Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Part 4

Last Time: THE BIGGEST DIWALI EVER.

Outside the Raichand mansion, Rani and Rahul are running in exercise gear. Rani is in the lead with Rahul perving, "Come here, come here!" Winded from their 5-second sprint in front of the cameras, the two start ambling side-by-side. "Oh, God, it's so good I've come home," says Rahul, stretching. "Yes it is," replies Rani, with way too much fervor, which she quickly tries to cover up by changing the tone. Unfortunately, she immediately careens into the worst possible topic for a girl who's trying (poorly) to play it cool: "Eh Rahul, while you were gone I sent you letters, e-mails, faxes... And I never got one reply. Very rude."

"MBA's a tough job, Naina," Rahul sidesteps, indulging in some guyspeak for "I don't care for communiques scented with Desperate."

Naina (yay, we finally know her name) is less than convinced by this. Looking at Sweaty!SRK, I don't blame her for her skepticism. "Was it something else, or someone else, who kept you busy?" she wants to know. I want to know if she'd have better success scrawling ILU BB on her forehead, but maybe he doesn't read text talk.

Rahul swaggers a little. "More than one. You know me." I bet she's wondering why she knows him, but, haha, I'm wrong, Naina is all into playing this game. "Yeah, you stud you." "Yah, me stud me," he agrees, pretending like he's joking. Ha. Ha. Naina laughs through her teeth. "Tell me now, Rahul." "What do you think, Naina?" he asks, because darn it, his ego just isn't big enough and it's so much fun to lead on the girl who clearly hangs on your every word! Better make sure she sticks around in case something better doesn't come along!

Naina just can't help herself; once again, she plays along. "I think that..." "What do you think?" "I think, Rahul..." "What do you think, Naina?" "I think that nobody but me has as much time to waste on you." Oh, tiny burn! Like, not cigarette-sized burn, but maybe the spent head of the match that lit the cigarette. Rahul acts like she actually has enough influence over his feelings to make him wince, but it's a pretty half-hearted effort. "Anyway," she adds, "If you had a girl you wouldn't know what to do with her."

"Oh really?" Rahul asks, as both he and I stifle our laughter because yeaaaaahhh, right, I'm sure he spent all those years as a monk in his dorm room. Whatevs. "Is this done with a girl?" He reaches over to fiddle with her tank top shoulder strap. Well, that's a nice start, Rahul. Naina doesn't share my opinion because Yash can totally see her out the window, so she smacks Rahul's hand away. And then keeps on smacking because: any excuse for skin-to-skin contact! Oh dear God, high school. It's all coming back to me now like a bad LSD flashback.

"Achcha, did you remember me at all?" she asks, turning her head so he can't see how much it means to her. Not that it works, but, again, A for effort. Bouncy poppy music starts up, with happy voices going "doo doo!" "Should I tell the truth or a lie?" Rahul asks. "Lie," she replies. "If I have to lie then I'd say... I did not remember you at all." Yeah, he remembered you Naina, especially when he filed that just-in-case restraining order after the letter signed in blood. Not that that's weird, or anything. "How sweet," she beams. Sap.

"Sweet, na?" he agrees. "Now let's talk about you." He wraps his arm around her and she immediately presses as much of her side against him as she can while still walking. "Are you still the same or is some crazy guy interested in you?" He's gotta make sure he keeps the field clear. Naina gets a faraway look like she's thinking about that shallow grave behind her house. She says, "What do you think?" Oh, it's like a game thing between them. "I think..." "What do you think, Rahul?" She's a little sad and totally serious, staring at him; he's turned his head in the opposite direction and couldn't care less. "I think it's..." Now she's starting to lose patience. "What do you think, Rahul?"

Rahul, realizing he's skirting perilously close to the edge with a Good Match, takes the wuss way out. "I think, Naina..." He edges behind her, puts his hands on her shoulders. "I will beat you to that door." Naina spares a second to scream "You're such an ASS--" in her head, because even in her head Naina doesn't say the entire word, and then smirks. "Really?" "Really," he replies. "Don't bet on it," she sneers, and elbows his sternum before taking off for the entryway. He gives her the satisfaction, again, of pretending that it hurt a little, before tearing off after her. She lateral-passes her water bottle at him, he tries to grab it, they're both laughing, it's actually pretty cute.

