Ep 240- Maya Memsaab

[00:00:00] Hi, this is Asim. This is Sujoy. This is Amrita. And you're listening to Khandaan, a Bollywood podcast about the three main Khans of the Hindi film industry, Amir, Salman and Shahrukh. Hi, you're listening to Khandaan, a Bollywood podcast regular feed. Thank you so much for your

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[00:00:49] Hi and welcome to a new episode of Khandaan Podcast. My name is Asim Burney and I'm joined with my lovely co-host Amrita and Sujoy. Hey, Amrita and Sujoy. Hey everybody. Hello lovelies. We are going back in time on this episode. We are going to 1992,

[00:01:05] I think we're reviewing Maya Memsaab or sometimes just called Maya. Not to be confused with the Maya from Dil Top Agal. I wish it was Maya from Dil Top Agal. This is a

[00:01:18] honestly, I was wondering if we should even review this movie. But it's one I hadn't seen ever. It's directed by Katen Mehta. It stars his wife Deepa Sahi and it's based on Madam Bovary by Flo Berge. That's a book, right? That's a book or a play?

[00:01:43] It's a book. Right. And for me, this was when it came out back in the day, like Shah Rukh was not the Shah Rukh he became or even became like he wasn't like a breakthrough kind of artist.

[00:01:59] And to me, this was like a weird little art movie he made where he had like a little role in it and watching this movie, I realized that it is a weird little art movie and he has a

[00:02:10] little role in it. So I was like, I don't know if this even deserves a full Khan Dan review, because I don't think this is a Shah Rukh movie. But on the other hand, Shah Rukh does own the rights of this red chili does and they had a

[00:02:25] upgrade clearly a remastered upgraded print, which feels like, you know, it's something then done with a lot of love and care. And it's available on Netflix. So I thought, you know, I haven't seen it. Let's give it a shot. Never, you know, there's

[00:02:38] not a better place than Khan Dan to discuss about these movies, I guess. Amrita, had you ever seen this movie before? Yes, a very long time ago, I think like around the time that it came out, which is typical for the AC kids because how inappropriate is this

[00:02:57] you know, like a tweenage or whatever that I was at the time. But yeah, we'll get to that. So had you seen it? No, so I was 10 when this movie released and it did not make it to the local

[00:03:10] cinema and culture where I was growing up. But for the longest time, I always heard like, oh, there exists a Shah Rukh movie where there is nudity, there's sex scene, there's controversy regarding Deepa Sahi, and how bold she is. She was sort of Mamta Kulkarni

[00:03:27] before Mamta Kulkarni in a way. I don't know where I read that, but like that was the sort of legend of Maya M. Sab and I was growing up in my teens, but I had never seen like there was

[00:03:40] obviously we saw it all on Netflix. And before Netflix finding movies like this was probably difficult because this is a NFDC channel for production, which does not find distribution unless there is a pirated copy somewhere floating around. So I did not grow up watching or I hadn't

[00:03:59] watched Maya M. Sab before I watched it for this episode. Yeah, I this would be impossible to find a copy of in, you know, in Belgium growing up like it just not would be possible. But I do

[00:04:13] also remember like in the previous episode, you know, you were talking about in the 90s, they could just get away with whatever rumor they wanted. Yeah, this is actually a specific movie where Shahrukh got really, really violent with the journalist of I think Stardust or Cinnablets or

[00:04:33] something like that. He showed up he actually beat up a journalist and he ended up in jail for this one too. And then he got you know, like jail or whatever it's called like not like

[00:04:44] bad boy. Yeah, he was like literally a bad boy, right? Like his anger is well known. So this is the time where it was all unleashed and he got into quite a bit of trouble. But then it was Shahrukh. So

[00:04:56] you know, he got out of a two with his charm and all that. But yeah. So I had not seen this movie. One more question. Have you read Madan? No, no. Okay. I also have not read it.

