I left the theater feeling good about all that is SRK. I have always detested Shah Rukh Khan’s movies, his acting ability or lack thereof, his monotony, his surrender to the hollow glitz that is Bollywood.
But Chak De India was not such a movie. Sure, it was filmy. It had the usual SRK histrionics but that was kept at bay and they made sure that the focus was the story. I cannot help but guess that the movie was guest directed by the King Khan himself. Director Shimit Amin has his credits in yesteryears mostly in editing and he has served at the fitting pawn in SRK’s quest to make a mainstream movie on hockey, India’s national sport.
So what makes Chak De, which as a concept lends itself easily to the song-and-dance, good over evil, rooting-for-the-underdog formula break from the rest? What makes Chak De stop short of being a Shah Rukh Khan extravaganza? The answer is Shah Rukh Khan himself.
It is funny how SRK has defended Karan Johar’s tedious love-your-parents BS and raged at the ‘candy floss’ tag. He has often scoffed in his interviews for the need for ‘honest’ cinema. Unabashedly he strives to be an entertainer. He revels in cinema being glossy, escapist instead of catering to intellectual sensibilities.
But as SRK started upon the journey that is Chak De he realized that honesty is all he could give this movie. For starters, the King Khan plays a Muslim named Kabir Khan.
This is notable to me as Indian media regularly underepresents minorities in media. Muslims, Christians, Parsis are always the character actors or the sidekicks – the tailor, the pav walla, the eccentric drinking neighbour. Muslim lead characters are only lead when their religion is integral to the plot – i.e. Bombay. It is infuriating that an industry where the cream of the crop is almost entirely Muslim – SRK, Aamir, Saif, Salman, this sect continues to be ignored. Maybe I expect too much from Bollywood – but yes, I consider these individuals as arbiters of power – SRK can demand to play a Muslim but he hasn’t so far. Being in the majority it is easy to not notice but the media is dominated by the majority and is respinsible for perpetuating the paradigm- be it stereotyping or compeltely ignoring the minority.
Unfortunately, even though his religion is only incidental to the movie, the opening scene shows SRK as captain of the men’s Indian Hockey team lose the World Cup to Pakistan and be maligned by the media as a sell-out. Although not articulated the connection to his religion is obvious. Kabir Khan, disappointed by his own failure and shell-shocked by his country betraying his trust, volunteers to coach the girl’s national hockey team. Sixteen girls are chosen. All of them, amazingly, look like hockey players. Or sportspersons. And at the very least, not like film stars. The next hour is a view into the relationship between the coach and the team – a love-hate relationship, or hate-love, if you want to be a stickler for chronology.
Despite the early morning runs and backbreaking training, the chauvinistic Hockey Association loses their sponsor and withdraws support for the girls to compete in the World Cup. Khan arranges a match between the girls and boys’ team. I won’t release the result, but it’s an emotional one and the girls find themselves in Australia. Their lack of team spirit results in a bitter loss in the first game with the Aussies. But lessons learned and there are wins all the way until the final, once more with the Aussies.
The unknown faces are a delight. I looked up the girls on IMDB and except for the one who plays Bindiya Naik, none have any acting credits to their name. None of them are exemplary. None of them are Smita Patil. But they are better than the Neha Dhupias of the world. Best of all, they don’t have an SRK hangover. They look and act like hockey players. Period.
And SRK. He is a delight. It is as if he discovered acting. He scraped the surface in Swades and found his voice and skill in Chak De. So SRK, I think you’ll admit, that you lied. That cinema is not always about escapism or glitz or larger than life. Kabir Khan was close to Shah Rukh’ heart. He was Shah Rukh. He could not play him any other way, but honestly.
I am reading Anupama Chopra’s unauthorized biography “King of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan”. We know that SRK captained the hockey team in college. His resentment towards the privileged world of cricket is real. The prayer he says in Urdu when the girls are close to losing the world cup is real. “Nasrun minal lahi wah fatahun kareeb” (God give me the strength to win). This is the same prayer he said when his mother was dying in 1991.
SRK laughs in interviews when asked about his method. He is not known to get under the skin of characters like Aamir would. It’s not Devdas. It is Shah Rukh playing Devdas. It’s not Raj or Rahul. It’s Shah Rukh playing Raj or Rahul.
But in Chak De, despite the familiar SRK mannerisms, he was Kabir Khan. And Kabir Khan spoke to me in a way the King Khan never has.