No running for Rohan, of course, who's watching a cricket game inside on TV while eating a burger or some sort of sandwich. He yells at the screen, "Out out out come on yes!" Daijaan twirls by him, takes the sandwich, and reminds him about school. Rahul saunters through the door and grabs the sandwich from Daijaan. He pretends to give the sandwich back to Rohan, then snatches it away from his brother's open mouth and takes a bit. "What's the score?" Rahul wants to know. They engage in some incomprehensible cricket talk (in all fairness, I have to admit that even if they were talking about basketball I'd probably still have no idea what was going on) that ends with "God, bhaiyya, I think India's going to kill England!" Rahul's not so sure: "Anything can happen in the last minute. Don't count on them too much; you never know with India, Rohan."

Daijaan dances into frame and promptly erases the effect of Rahul's disturbingly un-jingoistic assessment. "Out out out, what's the big deal?" she says. "England was out of India in 1947!" Thanks, Karan, I'm sure everyone in India forgot in the shock of Rahul's betrayal. "D.J., that was a p.j.," Rohan complains. Does that stand for poor joke? Daijaan ignores this in favor of hefting Rohan's leg into her lap. Rahul demands, "He still hasn't learned to tie his shoelaces?" I'm with Rahul, that's ridiculous. It does, though, leave Rohan's hands free to continue eating the sandwich he got back from his brother somehow. Daijaan brushes off Rahul with a "he'll learn," and Rohan replies, "Not if you don't let him do it himself," which, again, salient point, but then he acts like a jerk and smacks his brother while calling him "fatty." JERK. "Why did you come back from England again?" Rohan complains, but then everyone's distracted by Nandini coming in.

"What's going on?" she asks. Rahul calls Rohan fat again, and she laughs, because weight-based bullying is hilarious! Good on you, bhaiyya! "Yeah, laugh it up, because I'm going to boarding school and THEN YOU'LL BE SORRY," Rohan retorts. "Nobody loves me!"

Daijaan coos and hugs him, but Rahul's not feeling the pain. "BTW, Fatty, Maa loves me more than you," he crows. Nandini... doesn't deny it. Wow. All I Ever Needed To Know About Parenting I Learned From Hindi Movies, and other book titles that are lies.

Rohan hops with rage. "D.J., just look at him!" She frames his face with her hands. "He's just jealous, calm down," she soothes. Rahul and Nandini chuckle and hug each other, enjoying their club of two. "Mom, I missed you," he says, kissing her cheek. She makes a kissy face and replies, "I missed you too baby." Yeah, too bad you were stuck with that second-rate fat kid, Nandini; it's, like, tragic. She implores the Good Son to stick around for a while; he agrees on the condition that she not feed him like "this pumpkin," i.e. Rohan. But they both break apart and give each other guilty looks a second later, when we hear Yash yell, "Nandini! Nandini!" from another room.

Flash to a very blue bedroom, where Yash, despite having earned enough to outspend God, still has no clue how to loop a necktie. "I'm coming, ji," Nandini calls, and comes in, setting down a tray. "You've forgotten me as soon as your son has arrived," he complains, turning to look at her. Good thing the Inferior Son doesn't distract her from her primary purpose in life: being at Yash's beck and call. "Who will knot this tie?" She teases him about not being able to do anything without her (except for run a multinational billion-dollar business empire, that is), then approaches him to fix the tie. Swelling string music tells us that this is a moment of sentiment. The Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham choir starts "ah ah ah ah ah" -ing while Yash nabs a stool with his foot for Nandini to step up. Dang, but Jaya Bachchan would fit into my change pocket. With her face in his necktie, he says, "now you look like Mrs. Yashvardhan Raichand," then pinches her cheek. Oh, so... not cute at all.

Next Up: Parampara Lecture and Sachin Celebration.