Mohabbatein opens with a railway station scene, where three young men are on their way to Gurukul – a well-reputed college headed by hate-activist and secret Dumbledore impressionist, Narayan Shankar (Amitabh Bachchan).
(I want to clarify that when I decided to summarise Mohabbatein, I had totally forgotten Uday Chopra was a part of this. I played it today and, my god. However, I had already made promises and now I must tolerate looking at Uday Chopra for 3.5 hours. This is for you, guys.)
Anyway.
So after shamelessly overexposing his odorous underarms to his unsuspecting victims, Vicky (Uday Chopra, unfortunately) says hello to Karan (Jimmy Shergill) and Sameer (Jugal Hansraj). You can tell these guys loathe him at first sight but nonetheless, they let him join them on their way to Gurukul.
Dude does not STFU. Like, for the first fifteen minutes at Gurukul, no one has said shit but this guy—about the beds, about the college, about himself. To him, everything is "KOOL NA" with a hard 'K'.
We finally meet Principal Narayan. #Boss
During the oathtaking ceremony, a speech by Principal Narayan Shankar makes the students realise that Gurukul has very, very strict rules and the most minor mistake can get you suspended.
The boys settle in. Vicky is under the impression that he is Karan and Sameer's friend, when, really, he's just an insufferable Neanderthal sharing a room with two intelligent beings. Thanks to his meddlesome nature, we find out about Sameer's love interest.
After Sameer is done dealing with this dimwit, he proceeds to tell Karan who the girl in the photo is. Her name is Sanjana (Kim Sharma)...
We also meet Vicky's new love interest - Ishika (Shamita Shetty). She's from the nearby college and Vicky catches her stealing something from the Gurukul garden.
This desperate mofo.
He even has a nickname for her – "Ishk" (love) derived from Ishika.
I have a nickname for him too – "Dicky" (peen) derived from Vicky.
After this, Sameer bumps into his childhood bestie (and love interest) Sanjana in the market. I think she may be a fish because she sounds like a dolphin and and has the calculating abilities of a sea creature.
Our boy Karan also falls in love. He sees a girl at the train station in the middle of the night looking like Alok Nath just dropped her after kanyadaan.
Upon doing some research, Karan finds out this girl's name is Kiran. That's all he knows.
Clearly, these boys have no standards for love whatsoever. They will worship anything that is pretty and has a female anatomy. Being alive or dead is unimportant at this point. And having a personality? Screw that shit. So long as it has boobs, we're good.
This girl looks like a ghost. Even if she's not one, she has sindoor in the parting of her hair which obviously means she's married, but screw that and rub one dedicated to her tonight, Karan. You deserve it now that you have joined Gurukul. I'm sure that Narayan bugger has all the fun websites blocked in the computer lab.
It is now that Karan tells us of an infamous Gurukul legend.
There was once a very good Gurukul student. Everyone thought he was going to be successful in life, but he made one mistake. He broke a Gurukul rule – he fell in love.
Narayan Shankar didn't see him or meet him but expelled him (which does not make sense to me at all BTW). And everyone knows that getting expelled from Gurukul means no other institution will take you (nonsense again).
The girl he loved committed suicide (royally dumb move again). And she was Narayan Shankar's only daughter (OHHHHHH SHEEEEIT).
The next morning some dude enters Gurukul by bribing people with flowers. Yup.
He begins playing his violin inside, which is just ridiculous behaviour and can result in the breakage of one's ass by the mighty hands of Narayan Shankar.
So yeah, the first impression went shit.
But then the interview actually happens.
So the actual interview is also shit. Mr/ Narayan is a total jerk and refuses to shake Raj Aryan's hand.
But then again, this dude applied for the job of a music teacher when playing music is against Gurukul rules. There has never been a music teacher. However, owing to Raj Aryan's annoying bubbly personality, Narayan Shankar gives him one chance.
He tells him that if he can collect enough students who would like to opt for his music class, the job is his. #BrownMrShneebly
It's time to get the students flowing in.