[00:05:14] It is funny that they reference it. She's reading Madan Bovary in the book itself. So I read the Wikipedia thing, the summary and it does seem like a very straight adaptation of

[00:05:30] the book. It seems that we're hitting a lot of these same points. And yeah, what I was going to say is that it's a it also starts faroak shake. Who is kind of the main person? I guess we'll start with

[00:05:48] like sort of an overview of the plot. So yeah, what's the name in this? I forget Maya. Yeah, it's like wait, what's her name? So the IMDB summary is a beautiful wealthy woman's insatiable

[00:06:09] appetite for romance leads to tragedy and a police investigation. So the reason why I haven't read the French original is because I'm not a big fan of like the you know, let's punish the woman

[00:06:23] for like her desires. Like that is not a theme that I enjoy. And this movie really nails it, right? So it starts with like, it starts like a horror film. Yeah. Right? There's like an un-dheri tufani

[00:06:41] raath and then there's like Maya. Shri Shalaki Haveli. Yeah. And then like, you know, Dr. Shriram Lagu looks at her and like falls down the stairs. I was watching it and I was like,

[00:06:55] man, it's so hard to be a character actor sometimes, you know, you just like literally there to die. So it starts with like, like it's like a it's like a murder mystery where they're trying to find

[00:07:13] what happened to Maya, which is the character played by Biba Sahe. And there's like this weird detective duo that sort of like Thompson and Thompson from Tintin. And they show up and they're

[00:07:29] just like, by the way, I was not saying anything but I can hear him going, Tata. Well, in India we say Tintin. But yeah, it's just like really weird. And there's like the story that we are seeing is sort of

[00:07:57] being told in like two ways. Like one is like the testimony of all the men who have let her down and are now murder suspects. And then there is her personal diary, which is being read by this random kid. Like what is that about?

[00:08:15] Is that kid that says, Dost in Koila? Yeah. That's what he made me think about. I thought he was mute and then he wasn't mute. Like, I, yeah, he wasn't. I just thought he was initially because he doesn't,

[00:08:27] he's not talking. He's just like staring at her from the window. The one movie that this weirdly made me feel, think about is Paheli. Because it also deals with like female desire. But this also feels like men trying to understand

[00:08:45] women and failing miserably at it. And it's like basically this one woman central and all of these men trying to either get her on the standard and basically all failing. It seems that compared to Madan Bovary, this is giving more kind of a nuanced

[00:09:05] view of the female central character than the movie does where the book really revels into this, you know, punish this woman for her desires kind of thing. Where I think it's not as much the case in

[00:09:19] in Miami M.S.A.B. But it's, I want to get into it. But I want to hear your thoughts on Miami M.S.A.B. for the first time. It's a terrible movie is what I think.

[00:09:29] Oh God. Yeah, I was waiting for you guys to just, you know, stop it. I don't think there is anything nuanced about Miami M.S.A.B. It's a terrible movie. It's terribly made. It's terribly acted. Like there is even Shahrukh Kant romance this woman in this movie.

[00:09:49] That's how bad it is. And like, okay, I get like at some point we sort of in textualized this to be an NFDC film produced in the outside the Bollywood system. So we look

[00:10:03] at it with roast tinted glasses to see it as an artsy movie. But oh my God, this was terrible. Like it's like the scenes where the like the first sort of romance that we're introduced to is

[00:10:16] with Dr. Das and Maya, right? And we see their cutesy romance and they like this is Farooq Shake, by the way. Yes. Yeah. Farooq Shake plays Das and like it's supposed to evoke some sort of an emotion in the viewer that oh we're looking at this really feminine

[00:10:38] character falling in love and how much she's in love with love. And I felt nothing like what we were texting me and Asim and Asim was like this feels like a school play. You know,

[00:10:51] it's that bad. It's like, yeah, it's it's Kate and Mehta he's done Mirj Masala before this. And why is he making movies like this now then? It just felt like wow, this is so bad.

[00:11:07] It really weirdly also made me think of, you know, sometimes filmmakers, they get like infatuated with their wives, which understandable I'm very infatuated with my wife. I'm not making a movie about her. But you know that movie that a bus tire wala made after Jaanetu Ya Jaanet,

[00:11:26] he put all of his money in Juta he say I think that it was about his wife. And it was like I was watching and I was like, I don't think like maybe I don't understand. I didn't think Deepa Sahi is a good actress. Like, is it that?

[00:11:43] He's his wife though. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying that like Paaki Tire Wala was not a good actress and Abbas Mastan made this whole movie. Sorry Abbas Tire Wala made all of his

[00:11:55] chips that he got from Jaanetu Ya Jaanet. He put them all on this movie about his wife that John Abraham falls in love with, you know, and she was not a good actress, right? And like the T-Series guys are doing, you know, he's putting his wife.

