Let Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge run!

Iconic Bollywood film was briefly taken down from Mumbai’s Maratha Mandir theatre after a 1009-week run

KARACHI: After an unprecedented run of 1,009 weeks, iconic Bollywood film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge was briefly taken down from Mumbai’s Maratha Mandir Theatre yesterday only to return today after diehard fans went into a frenzy.

As soon as news broke, hundreds of fans rang up Maratha Mandir pleading to the management to let it run. According to latest reports, the Maratha Mandir management has decided to extend the film’s show-time for another week after which it will meet DDLJ director and also head of Yash Raj Films Aditya Chopra to decide whether to take it down or extend it for another year.

.@DDLJ Forever! The iconic movie ran it's final show today at Maratha Mandir but it will live on in our hearts - http://t.co/yxg2LoAsZN

— DDLJ (@DDLJ) February 19, 2015

As the biggest fan (self-proclaimed) of Dilwale and Shah Rukh, all of this is obviously really really important to me. More so because just last week I saw it on the big screen in a Dubai cinema for the very first time after having watched it on television close to a hundred times. And ever since then, I have been thinking of ways to pay tribute to it. Love it or not, you cannot deny that an entire generation has grown up looking up to Raj and Simran as the quintessential messiahs of love. I have. But how do you pay tribute to a film that has been talked about, written about, loved, cherished and, most importantly, viewed successively for almost 20 years?

And then I thought, isn’t paying to watch a film you have already seen over and over and over again the ultimate expression of love and affection for it? Fans kept the film running for 1,009 weeks, a world record. That itself has to be the greatest tribute ever. Executive Director Maratha Mandir Theatre Manoj Desai recently stated in an interview that some fans had seen Dilwale at his cinema over 500 times and were still coming in regularly. Apparently, another fan had been watching it every Tuesday for the last four years.

“Once, a boy proposed to his girlfriend during interval. The couple came back to watch the movie after they got married saying they had just returned from the honeymoon and wanted to watch it again because that’s where ‘it all began’ for them,” Desai said in an interview.

Watching Dilwale on the big screen isn’t the same as watching it on TV, obviously. What I experienced last week was surreal. I hadn’t realised before that Shah Rukh danced like a pro on Ruk ja O dil deewanay; Amrish Puri’s eyes appeared even bigger and more frightening during the climax; Kajol’s, on the other hand, appeared more hazel. Na janay meray dil ko kya ho gaya sounded even more melodic and Punjab looked prettier as Raj and Simran embraced each other singing Tujhey dekha toh yeh jana sanam. I had a lovely time and I genuinely enjoyed every bit of the film even though I knew exactly who would say what when.

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Thousands of fans probably watched it at the Maratha Mandir Theatre over the last 20 years. And I am sure a thousand more will watch it if it is allowed to run for another 20 years.

Mr Manoj Desai, Mr Aditya Chopra, if you are reading this, please… PLEASE… let Dilwale run. Twenty years ago you asked us to ‘Come… Fall In Love’. We came. We fell in love. Allow us to remain in love. Allow us to continue paying tribute to the greatest film ever made.

The writer tweets @hassanchoudary