Jaa Simran, jaa: 5 lines to drop as DDLJ heads to Broadway

It struck a chord with Indians around the world, becoming the biggest Bollywood hit of the year and raking in over ₹100 crore worldwide. It has run uninterrupted at the Maratha Mandir theatre in Mumbai since its release, with a break from March 2020 to October 2021 when theatres were closed amid the pandemic; it is now being screened there again, once a day.

It was DDLJ that turned Shah Rukh Khan into India’s ultimate romantic hero, and the chemistry between him and Kajol was so endearing, they would go on to play star-crossed lovers over and over for years.

In the film, the couple’s troubles arise from the fact that Simran’s father doesn’t consider Raj Indian enough (he was raised abroad). More vitally, he has promised his daughter in marriage to his friend’s son, at birth. Throughout the film, these are presented not as crimes of prejudice and parental overreach but as the way things are done, as conventions not to be toyed with.

Simran, the quintessential good girl, finds enough of a spine to plan an elopement. But Raj, with “true Indian values”, won’t run with her. Instead, he bows to her father’s wishes and gets on a train to leave. Watching the train start to move away in the 1990s was hard enough. One wondered, would Bauji really not release her?

In October 2021, writer and director Aditya Chopra announced that his iconic film was being turned into a Broadway musical. Titled Come Fall in Love: The DDLJ Musical, it is set to premiere in September 2022. It’s a changed world that will experience the story, 27 years on. Will Simran be different? Will Raj? Will Bauji? Hoping for all of the above, Wknd picks five lines to hit delete on, from the much-loved tale.

A 2022 Simran could perhaps jee her own zindagi without waiting for quite so many permission slips. It would be nice to see her gain some agency, craft a life that was not so buffeted by the decisions of others. It would be nice, in a do-over, to see a more assertive Raj too.

“The film is thoroughly enjoyable. I have watched it multiple times. But the extreme conservatism of DDLJ is something I don’t agree with,” says Meenakshi Shedde, an independent film curator and South Asia delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival. “The biggest irony of the film is that Raj spends only a quarter of it wooing Simran, he spends three-quarters of its runtime wooing his future father-in-law.”

With things as they ended in the original tale, it’s hard to imagine happy family get-togethers in the years that followed. Sitting around the table would be the subdued mother who tried to help the two lovers elope only to find that Raj wouldn’t go; the gloating Bauji; the husband who might have sailed away… surely even Simran would feel some resentment at how it all played out.

Main jaanta hoon ki ek Hindustani ladki ki izzat kya hoti hai (I know what honour means to an Indian girl): In Khan’s able hands, Raj becomes a charming if somewhat bumbling and flawed young man. Perhaps without Khan’s inherent charisma, we would have seen the character for the casually cruel, rather thoughtless man he often is. The first time they meet, a bra falls out of Simran’s suitcase, and he snatches it up and tosses it about, despite her mortification. Later he pretends to have lipstick marks all over his torso, as a sort of good-morning prank, after the two are forced to share a room. When she begins to panic, trying to remember how this could have happened, he mouths what is perhaps the most universally offensive line of the film: Nothing happened between us, because I know what honour is to an Indian woman. Honour, Indian, woman… it’s just a mess of patriarchy and prejudice.

Iss ek mahine mein, main apni poori zindagi jee loongi. Kya aap… mujhe ek mahina bhi nahin de sakte? (I will live my whole life in one month. Can you not please give me just one month?): It’s with this speech that Simran begs and eventually convinces her father to let her go on her solo trip through Europe, so she can see the world, know some joy, experience some freedom. Before she heads into a marriage with a man she barely knows, and is unsure about marrying, even before she meets Raj.

Ek baar shaadi ho jaane dijiye. Phir Simran rahegi yahaan par, aur hum honge London mein. Phir aapki woh phuljhariyon se bhi mil lenge (Let my wedding be done with. Then Simran will stay here, and I will be in London. And I can meet these sparklers you speak of): Raj’s father is trying to get Simran’s fiancé to incriminate himself, and he does, with this line. But perhaps Simran’s fiancé need not be a terrible person. Perhaps the pairing of Raj and Simran can be a question of chemistry, love and individual choice. That would be a charming Indian production to have on Broadway in the 21st century.

Chopra has reportedly worked on the musical for three years. Typically reclusive, he won’t talk about it. Did he change the plot, the script, the characters? If Shedde had to guess, she says the answer would most likely be no.

“DDLJ the musical would be aimed at an NRI audience. Many of whom are much more conservative than people in India today. They hang on much deeper to traditions that were in force when they left the country, decades ago,” Shedde says. “Even if Aditya Chopra doesn’t change anything about the story, it might suit its new audience perfectly.”