[00:12:12] Guys, there are better ways to save your marriage than making movies with your wife. Yeah, just cook with her, you know, like you can do other things. But I don't know, like I've

[00:12:22] not seen, I've seen Hum. I've seen her in Hum. I've seen her in O darling India, which is also very weird movie, but at least it has good songs. Although I do like a couple of the songs

[00:12:34] in this, like one song in particular, I really like it. And this is Lata Mangeshkar's brother is the composer of it, right? There's a lot of Lata. There's a lot of Lata in the soundtrack,

[00:12:45] right? I mean, it's NFDC, so they have to pay their dues, right? Like well, Rida and Admangeshkar also famously composed for Lakin, which is one of the greatest soundtracks of all time. Yeah. But Dilban Jare is like a gorgeous, gorgeous song. Like I still really love it.

[00:13:05] Yeah, so Farooq Sheikh is the husband. So she marries him and do we ever find out like I can't okay, so you have to tell me I feel like this particular print has a few scenes edited

[00:13:21] out. Yeah, it feels like that either it's edited out or the editing is so jarring that I don't even understand how we're going from one point to the other. But I also remember like there's this particular scene that I remember watching

[00:13:39] where it's her and Shahrukh in the train and Shahrukh slowly like puts down the shutters and then they I think they make love or something like I don't know exactly like if that was clearly

[00:13:55] like where it was headed. I remember a song also but I'm not sure if this or Oh darling India like but like we see them headed towards the train and then we see them outside the train and I'm just

[00:14:10] like what happened in the train? This is why Rachaelis bought the print. Yeah, Shahrukh was like nobody is going to see any of the scenes. Anyway, so she's married to Farooq Sheikh and

[00:14:24] he's not romantic enough for her then she catches the eye of a young Shahrukh who gets sent away shortly thereafter and then Rajbabbar takes up with Rajbabbar. It really falls in love with Rajbabbar like she's really into him. I think he rapes her

[00:14:46] on a rock like I was like it's weird like 90s sexuality which I don't understand. It might be that Rajbabbar was just like making love and we were just like that's right because

[00:14:58] it's Rajbabbar. No she keeps saying no, no all the time she's saying like I was like yeah what's going on? But then like when Shahrukh like later asked her like if she was ever in love with

[00:15:09] somebody like she's clearly talking about Rajbabbar and she's just like yeah. Yeah, it's like I don't get it. Anyway and then like she tries to run away with Rajbabbar and Rajbabbar

[00:15:21] is just like lols no and then Shahrukh comes back. But again the way you're telling it is the way it's done in the movie because I don't understand why Shahrukh gets sent away.

[00:15:35] I never understand why Rajbabbar doesn't want to be with her and then they see each other outside and then he just disappears and then she wants to commit suicide and I don't know what

[00:15:46] happened in between like it's just very confusing. And then there's also Pareesh Ravan who is who's selling her saris like really expensive saris. Yeah, I don't understand like what that is about.

[00:16:03] He's like a drug dealer with saris and then she gets into so much debt that she has to go to debt for saris. This is also this moment where she suddenly becomes modern and I thought

[00:16:17] she they were doing a grease thing where she was like wearing heels and she cut a bit of her hair and I don't know what they were trying to do suddenly she's a modern woman and yeah she also had a face

[00:16:26] off with the sasuma and then then the sasuma dies and yeah. Yeah, and then they get money and then Pareesh Ravan takes that money or something like that. He gives her 50,000 and then there is the secret of the magic potion. Oh, there's the magic potion. There's a magic

[00:16:45] potion as well. So this is this sort of like so weirdly enough like this is the movie that I thought of when I heard that Amir was working with him with the director on Mangal Pandey

[00:16:58] and I remember like everyone was hyping up Mangal Pandey and being like oh my god like Mangal Pandey is going to be amazing and I remember thinking to myself the guy that made

[00:17:08] Maya main sound like that. I don't think this is going to be the big success that everyone thinks it is and lo and behold it wasn't and I feel like yeah I don't know like I don't know how you go

[00:17:24] from making Mirch Masala and Hero Hiralal to this. Which is also a weird movie by the way. Hero Hiralal is a weird movie like Mirch Masala is not I don't think I think that's a very like

[00:17:37] straightforward film but Hero Hiralal is a weird movie but it's an it's a movie it's an actual movie. This is just like it's just a collection of like weird acting exercises. It feels very school-fatory like you know what is it called NSDC?

