Every director has his pet theme. For Kjo it’s love between human beings, regardless of the marital status and/or sexual preferences. Love your father. Love your mother. Love your pesky khadoos neighbor; if that’s not possible at least love his wife. For Factory-owner, RGV, it’s the brooding bad a-s-s Bhais or Bhoots haunting standard - 2 + 2 + sexy sis-in-law - families in creepy apartments and dilapidated bungalows - the stuff I don’t like; Behens gyrating in bare-all bikinis in Juhu beach - the stuff I like.
Suraj Bharjatya of Rajashri, has his obsession too - Marriage. The bloke’s obsessed with Marriage of all sorts. It started with - I married a poor girl after watching her in a revealing outfit (aka Maine Pyaar Kiya). It continued with ’Oops! I nearly married your brother’ (HAHK), Cheaper by the seven (Hum Saath Saath hain) and , nearly, stalled with ’I got married to get over fascination with [my own] man-tits’ ( Main Prem Ki Deewani Hoon). Now that was a hard-sell to buy for the most fanatic ’Marriages-are-made-in-Heaven’ - but packaged by Rajashri - brigade! So our bloke, Suraj, decides to return to his roots - pure Marriage once more, oblivious to the fact that India’s population is bursting at it’s seams. We don’t need more marriages, if anything we need lesser of them! We need movies like KANK that inpire us to divorce our spouses and go single for a few years.
Coming to the movie, Vivah means marriage in Hindi, not to be confused with Vivadh (arguments) that follows it. The story begins in the idyllic village of Madhupur (honeypot), a place located to the north of JhumriTalaiyya, and south of Alibaug. In this model village, our heroine Poonam lives unspoilt, ignorant of evil stuff like Britney Spears smooching Madonna, Janet Jacksons Wardrobe malfunction etc., since her Sanskari (or is it makkichoos?) babuji hasn’t got the cable hooked up. Poonam spends her life performing charan-pooja (feet worship) of babuji Chandrakanth [Aloknath - who else?] while not watching ’Krishi Darshan’, still getting beamed on DD-channel lost in a time-warp.
On the other side of world [Mumbai] an Industrialist, Mr. Harish Chandra is worried about his second son, Prem [how original!] , who has been spending time playing squash with his boy friends instead of dating hot babes - coming open as gay. A marriage broker comes to the rescue with the proposal from Babuji and a photo of Poonam. One look at the photo and our guy Prem agree to the marriage! Makes one wonder - was he was brought up in the megacity of Mumbai? or the megacaves of Elephanta, with only the blurred archaeological skteches for female companionship?
Since Shani, Mangal, Rahu, Ketu etc. don’t agree, marriage is fixed six months after the enagement. So the couple go for a romantic picnic at ’Som Sarovar’ [someone please request a topic] with the whole extended family, including aunts, uncles, their dogs, their cats... you get the drift.
While the bhaiya-bhabhi turn ’Me Tarzan You Jane’ in the sarovar, instead of taking a cue, our unwed couple are still stealing glances. Prem’s shown trying to impress his would-be through a show of his wares [I mean biceps]. Once he does dare to approach his fiance sans his shirt, to a fearful oh-god-I-am-gonna-get-raped-here look from our ganga-jaisi-pavithra Poonam. He does backtrack reassuring her of his noble intentions - ’Don’t be scared. I came to collect my shirt [and not to rape you]’; Sort of things a guy would say to his fiancee.
After the picnic the lovebirds keep calling each other, more like Prem keeps calling Poonam. If you expect to find them discussing naughty-naughty things you’ll be sorely disappointed. The discussion centers over bhaiya-bhabhi, the office work, colleagues etc. with an occassional subtle I-miss-yous.
Anyways, the guy flies to Tokyo to finalize some big deal there. Don’t ask silly questions like how come a successful businessman like Harish Chandra would entrust such a huge undertaking to his moron son who has of late been acting like an absent-minded lovesick puppy. Remember, it’s Bollywood where the writers have the absolute unquestionable right to massacre the story as they deem fit. Anyways, nothing’s shown of the way Prem finalizes the deal. Instead, for the coy and shy guy he’s supposed to be, he’s shown dancing with Airhostesses, office bomshell and even a guy(!) on his way back home eager to celebrate his suhaag-raat! [in a poorly designed Airplane set]
In the meantime, some relatives act truant, some mishaps ensue. Gallons of glycerine later, true love [or is it the eagerness to get laid, after waiting for six long months?] conquers all. The couple get married and get into bed. And like a true sanskari director Suraj switches off the lights, so we don’t get an inkling of the dirty stuff that happens later.
A marriage successfully consummated. Mission accomplished.