12-14girls. That was another story. That unleashed the filmy bug inside me and eventually I started going for films all alone too.
DDLJ was a film which we as 14 year old starry eyed, mills & boon fed generation of girls had watched and re watched. Over the years, the story of the boy and girl meeting during a Europe tour has reached new heights. I mean literally with the SRK and Kajol cut outs on top of Mt Titlis. Well if you ask me honestly, I personally think that's stretching the "fan"hood a bit too far. Anyway, since we Indians go there and get ourselves clicked next to it, no one is complaining.
Here's to my first hostel mates, watery curries of hostel, momos, the boys hotel in front and the "rival" college's boys hostels which we had to cross to go to the theatre. Incidentally my husband was also one of the boys from the "rival" college staying in one of the hostels.
More power to love, laughter and happiness..DDLJ style.
This is a film which is a part of my teen years. Just out of school (10th) and landed in a hostel for further studies in the "then big bad world of a bigger city" - Guwahati . I came from a small town - Dibrugarh; my world had been protected and confined to school, tuitions, friends and family. I was scared, nervous and the fact that my room mate was a senior from same college, did not help either. That was one day and this is today when I am looking back and smiling as I type the words. Few days back the new trailer of DDLJ was launched to celebrate the completion of 1000th week and it brought back a bucket full of memories.
I don't exactly remember which film I had gone to see when I saw big poster of the "Next change". It was a huge poster of paddy full of yellow mustards and no actors. With limited access to TV in hostel, I and my friends were clueless about this film. But in college the " day scholars" or the fellow batch mates who stayed at homes not in hostels like us would talk about the next big film of Shah rukh Khan we would be all ears. Came Friday 20th Oct 1995 and the film was released. It created a huge buzz and the film buffs all of us at the hostel were, we had to see it in the same weekend. So the planning started from Friday evening onwards. With limited pocket money we could not afford to pay the "Blacker". The only option was to make sure that we take the first few places of the queue. The theatre was Anuradha Cinema, one of very old cinema halls of Guwahati and closer to our hostel. Sunday we reached the cinema hall , believe it or not, at 7.30am for a 10am show! I was the first in the queue. There were total 5-6 of us. The sweeper was still cleaning the premises; and while standing in the queue, I was looking at the big poster which was wet! Yes wet. I tried to remember when did it rain last night. It did not. The poster was wet because they had just pasted it. It was the wet glue. All the girls were looking at the poster and giggling. That was the first time and then I have lost the count how many times I have watched this. On TV reruns of course.
And then there was Annie; my hostel mate. Crazy for SRK then and still is a big fan. She insisted I accompany her to one of shows in the following weeks. Since all the shows were going full, we had to again go through all the ordeal of standing in the queue for hours to manage tickets. She had missed coming with us the first time because of some class test. I still remember her watching the film totally engrossed, laughing and crying with Raj and Simran on screen. The most memorable part was when Amrish Puri came to know of SRK's real identity and slapped him real hard. Annie with her long nails squeezed my hand and almost went hysterical in the theatre. I tried to stop her and reason that that was not real. That was a film we were watching and people near our seats were watching us!! Annie being Annie, came out with the response " You are so unromantic". Annie would go crazy for SRK in each frame in this film. Her absolute favourite was when Kajol imagines SRK flashing his dimpled smile and waving his hand at the end of the song " Ho gaya hai tujhko to pyar sajna". If we had mobile phones and laptops those days, Annie would have gone berserk for sure.
But all said and done, that was one of those films which I had watched on big screen. In Dibrugarh, we would hardly go to the theatre to watch films. Dad had got us a VCR and we would get cassettes of the new releases from the neighbourhood Video parlour. The first film that I watched in a cinema hall without " Parental supervision" was Hum Aap ke Hai Koun. Yes, we had gone from hostel. A gang of 12-14girls. That was another story. That unleashed the filmy bug inside me and eventually I started going for films all alone too.
DDLJ was a film which we as 14 year old starry eyed, mills & boon fed generation of girls had watched and re watched. Over the years, the story of the boy and girl meeting during a Europe tour has reached new heights. I mean literally with the SRK and Kajol cut outs on top of Mt Titlis. Well if you ask me honestly, I personally think that's stretching the "fan"hood a bit too far. Anyway, since we Indians go there and get ourselves clicked next to it, no one is complaining.
Here's to my first hostel mates, watery curries of hostel, momos, the boys hotel in front and the "rival" college's boys hostels which we had to cross to go to the theatre. Incidentally my husband was also one of the boys from the "rival" college staying in one of the hostels.
More power to love, laughter and happiness..DDLJ style.