[00:18:00] And it feels like I could understand why Shah Rukh coming from that background was appealed was kind of like yeah I want to be part of this project or maybe he doesn't have choice but

[00:18:10] this is the kind of early Shah Rukh we know right like into this theater kind of art space and like the way the inspectors walk in it felt very you know like you always have these

[00:18:21] narrators like you know waiting for Godot kind of thing you know like these two people trying to figure things out kind of dumb kind of efficient driving the story forward. You had the village

[00:18:31] madman you know that suddenly will say some sort of very deep meaning truth in there and then just a bunch of boring people which I was like this is theater right this is just bunch of boring people and with the most boring person being Farukh Sheikh right and

[00:18:50] like I never liked Farukh Sheikh. Yeah I'm gonna get because like I think it's an interesting like watching this was very interesting is because it has it talks it's about like the debate internally about masculinity right like Farukh Sheikh because Farukh Sheikh was happening at

[00:19:09] the same time as Amitabh was happening kind of and these are two such different strands of Jackie and Anil. Yeah that was a bit later I guess but I think what I feel is these these are some

[00:19:21] opposite sides of masculinity where Farukh Sheikh is very much kind of a gentle talkative real person whereas Amitabh is like a larger than life hero masculine angry young man and I think this is maybe the push and pull in masculinity that we want to be an Amitabh

[00:19:39] when we are actually Farukh Sheikhs you know and I don't want to be Farukh Sheikh I don't like he is so Farukh Sheikh that it annoys the hell out of me like he is so weak as a person that he annoys me

[00:19:53] like it's not his the surname is Das you know yeah yeah it's like when I think I finally got when Bebo says I'm not a feminist I understood this is what she's saying like I don't want to

[00:20:08] be a man like Farukh Sheikh that's what that's the equivalent coming from the masculinity point of view he is so weak ineffectual gentle push over that it annoys me I was like man stand up for

[00:20:24] yourself and I it just brought back a lot of other Farukh Sheikh roles for me and that's what I'm trying to say that I don't like Farukh Sheikh this is the idea that I have

[00:20:34] I've not seen a lot of his movies so I don't know because I was not interested in them I want to see men punch things that's what I do I don't I don't want them to be like you know like

[00:20:46] and I think it's also what the movie is trying to say right like he's that he's so weak that he's like you know let's his mom just kind of run a muck in her house and never stand up for his

[00:20:57] own wife that he's supposed to love that scene where she's like go apologize when she's just horrible the moment she comes in she's just horrible and I think the moment where he just

[00:21:08] puts up hides behind the newspaper I think that's probably what a lot of men are the reality of a lot of men and watching that on screen annoys me because probably it speaks to

[00:21:20] some sort of part in my masculinity where the idea is I'm going to stand up for the truth I'm going to fight for justice but the reality is I can't even stand up to my mother

[00:21:31] you know and it's annoying to watch it it's annoying to watch it so I don't like it today in therapy with us I thought about it I thought about it a lot like you know like he really doesn't know me

[00:21:48] and interesting it's interesting that you were able to get that out of this film because I remember like I came to the end and I was just like what what what was the meaning of any of this

[00:21:58] like why did we just spend like all this time on this like why um because the movie wasn't giving me something now so I had to like like think myself yeah go in my own you have to create meaning

[00:22:12] for yourself yeah in cave to kind of like get something out of my my name sir became an open world game for us him he was on his own side quests it was also like suddenly I was like because my

[00:22:27] mind was going everywhere it's like this faruk shek wedding is like shadi is like very like rabne banadi jodi you know like yeah ho ga my daughter she's so happy and danceful you know

[00:22:37] like will some boring man marry her please you know this kind of like rabne banadi jodi oh yeah she is very much like suri salb yeah and I was like also like she lives in this beautiful big

[00:22:51] house and he just marries her and puts her in this small flat which looks claustrophobic like clearly she has a line later on where she says you know the open air is choking me and I was like I get that

[00:23:06] I get that when I'm in nature I'm like the open air is choking me yes where's the wi-fi you know I was connecting with Maya man I was connecting with Maya okay and also he was and this is

[00:23:20] something I got from reading the Wikipedia of madame bovary because it's not explained but faruk shek was married before did you get that no yeah because that's so she comes into

[00:23:33] the house and there's the cindur that's on the table now so she drops the cindur and he says oh that's the only thing that remains of her oh like in the in the in the in the book the doctor is married

