Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna turns 20: Shah Rukh Khan’s most stinging, raw role after the smarmy Rahuls and Rajs

Sochke shaadi kaun karta hai?

A rather wistful laugh follows. It's an unusual SRK laugh, short, but stops short of being bitter.

Shah Rukh Khan's Dev Saran is sitting with Rani Mukerji's Maya, a few minutes before her wedding. He has just emerged victorious from a football match, probably the last time in the film that he is filled with such zeal and joy.

Unlike the wistful, dreamy Rahuls and Rajs of yore that have dissected endlessly, we're introduced to a man, who is already married. He isn't unhappy. But, he isn't sure whether he is happy, either. It's an unusual premise for a Bollywood film at that time, where most films with SRK from the 90s to 2000s would lead you to believe: Marriage was the happy ending.

But, this is where Karan Johar poked holes in the Bollywood myths.

Is it, always?

Dev and Riya were college friends, and decided to give their friendship a new twist: Marriage. This decision wasn't wrong; you can find love in your best friend, but, in the long term, it doesn't prove to be right either.

The marriage is already fraying at the edges, hidden by seemingly light barbs. Riya doesn't come for Dev's football match, and he doesn't remember their anniversary. But they pull ahead. As Dev says, they've made their life. He doesn't know whether they're happy. But they're settled.

And in the midst of it all, he meets Rani Mukerji's Maya, an almost runaway bride, sitting on a park bench, unsure of whether she really wants to spend the rest of her life with a man that she has seen only as a close friend.

In a rare occasion for Bollywood at that time, the two just muse at this point. Dev isn't going to give her the answer, because, he, himself doesn't know.

"What did you think love was, something they show in bad books and bad films?"

"No...the way love usually is," Maya answers.

This conversation is one of the most profound exchanges in a Karan Johar film. For once, there doesn't need to be the flair, or drama, just a few words exchanged by strangers, trying to understand what love really is. Dev doesn't answer the question whether he is in love with his wife, Maya takes a while to say that she is in love with Rishi.

In this context, the scene reimagines Johar’s famous Kuch Kuch Hota Hai dialogue, where SRK had flamboyantly said, “Pyaar dosti hai” (love is friendship), explaining that he couldn’t love someone until they were his best friend.

However, the phrase imbued with a rather unsettling sense of practicality in KANK. As Maya explains, sometimes friendship itself can be so overwhelming that there’s no room left for love. As SRK says with amused resignation, the days of epic love have faded. Just get by with a little romance. Another dialogue that is more profound than most of the Bollywood films today, "Mohabbat ka Zamana guzar gaye janaab. Chote mote pyaar se kaam chala dijiye."

She gets married, nonetheless.

And right after this conversation, Dev has an accident. His life has changed; he's a hollow shell of who he used to be. Every conversation, exchange with him is bait for a larger argument, and yet he still demands some comfort. One instance that drives this home: He is waiting for his wife Riya after her jog. She asks if he's ready to go home. He snaps. Irritated, she walks off, and he mutters, "I thought we would go home together."

His marriage begins to buckle under the weight of his own misery, as his wife is exhausted with his words, while trying to lead a successful job to manage a household and a child. He is constantly reactive, to the point that a simple request about changing his suit scrapes an already-gaping wound. Neither does he give Rhea a chance to bandaid these grievous wounds, let alone heal them.

So, he keeps hurting her with words and slights. it's a crushing role, for SRK, who, despite his reluctance, was crowned as the King of Romance in Bollywood. Yet, it's the most raw realism of a man, who blames everyone around him for his shattered dreams.  

He has nothing supportive to say about Riya, when she tries to tell him about a lucrative career opening in London. “It’s always about you, you and you.” In a searing scene, Rhea cracks and chides him for his unsuccessful life, intentionally hurting him. “How does that feel? Pain. That’s all you have ever given me.”

It’s a seething storm of bitterness and Rhea is tired of trying to break through, rightfully so.

Dev's hollowness is somewhat reduced, with Maya. She doesn’t mollify or pamper him by any means; but they share a peculiar understanding of what it means, to feel hollow and inadequate in their relationships.  And after many heated words, the two decide to save their marriage and are so half-hearted with their attempts, and instead, fall in love, while unfortunately, breaking the hearts of their spouses.

KANK is flawed for a lot of reasons, no doubt. However, SRK’s portrayal of a broken, bitter man is somehow visceral: You hate Dev; you hate what he does to Rhea, but you are drawn to the actor. The smarminess of the Rajs and Rahuls are; SRK hurts you with his bitter explosions. He is almost haunting as he plays a man, drowning in his insecurities and failures. He blames himself, and he blames his wife.

He is that father who projects his unfulfilled dreams on his child.

And yet, it’s different, and for once, there’s no excessive romanticisation and justification of his toxicity, which was a problem that had followed his romantic leads throughout the 90s, and that’s a discussion for another day, as much has already been written about it.

In KANK, he is toxic. Everyone knows it. Could the story have focussed on Rhea getting her happy ending instead of Dev? Yes, I wish it did.

Nevertheless, Dev knows that he is the most difficult, cantankerous human being. He knows that even if he did find love; he had broken someone else’s heart. It’s not enough reparation, but his final words to Maya at the end of the film offer some solace: “I want to share my punishment with you.”

Dev Saran is a deeply unforgivable character. But, it’s one of SRK’s best and most grey, because Dev Sarans are always amongst us, while Rahul, Rajs are just the dream.