Not knowing what to do, I hijacked a conference car with a friend of mine who I was meeting after ages and decided to go and see Amber fort. On the way to the fort, we passed a theatre called Rajmandir, which was showing Hum Saath Saath Hain (HSSH). Something clicked in my mind and I remembered my sister, a year or so ago, telling me about this theatre; that people go to Rajmandir not necessarily to see the film, but to look at the theatre itself. Intrigued by this and since neither of us had seen HSSH, we decided to see the movie and gave up the idea of Amber fort.

The current booking window was to open only at 2.00PM, so we had lunch and came back at a half past two. Interestingly, there were two queues at the current booking window; one for "ladies", which was empty and one for "gents", which had about 10 men or so. Since we were eligible for the "ladies" queue, we immediately got our two tickets, costing forty rupees each, for the "Emerald" seats, as against the "Diamond" seats, costing fifty rupees, which had already been sold out. We found out later that these were considered astronomical sums in Jaipur, whereas in Mumbai, there is hardly a theatre left where we can see a movie for less than fifty rupees. I wonder if theatre ticket rates are a better indicator of differences in the cost of living.

We entered the theatre to find ourselves in a huge foyer, which resembled a gaudy, villain's den from a 70s film. Red and blue carpeting, chandeliers, dim yellow lights and curved landings. Good toilets though. Reasonably decent eatables, though there was no fresh popcorn, especially the caramelized kind that I have become used to in Mumbai. But, as I realized later, this was an apt place for a film like HSSH. The seats however were far from royal and I was cramped in the middle of a long row with leg-space worse than on a Jet Airways plane.

Do I really have to talk about the film?

If Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (HAHK) was two weddings and a funeral (sorry for being a bit mean), HSSH is a wedding anniversary, two engagements, two weddings and a bit of the Ramayana. Sooraj Barjatya, the director, is probably the best wedding videocameraman around. Do I need to say anything more?

Let's look at the good points for a change, though and I'll bullet them, for easier reading.
* Saif Ali Khan as the youngest of three brothers. He is good.
* Terrific production values. The best wedding video around.
* Decent ensemble acting

Obviously the irritants far outweigh the good stuff.
* Chauvinism. The film shouts out from the roof-tops that a happy family is one where the women stay at home, cook, serve and then eat only after the men have finished. Sonali Bendre plays a doctor, who falls in love with Salman Khan, the middle brother. This remark made by someone says it all, "I wonder how she will handle the change from being a doctor to being a house-wife", while Sonali blushes.
* Awful songs.
* In the first half, it appears as if the movie is an advertisement for toothpaste and dental care. Everyone smiles all the time. The camera pans to a face and "smile". How are you? "Smile". Hi, I am Vivek. "Smile". God!
* Sooraj Barjatya thinks all Indians are idiots. To make sure that the audience doesn't forget the innumerable, complex relationships shown in the movie, sentences like "She is his brother", "I am your sister", are repeated ad nauseum in some form or the other.
* The repeated extolling of the virtues of living together as a joint family. That to separate the sons after marriage and to give them their own businesses and houses, is a crime. Are you kidding? The only way to keep families from fighting is to make sure that the sons are "settled" separately, before the father dies, so that they do not fight later on. What kind of a world does Sooraj live in anyway!

I had mentioned this in an earlier review and it is a thought that keeps coming back to me. How can a film like this be such a great hit in places like the US and UK? I was discussing this with my friend and she had a simplistic answer; that people abroad are pining for "family-related" stuff due to their isolation from the "Indian" diaspora, and that is why these films are a hit. I am not sure. Even in India, most urban areas have seen tremendous erosion of so-called family values and HSSH is not such a great hit here. There must be a particular psychology that escapes me, at work here.

Anyway, the film ended at 6.00PM and our cab driver, probably hijacked by someone else, did not turn up to pick us up. I had to be at the airport in 45 minutes. In Jaipur, as in most cities in India, you cannot hail cabs on the road. We asked an auto-rickshaw driver to take us to the nearest taxi stand; when he found out we wanted to go to the airport, he promised to take us there in 20 minutes flat, failing which, I wouldn't have to pay him. It is only after I reached the airport that I realized that the James Bond movie, Octopussy, which had shown those auto-rickshaw stunts, had been shot in Jaipur. Except for flying in the air, our driver just about managed every other trick in the book, including driving in the face of oncoming traffic, swerving and tilting between trucks, passing cars, tail-gating bicycles and almost running over pedestrians.

And then at Mumbai airport I got into a cab, where the driver didn't know how to get to Matunga.