[00:23:47] before and he waits for the wife to die and then he quotes the the female I think she's called Emma or something I am not sure and I thought that's either I don't know it can be her his

[00:23:57] mom's cindur right like that's not yeah I don't know and then she I like the transition where she makes the home her home because it looks like really like it's kind of the ex that's what I got thought

[00:24:10] it's the ex-wife's house and she makes it her house which becomes kind of modern and more spacey and stuff like that I was I was I was trying guys I was really trying

[00:24:21] did it pay off for you for all those attempts I don't know yeah it was a yeah effort and a half to finish this movie to be honest for me like I was for the first time in

[00:24:36] my life I watched it on like 1.5 speed like I was just like I can't this is no way and you know what like it literally sounded like they were still drawing it was like playing at like 1.5 especially that like again about the theater aspect of it

[00:24:57] there's that sequence where Faruk Sheikh comes back after having worked the whole day and she's like a bored housewife and she's like yeah do you like my smile do you like my this do you hate

[00:25:07] me do you like I was like yeah this is like what theater is supposed to be right like yeah like these kind of dialogue stuff very boring but like oh yeah to imagine that in a filmy language and have

[00:25:19] somebody like you know I don't know yes Chopra write it and direct it it would have been on such a different level that romance would have been so elevated and then you see it

[00:25:29] realized in the form of this with Faruk Sheikh and Deepa Sahi and shot like this and yeah it's so terrible like we are making fun of a romance scene in a Bollywood movie you know and this was the era

[00:25:44] of of romance movies when 1993 we were supposed to you know enjoy romantic movies and this is such a bad example of how romance is badly done and I think the main problem is Deepa Sahi to be

[00:25:58] honest like I really think she doesn't sell any of these emotions she doesn't send whimsy she doesn't sell romance and in a way I mean I mean we think of I mean unfair comparison but

[00:26:10] Monica Bellucci in Malena have you seen Malena that is the idea of this woman that's surrounded by men in a village and the whole town is just enchanted by her she's a mystery she's beautiful

[00:26:24] and like you know and something horrible happens to her at the end of the movie too right and the cinematography of this movie is also really trying hard to sell that right it's so misty so

[00:26:36] mysterious there's lots of fog machines going on everywhere where she is walking even in the interiors of the Haveli it starts off like a the spooky girl with the laltine in her hand you

[00:26:46] know walking in the darkness of her own Haveli what's all that about it's really trying to sell the Maya of Maya yeah there's a reason why she's called Maya I think and and it still

[00:27:00] doesn't deliver on that what does Maya mean again like enchantress because they literally say it at the end of the movie just to kind of point at the end like this is her Maya or she's a Maya

[00:27:12] whatever but we need to talk about Shah Rukh right it's Kandan podcast he walks in at the 40 minute timestamp and he walks out 14 minutes later then he comes back later for five more minutes

[00:27:25] in those 14 minutes I wrote it down he trips cracks his head drops a bottle gets fireworks lit up his ass then emulates himself in a dream sequence burns himself on a cigarette

[00:27:39] gets head butted by Maya spills a glass of water and also has love scenes let's not forget not on my watch like I don't know what the love scene is like very like like jumping around on a

[00:27:51] bed in a in a very like just fans but I don't know what kind of I think Rajbha perhaps more love scenes than Shah Rukh that's the the editor at red chillies doing his magic but I was watching it

[00:28:06] and I was like because the only like romance you see is between Shah Rukh and Deepa in the sequence and I was like man it's people that have like affairs in small towns they're so brazen

[00:28:19] like 60 people there and like literally everybody knows that you know the doctor's baby is banging some young guy like how do you do that like how does that work like yeah like yeah I mean

[00:28:31] I live in London man like you know like you you have people that you know and you never see them but like in like in the thing everybody knows everybody's in the now it's you know it's it's

[00:28:41] really weird what happens even to Farukh Sheikh at the end he's just a tragic husband who's lost his wife yeah but he's not even he's giving like testimonials I guess you know yeah what did you think of

[00:28:55] Shah Rukh to me like even in something like this like I keep having this thought you know like it's very clear that this man had star potential you know the the way that he's obviously

[00:29:09] like very young and he's like very raw in this but he's never uneasy in front of the camera like that's one thing that you'll always notice even in his tv serials you'll always see that