Raj Aryan gets the job despite being someone Narayan Shankar wouldn't normally hire. He is, in every way, the opposite of a disciplined, mannered 'teacher material' man.
He is warned by the principal to never try to change anything at Gurukul.
Which is exactly what he aims to do.
Little does everyone know that Raj Aryan is actually a terrible man who enjoys seeing students get punished and expelled after emotionally manipulating them. The very next day in his class, he makes the boys break the Gurukul gate.
This man isn't here to teach music at all, but to get the boys' raging hormones to shoot out of the roof. By showing them dreams of "gettin' some", he has distracted them conveniently from their education.
Sex is all they think about now.
Vicky blackmails Ishika into meeting him. Very gentlemanlike.
Karan is faced with a shock upon going to see Kiran at the hospital she works at. This is like the fifteenth time dude has gone to her with the same injury. And she's not even a doctor, she's just chilling there because her dad owns the place. #realmature
This should not have come as a shock. If he wasn't busy looking at Kiran's lady lumps, he would have noticed she was dressed like a bride, with henna and sindoor on, at the station earlier.
And Rose Day has a shit surprise for Sameer too.
Friendzone level 9000
While Sameer privately whines to his friends about what just happened to him, a stalkerish Raj Aryan appears out of nowhere. He's been eavesdropping like the weird ass he is.
OMG shady much?
One thing's for sure. This evil shit isn't here to teach music at all. He's crazy. He's making the lad cause a break-up just to get with a girl. Wow, very fucking ethical.
He tells the boys that the girl he fell in love with is dead but that hasn't stopped him from thinking about her all the time. In fact, he proceeds to dance with the ghost of his girlfriend.
It is clear that this is the infamous student who fell in love with Narayan Shankar's daughter (OK, it was obvious from the start).
But jokes aside, dude has a mental condition. It's called schizophrenia. Folks at Gurukul need to do a background check on who they're hiring. But they didn't give enough of a shit to check where he went to college (Gurukul) so why would they give the most diminutive of fucks about his mental condition.
So anyway, Holi arrives and Raj Aryan seeks permission from Narayan Shankar to let the students celebrate it. It appears Holi has never been celebrated at Gurukul and never will be. What a fucking brilliant example to set. Fuck tolerance for all religions and their festivals. He still doesn't allow celebrations to be held inside the campus, so students get out.
This happens in a song so obviously everyone's girl shows up. Duh.
Also, lots of sexual harassment happens at the hands of Vicky, who lifts Ishika up and prances around touching her inappropriately and making public remarks about her body. All of this goes unnoticed.
Guess who else's girlfriend shows up.... FROM THE CRYPT.
But she's obviously a figment of his imagination.
Meanwhile Karan has found out Kiran's story. Yes, she was married but on the night of her wedding, her husband left for war. He never returned. She's only 19 and lives with her in-laws who insist she fulfil the responsibilities of a daughter-in-law and take care of the home because free slave FTW.
Narayan Shankar is going out of town for a few days when Mr Raj Aryan makes another request #annoying.
He wants to hold a dance party for Gurukul students. He is granted permission but this asshole is never satisfied so he asks if he can bring girls.
Do you think Raj Aryan obeyed the rules?
While everyone's partying their pants off, guess who walks right in...
If I could sum up in one picture how Mr Narayan Shankar feels about Raj Aryan, it would be this. #SchoolOfRockRevisited
Raj promises that he will turrrn shit arooound up in dis bitch. He won't let the students go through what he went through. Love will be everywhere. Which means there will be drugs involved also. #YEEEEAH
All that aside though, I have no idea what kind of employers lose the right to firing an employee in a contract. What kind of imbecile drafted this contract? Mr Narayan, you should kill your HR guys.
With this realisation, Mr Narayan has a flashback and we are taken to the past when his daughter Megha (Aishwariya Rai) was alive. They had a great father-daughter relationship after Narayan probably-definitely killed the mother.
Beta, nobody gives a rat's ass about you.
