Shahrukh Khan’s projection of bollywood history in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.
In the film Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, there was a dance sequence where Shahrukh Khan along with Anushka Sharma, showed the style of dance performances propagated by the leading stars of bollywood over the years.
Composer Salim Sulaiman composed the tunes for the modernized version of the legendary songs and Sonu Nigam sang them after representing the style of singing of all the stalwarts of the different decades. Shahrukh Khan showed the style of Raj Kapoor with a costume that the showman wore in the film Shree 420, while Kajol showed the style of Nargis. The form of the dance presentation was related to the era of Raj Kapoor, although the mannerism was evolved by Shahrukh Khan.
Dev Anand’s style was also depicted by Shahrukh Khan with Bipasha Basu playing the part of both Nutan and Sadhna. The songs included some of the hit songs of Dev during the 50s, 60s. Shammi Kapoor’s rock and roll style was also displayed with Helen’s performance replicated by Lara Dutta. Someway or the other the music of Shankar Jaikishan could not be matched or replicated.
Rajesh Khanna’s style was also depicted by Shahrukh Khan with Preeti Zinta depicting the mannerisms of Sharmila Tagore. Also Rishi Kapoor’s mannerisms were shown by Shahrukh Khan with Rani Mukherjee playing the part played by Neetu Singh. The producers, directors, choreographers of the film Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi claim that the selections of actresses were based with their similarity with the stars of the different ages.
But in respect of conveying the message of domination of the respective stars of the different periods of time, there were lot of disparity. Firstly performances of giants like Dilip Kumar in the 50s, Joy Mukherjee or Biswajeet in the 60s, Amitabh Bacchan in the 70s were not found in the show.
Secondly as far as actresses were concerned very significantly the powerful dancers of the 50s and 60s were not shown at all like Vaijayantimala, or Asha Parekh, or Wahida Rehman. In fact, most of the dance sequences of the golden age, especially the 50s and 60s were dependant on the sheer brilliance of Vaijayantimala, Wahida Rehman, Rajashree, Mumtaz, etc., as most of the actors other than Shammi Kapoor and Jeetender were not specialized in dancing in serious sense of the term.
Another thing that is evident was that Shahrukh Khan could not create any magic out of the dance sequence relating to bollywood history, the way he amazed the viewers with his dance sequence in Om Shanti Om. In that film, he danced with all the leading stars of golden age and modern age like Dharmender, Jeetender, Rekha, Shabana Azmi and Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Bobby Deol, etc.
The film Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi had done moderate business and could not match the expectation of viewers who were used to see Shahrukh Khan’s blockbusters like Kabi Alvida Na Kehna, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, etc.