[00:29:22] Shah Rukh just belongs in front of the camera like he's just one of those people like Tom Cruise or something you know like who just belong on camera like that's Shah Rukh like there's no

[00:29:35] like awkwardness even when he's doing awkward things and he's not getting much from his scene partner but you can see that he's just sort of like you know and it's also really funny because

[00:29:49] all the things that he does to show that he's like a young man in love these are all things that you will see him do again about five years later in movies like yes boss and it's funny like how

[00:30:03] much he will learn in those intervening like five years or whatever you know like the way he's able to dial up his performance in all the right ways it's just fascinating because there is a moment

[00:30:17] where they go to the Patar Ke Pool dance party him and Deepa Sahi and afterwards they have like this whole like a fight love sequence where they're like beating each other up and he's throwing her

[00:30:30] against the shutter and all that kind of thing and I was like okay this is these are themes that he will be revisiting very shortly you know again but yeah it's very raw in this now like I agree

[00:30:41] with star power but I also think Geetan Mehta has no idea what to do with it because he's in armor with Deepa Sahi instead of Shah Rukh. That is very clear that you can see that

[00:30:52] the director really fancies Deepa Sahi like you can see that. What did you think of Shah Rukh? He's very hairless in this movie that's what I thought. Bhai is Shah Rukh is in his teens, prepubescent. He's always been hairless no no?

[00:31:11] He does not a hairy man but he's not. He looks like a bacha in this you know and yeah he is very pacha and kacha. It was also like I might be talking too much because really I went

[00:31:24] places with this movie to entertain myself. It made me think also of like how good Vishal Bhardwaj is in adapting plays and stories like this to the Indian audiences where Geetan Mehta completely fails in it no? Because even the Shah Rukh character like we're saying the editing

[00:31:44] is very jarring like his uncle who's the town grocery or pharmacist basically he says you need to go away and you need to be serious and he goes away and then he comes back in a suit too right?

[00:31:56] So what it's trying to do is that great expectation thing right like people goes to the city and becomes a gentleman right? That's what it's trying to do but it's like because they have no budget they cross each other and he's wearing like a tracksuit and it's

[00:32:11] like wait is he supposed to be rich now? He's like a he's now a fancy man but he's like yeah I work in a bank or something like that and all of that just doesn't work at all because the talent to

[00:32:26] adapt this and make it hit doesn't lie with Geetan Mehta the way it does with Vishal Bhardwaj. Absolutely I would say that. Yeah it's like the supporting characters feel like stock characters taken straight out of a you know the original novel and trying to make them look

[00:32:46] in a certain way but without any context without any like the the detectives is what I'm trying to say they look like you know cartoon characters. Yeah yeah and they don't belong to this world

[00:33:00] yeah and they feel bad they're also badly dressed I don't even understand why they with they're wearing that weird hat and stuff like that. I'm sure Geetan Mehta had these ideas in his

[00:33:10] head but I don't know he didn't really be able to execute them I don't know I don't even think it's a budget problem necessarily it's just an imagination problem. I mean film 4 was associated in the

[00:33:21] production of this movie like yeah people got away with a lot of you know things if you had the right context. Yeah what do you think of Raj Babur? I don't think we've ever talked about

[00:33:33] Raj Babur on show. I don't want to talk about Raj Babur. Like ever since the first piece of dialogue that I've heard him speak on cinema I've detested the man like I've never felt that this guy has

[00:33:46] good guy energy yeah I don't know what he has done to me in a previous life. I get it. I can never trust the guy is what I think about Raj Babur. He has a lot of like Jeremy Renner energy

[00:34:03] Jeremy Rennergy. I like Jeremy Renner to be honest but no Raj Babur no no no no no What do you feel about Raj Babur over there? He was a thing no yeah he's been in so many things

[00:34:21] I can take it or leave it. Yeah I know there are like people out there who have like a very visceral reaction to Raj Babur because of the kind of movies that he was in and his you know his

[00:34:37] bad guy roles were uniformly of him being a rapist like it was like literally you know yeah it was like literally if you saw Raj Babur in a in a movie you better be like safeguarding

[00:34:49] your is that because Raj Babur was coming for it but I don't know like I think he was good at what he does but not in a way that is iconic like he's not Amrish Puri or any of those people you know