Megha tells dad about being in love with a guy from Gurukul – our very own Raj Aryan, but before the hallucinatory drugs became a part of his life.
Despite Megha's pleading, Narayan decides against this union, expelling poor Raj Aryan Malhotra from Gurukul at once. This puts Megha in deep depression and she makes the most practical move possible; she kills herself by jumping (falling?) off the balcony.
Let's take a look at some less drastic steps that could have been taken:
- Uh. At least fucking talk to your dad a second time?
- Involve another family member
- 'Threaten' to kill yourself
- Go on a hunger strike
- Run away with Raj
- Be alive
But nope. I wish this part of the story was convincing but it's not.
Narayan Shankar lets Raj Aryan stay so he can prove to him that rules are the shiznit and 'change' is stupid. #ChallengeAccepted
Raj is on his game and spreading love like an STD.
He teaches Karan to play the piano (well enough to teach) in ONE DAY so that he can give classes to Kiran's nephew. That sounds completely realistic.
Trust me, guys. It can happen. It took me only one day to learn how to play Pokemon Emerald on my Gameboy. Shit is trickier than the piano, everyone knows.
He emotionally blackmails her into dancing for him and she does. Poor girl.
As for Vicky the Turd, he's been chosen to dance with Ishika for a college competition.
Who graciously let this happen? The same Narayan Shankar who pooped his pants with fury when he saw a dance party at his college.
They are preparing for the performance.
Even our innocent widdle Sameer is getting it on by being a white knight.
Sanjana's boyfriend dunks her into the pool at a party, suddenly making her feel naked. That's funny because the dress wasn't see-through and the water didn't pull the already plunging neckline down any further.
He covers her up with his white coat, but once they're out of the party and in the street, it's all chaddies and kabaddies, my friend. Sexy dancing, feeling things up. #GetItSameer
Raj Aryan and Narayan Shankar continue to have conflicts in more ways than one.
#OHHHHHHHH
All three girls are in love with their boys! WTF happened in one night, you ask? This.
Since the boys are now always out at night getting it on with the girls, they get warned by Narayan Shankar.
Despite this stern warning, for which the very lenient love-dove Mr Raj Aryan is responsible, there is still romance being discussed in class. On February 14, Raj Aryan tells his story to the class.
He tells them about his first ever love note to Megha, to which she replied, and their love blossomed thenceforth.
Vicky clearly tells Ishika that he's in love with her.
Sameer has to give Sanjana a note because she is too thick to understand anything.
Karan tells Kiran he loves her and she's like "hey ILY 2"
But when they are caught in the act by her father- and sister-in-law, she totally flips. #bitchalert
No worries though, since later Kiran's father-in-law adopts a fuckall attitude and lets her do whatever she wants to. So she shows up to the "area Valentine's day party". Yes, there is such a thing here. Everyone dresses up like they're getting married and then they dance dat ass off to some Bolly beats.
You can tell by the subtitles that the drugs used in this 'festival' were of a high potency.
BUT WAIT A SECOND. This is all happening outside of Gurukul and crossing those gates is forbidden! Oh shit... Narayan Shankar's going to whoop y'all ass.
The three students have broken too many rules to be forgiven. But Narayan Shankar gives them one last chance... The answer to one question will determine whether they stay or go #KonBanegaCrorepatiVibes
Sameer, Karan and Vicky are told to pack their bags and perpaer deir ansu for tomorrow morning, where they will be humiliated and told to GTFO in an assembly.
Narayan Shankar has proven that fear is more powerful than love. He hates change and he will forever hate it. Gurukul will forever remain the same.
The old man realises that love does conquer all. Playing by the rules is shit.
Gurukul is now going to be headed by Raj Aryan and so it's going to be faaaaabulous!
As a token of friendship, Raj Aryan shares a special imported hallucinatory drug with Narayan Shankar. Thanks to it, now both can see and chill with dead people. #FriendshipIsMagic
Moral of the story
Shah Rukh Khan always wins.