amedia

So we're watching Mohabbatein, which was recommended to us, and also stars a couple of our favorite actors--TODS is an admirer of Amitabh Bachchan, and we both like Sharukh Khan.

We're about an hour into it, and there's a comic-relief scene in which a clownish middle-aged man is trying to woo a highly-resistant middle-aged woman, and he's singing her a song . . . TODS paused when I gestured near the beginning of the song, and I said, "I know that melody! That's 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai'!" And indeed, it was. They had a lot of fun in the dialogue playing around with the lyrics until finally she slapped his face and stalked away. (Still, I kept hearing Uhura's voice from "Mirror, Mirror": "You know the rules. I protest, and you. come. back!")

So why is that the least bit remarkable? Because the same song was mentioned in Ra.One (of execrable memory). And it's featured in Dostana, when one of the guys arranges an informal outdoor theater so he can re-enact one of the dances from the movie Kuch Kuch Kota Hai while playing the music on his iPod. (Which means that Sharukh Khan, the star of Kuch Kuch Kota Hai and almost every other Bollywood movie since about 1990, appeared in Dostana even though he actually wasn't in Dostana--you can see him in the background on the impromptu movie screen as Kunal, in the foreground, is imitating his moves.)

Is this, like, the universal Bollywood movie song or what?!!! One of these days I'm gonna have to break down and actually see the movie Kuch Kuch Kota Hai, although it sounds even more soap-opera-ish than Kal Ho Na Ho, a well-regarded movie with which I had very little patience.