[00:35:07] he's just there. I have discovered why I have trust issues with Raj Babur so there was a movie that came out in the 1980s I think in 1987 called Sansar which has Rekha in it and he was so like such a terrible husband to Rekha and I was like

[00:35:30] so that was that was the epicenter the root cause of my distrust with Raj Babur as a person he's been in 236 movies and I would not be able to tell you one movie of his like he's yeah I mean

[00:35:47] Bodyguard he was in Bodyguard that's what it is yeah but like again like I don't remember him I remember him like in Ghaial that's maybe the one I remember him from yeah but like the one

[00:36:01] that I remember him from is the one where he was Zena Tamans boyfriend and then he rapes Tabu who's her sister like that's the movie that scarred me Gaya yeah that's the movie that scarred me for

[00:36:17] Raj Babur. Yeah I don't know which movie that is but let me find out it's just funny that like an actor that's worked so long leaves no impression on you in a way right like it's

[00:36:31] like even if I look at like his IMDB page there's nothing that he's known for uh it's Bodyguard Pokar Gardesh and Mahabharat he's the Mahabharat which I've not seen well he played Bharat in Mahabharat

[00:36:46] yeah so yeah and like also like he's never in any list he's not ever mentioned you know there's no you know I don't want to like diss on Raj Babur it's just like an interesting

[00:37:03] aspect of stardom right like being able to work as an actor for so long and leave no impression on audiences it's just like oh it's oh it's a Dharam Raj Yudhishthir in Kalyug in Champa Nigal's

[00:37:15] oh yeah uh-huh I'm sure he's a lot of these rt movies no so the funny thing about Raj Babur is like he plays these kinds of characters on screen but like apparently like in real life he's always

[00:37:27] been like a committed socialist he is always being very politically like you know progressive and he's sort of like well known for his like uh support of unions and like and that's why he's now

[00:37:41] a politician etc um and he must have something going on I mean there's not something going on because like you know Smitha Patil did fall in love with him although then the way that he treated her

[00:37:54] makes me think that he's not a good guy so I'm just like mm-hmm so it's just very complex issues so you were you were gonna say something no I still can't trust him even though he's a socialist

[00:38:05] in real life okay uh the taboo movie very you were mentioning it's called Ham Nojavan uh Om Puri also said near pays in this movie for like a shot did you notice this

[00:38:17] yeah uh what no yeah Om Puri was there like duty for one shot I think if I'm not okay now that you're doubting this I'll have to go and check again but I'm pretty sure he was there sitting

[00:38:27] in a funeral scene or something like that but there is a IMDB credit to Om Puri in this movie yeah he was there he was in the funeral scene where the mom dies I think he's just sitting there no lines

[00:38:40] also just like last point like this we want to get back to the magic portion part which again this like what do you think that means the magic portion yeah so basically this is there's this uh village scammer who's selling this magic portion and this whole village because

[00:38:58] village people are let's not go there uh uh let's okay let's turn it out there's not much to do in village life so clearly when some madman comes in and he's talking about stuff all the village

[00:39:12] people are there and they're like oh my god this magic portion is amazing and then the pharmacist steers the portion and the portion is like it will grant you one wish if you're pure of

[00:39:24] heart and then Deepa Sahi drinks half of the portion because the portion like when you think a portion is supposed to be like small 100 millilitre you can just put it in you know you can't

[00:39:38] travel with it you have to put it in a plastic bag when you go into planes but this was like seven litres of fluid in a huge carafe and she drinks like 20% of it and she fights the little

[00:39:52] dosed friend to drink the bottle and she could have just shared it she could give like a sip to the boy too he has it like a shitty life he gets beaten up by everybody but she just

[00:40:01] throws it on the floor and then she kind of just disappears and I think what would you make of that yeah she gets trapped in the mirror or something is what I saw her oh is that also

[00:40:14] something that happens yeah like the film the visual effects of the movie makes it look like she disappears into ether and then gets trapped inside the mirror so I don't know if she wanted

[00:40:24] to so her wish was to abandon the reality of Maya and I don't know her wish was leave existence in a way Amrita any thoughts on what the whole magic potion thing meant I genuinely I you

[00:40:40] know I just thought that she wanted to kill herself um and she knew that that wasn't gonna like work for her but uh yeah I have no idea I like the Amrita is the intellectual one for us given up

[00:40:57] by the time that happened I was just like I don't I don't really care um yeah neither did Ketan or he really did and like I don't know what this is supposed to do

