Here’s a CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) class on culture, colours and political correctness from Caran Johar. If one can digest this with a pinch of salt, a sliver of lime and a Tequila shot, the film might be a great guide for those appearing for the CBSE exams.

Allow me to clarify…

When I say colours, I do not mean the abstract works of Mark Rothko or Matisse even though there is a lot of Red in the classroom. We are dealing with Rainbow Rocky (Ranveer Singh) here.

There was some blue with huge red/pink stars all over his body (not his face) and there was lots of red and gold, silver and orange, pink and yellow, purple and black, and also green (when driving a green car). It’s like Manyavar going mad in Moonampalli. It’s better to have Alzheimer’s at this point. So let’s move on.

Rainbow Rocky meets Rani (well-dressed Alia Bhatt) because his grandfather had a thing with her grandmother decades ago. They reunite the grandparents and in the process ignite their own future.

And so, the Rani and Rocky love story begins. While the grandparents romance, the protagonists do too. And this is done to old Hindi film songs which is the highpoint of the film. The marriage of poetry and melodies of the second half of the 20th Century overpowers the rest of the film and its so-called music.

Rani and Rocky are very different in their upbringing, sartorial codes, literature and language. That’s culture, in short. But their hearts are one, you see? They have won each other’s hearts and now they have to win over the hearts of their family members.

It’s time for ‘The Parent Trap’ (1961 Hollywood film remade in 1998). In the Hollywood films the twins trade places without their divorced parents' knowledge, in order to get them back together again; here there are shades of similar motives with regard to the two extremely different families.

It’s all about the family. And there’s no secret about the motive. Rani gets this idea that she and Rocky must live in each other’s home for three months to win them over.

Let’s get to the representatives of both families. The use of the word representative is deliberate. Everything is representational here. Like in a classroom: If there are two oranges and three tomatoes in a basket and one orange falls to the ground how many fruits do we have left?

Tomato is a fruit.

The Tomatoes: Dhanalaxmi (Jaya Bachchan) gets red in the face throughout the film. Tomatoes are red and expensive. One has to think twice before dealing with them and tradition.

She (the matriarch) holds this patriarchal family together with glares (not the frames). Then there is her repressed son, Tijori. Caran must have held so many brainstorming sessions for the writers to settle on that name.

Tijori (Aamir Bashir) has one more dimension when compared to Dhanalaxmi. He has a worried look and an angry look. There is also a petrified daughter in law, Punam (Kshitee Jog) and then the grandchildren i.e. Rainbow Rocky and his fat sister, Golu (Anjali Anand) the foremost representative for political education.

You can’t say fat and you can’t say Golu or you will be asked to kneel down outside the classroom. Nevertheless, they are unable to marry her off because she is overweight and also because she stutters ‘orgasm’ instead of ‘organise’ when the ladkawallahs come to check her out.

Rainbow Rocky is not allowed to dance in public, and looks like he wasn't allowed to go to school either, even though he’s the heir to a family that owns the biggest sweetmeat business in the country. How will education help Rainbow Rocky to be the next CEO?

He’s better off shaking protein shake bottles and drinking lassi and dancing in an ‘akhada’, which looks like a cross between a colosseum and a Bombay Circus tent. He’s better off basking in a huge mansion which is a Made in India version of the Capitol in Washington DC- without servants and drivers. I don't remember seeing any. Or, maybe I was colourblind by then.

The Oranges: Representatives of the progressives, or so we think. A rich Bengali family headed by Jamini (Shabana Azmi) living on a set that resembles Angkor Wat. In the courtyard, her son, Chandon (Tota Roy Chowdhary) holds kathak classes.

See? Representative? Men with families can practise kathak. They are not gay. They produce children. His wife, Anjali (Churni Ganguly) represents Shashi Tharoor without the finesse. She holds poetry readings and deliberately speaks only English instead of Khmer.

The end is predictable but the kind that would make many happy and satisfied.

A film that gives you education, nostalgia, old gold Hindi film songs, Alice in Wonderful land sets, Rainbow Rocky, emosan, representation (instead of complexity), surrealism, unrealism, farce, familiar jokes, over the top illiteracy and ignorance… and at the same time gives you the liberty to chat, chew your popcorn and chaat, checkout WhatsApp and Zomato (not Tomato), inform your friends on your cell phones that you are enjoying the movie and cuddle with your loved ones. Catch yourself multitasking in a film like ‘Oppenheimer’ (not an attempt to compare, obviously).

About the performances…

Rainbow Rocky has set high standards in bodybuilding and confidence. Shabana Azmi struggles to juggle Stanislavski, the screenplay and ‘sanskriti’.

Dharmendra? Well, it’s unfair to subject him to this at his age and health condition. It's best to carry home the young handsome man of the 60s and 70s instead. The rest handle themselves competently on this planet that is yet to be discovered by astronomers.

But, hats off to Alia Bhatt. She carries herself with panache and professionalism and comes through as a normal human being in this mela of colours and culture, a huge achievement in this production. Poor thing; a progressive, well read, cultured, intellectual family named her Rani.

And the makers of a film that teaches political correctness settled on the title, ‘Rocky and Rani ki Prem Kahani’ instead of Rani and Rocky ki Prem Kahani. Freudian slip, maybe?

Director: Karan Johar
Screenplay: Ishita Moitra
DOP: Manush Nandan
Music: Pritam Chakraborty and the great musicians of the past.
Art Direction: Technicolour
Cast: Alia Bhatt, Ranveer Singh, Shabana Azmi, Dharmendra and others.

Vikram Kapadia is an actor, director, playwright, screenplay writer living in a glass house.

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