Kal Ho Naa Ho, Part 4

Shot of a bridge at twilight, then a cut to Naina, waiting under a red umbrella by the Wall Street bull statue and bitching about the rain. Saif Ali Khan comes running up and jumps over a fence, but freezes mid-jump, as Naina realizes that she forgot to do the Saif Ali Khan voiceover. We rewind to show him running backwards and into an elevator, then back to an office. The video plays forward again as he talks on the phone, and Naina voiceovers that this is Rohit Patel, son of Karsanbhai and Sarlabhen Patel, who are among the richest Gujaratis in America, and whose food chain Dial-a-Dhokla is quite popular in America. They should expand into theme restaurants with random Indian junk nailed to the walls and servers who wear buttons that say stuff like, “We’re not in Gujarat any more!” That would be popular, and awesome. Rohit lives alone in New York, and has made no progress in the advertising world for the last three years. He has a pretty nice corner office for someone who sucks at advertising. As Rohit leaves the office, he tells someone to have fun in the Hamptons, then tries to ask out the receptionist Julia, but some guy with an Eastern European accent beats him to it.

Naina voiceovers that Rohit isn’t as cool as he thinks he is, but that he never stops trying. An elevator opens to reveal a dark-haired woman on a cell phone who looks like Stacy from What Not to Wear. The incidental music sings, “Hey girl! Any girl will do!” signaling that a lifelong romance is about to blossom. Rohit edges past a tall black man standing near the front of the elevator and nods at the woman. He says “Hey gorgeous,” then hits on her in Hindi because he has Hindi-Speaking Person Telepathy. She responds in Hindi that she is married, in a voice that suggests that she learned her lines phonetically. Rohit says so what, and she says she’s married to the other guy in the elevator. They make kind of an odd couple, what with the standing stiffly several feet away from each other and not making eye contact through this whole conversation, but I shouldn’t judge their relationship. The elevator doors open to reveal the guy holding Rohit up by the neck as his wife screams, “Put him down, Lou! Put him down!” So does Lou speak Hindi as well? Rohit adjust his tie, remembers that he’s late, and runs out of S.B.Y. Advertising Agency. As Rohit jumps over the fence again and walks up to Naina, she voiceovers that she’s taken M.B.A. classes with him for the last year.

Naina asks Rohit if he got hit again, so apparently this whole macking on people in the elevator in front of their significant others and then getting beaten up thing happens to him a lot. They talk about what they did that weekend. Naina went to Paris and London, but only sarcastically, and Rohit’s weekend was rocking. He and Laila were in the same room, in the same bed, all weekend long. Naina looks disgusted as Rohit pumps his fist in a manner indicating the occurrence of sexual intercourse. Cut to Rohit’s apartment, where two nearly empty glasses of wine sit on a coffee table next to a copy of FHM with Tara Reid on the cover. I wonder what a movie starring Saif Ali Khan and Tara Reid would be like. I’m thinking it would be a train wreck of fabulousness. The camera pans up to a pair of feet sticking out from under a sheet as Rohit laughs, “No, no, Laila, stop it. Stop it, Laila.” It pans further up to Rohit’s face, which is being licked by his dog, Laila. Wait, so why does Rohit want Naina to think that he and the dog are having sex?

Part 3 Part 5