[00:41:06] uh Amrita did you want to come to the defense of Faruk Sheikh I think we went over one of the other things but uh did you you were very like flabbergasted when I said well I mean in this

[00:41:15] movie I get why you feel that way but like he's also like one of the most charming sweet um like the masculinity that part that you were talking about is like really interesting and I

[00:41:25] think that's like the a very real difference between how men perceive masculinity and women perceive masculinity because you are looking at it as something that you might have or like would aspire towards yeah uh whereas I'm looking at this as something that I would find attractive

[00:41:44] and to me like the brand of masculinity that uh that Faruk Sheikh embodies is very attractive and he's I think very attractive to a lot of women who just want somebody that gentle and kind

[00:41:58] um who is also like sweet and like you know um somebody that you'd want to come home to at the end of a very stressful day uh maybe not if you're like you know um an insane bitch like

[00:42:12] Maya but if you are a normal well adjusted person maybe you'd appreciate somebody like Faruk Sheikh I think um and also like his movies in um uh in the 70s and 80s you know like the uh the

[00:42:28] the very slice of life rom-com movies that he made um those are just very very they're just very like sweet um and they're again like which ones for example like if I say okay I don't know shit about Faruk Sheikh which one should I watch uh for sure

[00:42:51] uh yes uh I think he was an umrah but he doesn't really play I mean I don't I don't recommend umrah to people who um you know wait hold on do you like Faruk Sheikh Surya I do like Faruk Sheikh

[00:43:08] but also like my association with Faruk Sheikh is Jagjeet Singh like Satsat had a lot of Jagjeet Singh guzzles uh and like I directly associate the two like um SPB and Salman it's Jagjeet Singh

[00:43:21] and Faruk Sheikh in a way for me so because I like I really like Jagjeet Singh guzzles and I grew up with it and the Satsat album used to play a lot in my house and and that's a clips were

[00:43:34] shot on Faruk Sheikh is that what you say yeah okay the movie um so yeah Cheshma Baddur Satsat and then uh Katha is like one of my favorites Noori guys Noori yeah he was in Noori but Noori

[00:43:49] is like very sad um and uh yeah there's like a whole bunch of these like really sweet and also like he was in um you know uh Shatranjh Kekhilari which is you know the only film in Hindi that Satyajit

[00:44:07] Reh made um and like all of these are just like really good movies um he was in Gaman he was in Garam Hava um so like he's made some really amazing movies I think interesting uh yeah okay he was also

[00:44:26] in Bazar uh which was you know uh again like a it's a Smitha Patil film and again it's just like really it's a tough yeah it's a it's a tough watch like it's a the subject matter is kind of touch

[00:44:41] stuff a lot of Smitha Patil movies are tough yeah cool I guess this is it for Maya M. Sahib we had to we had to you know talk about it we had to talk but this is like one of those like

[00:44:54] Aamir movies also we did like Rah a couple of years ago and I was like yeah you need to kind of just sit through these artistic phases that these men had uh to give become the stars that they

[00:45:04] are you know and I think it does definitely make them the stars that they are these kind of movies that this was their basis you know um but yeah Shah Rukh done something similar after this or did he completely give up on his art movement?

[00:45:19] I mean oh darling India can be maybe you know put into that bracket zero yeah yeah I mean he has phases where he's like interested I think now like later state Shah Rukh is just too big for

[00:45:32] these kind of things yeah but like even like dares in the game away like you know it is like a very small kind of role in like it could be a theater play too right like it could be an after to a play

[00:45:46] and Shah Rukh is in that right so maybe even Chagde I guess you know like I'm just saying these are big movies but it's like a very like grounded kind of persona that he's playing

[00:45:56] and that maybe would not have happened he was if he was only a star here he shows he was also an actor right so it's interesting to kind of revisit it so Joy welcome people find you online

[00:46:07] you can find me on tiktok instagram and twitter at 93k and you can follow khandan podcast on all our socials at khandan podcast amrita you can find me on twitter at amrita iq

[00:46:20] mya memes up is on netflix so if you haven't watched it check it out like you know I wouldn't like it's a trip and the print is good the subtitles are good so that's already helpful too

[00:46:32] drop us an email at uport testing at gmail.com and drop me an email if you think you were just like completely insane this is a masterpiece that we haven't figured out and yeah we'll be back with a new episode very soon the puppy