Hindi
Happy New Year: Fast forward please!
MUMBAI: When Farah Khan makes a film, she does not carry with her the burden of logic or justification. This is a caper movie and since caper movies can’t be very different from each other, the film has to count on its ensemble cast and how the film is scripted and treated. On this count, the star cast cannot help much.
Shah Rukh Khan does odd jobs,including street fights, for a living. He has an axe to grind with Jackie Shroff who is a big shot in Dubai. His desire for revenge is overwhelming. Shah Rukh’s father, Anupam Kher, was an honest man who specialised in making the world’s most secure safe vaults. He had made one such rare safe for Jackie Shroff who rents it out for safekeeping of diamonds worth crores. The safe opens with a combination of a password and thumb print.
Since Kher made the safe, only his thumb impression and password worked on the safe. He wants Jackie to change it but instead Jackie drugs him and steals diamonds worth crores. Kher is framed, jailed and later commits suicide. It has been eight years since and Shah Rukh is waiting for a chance to get even.
Shah Rukh soon gets a chance to reach not only Dubai but the very hotel where Jackie operates from and where his safe is located. There is a world dance competition in Dubai in the same hotel and it is scheduled during the same period as diamonds worth Rs 300 crore will be kept in the safe while in transit.
Now, Shah Rukh needs to build a team. He gets two people, Sonu Sood and Boman Irani, in his own backyard. They both worked for Kher. Boman is an expert on safes. He finds world’s best hacker in Vivaan Shah and Abhishek Bachchan is the lookalike of Jackie’s son on whose thumb impression now the safe opens. Having found experts in the fields he needs, Shah Rukh now has one problem. None of these five can dance to save their lives and they have to win two local rounds before they qualify to represent India.
For this, they find Deepika Padukone, a bar dancer who agrees to teach them dancing. The required glamour quotient is in. Their dancing does not improve but while VIvaan hacks the online voting for the team, the judges, Vishal Dadlani and Anurag Kashyap, are blackmailed into voting for them and they qualify. However, being chosen does not change the public opinion looking at the welcome they get in Dubai with eggs and rotten tomatoes.
There are minor hitches but finally the day arrives when they commit the heist; it is also the day when the dance final is due.
As mentioned, how different can one caper film be different from another? Not much. Hence one looks forward to what follows. The disappointment starts as soon as you see the censor certificate stating the running time of the film as 179 minutes 50 seconds (this is after eight minute deletion a few days before release). Then, as Shah Rukh goes about building his team, he takes almost one hour. The characters of Boman, Sonu, Vivaan and Abhishek are introduced with demonstrations of how their talents will help towards carrying out the heist. Deepika enters after one hour into the film. Almost all sequences are stretched: Sonu’s fight in the beginning and Shah Rukh’s rooftop fight for instance, feel never-ending.
The film counts on comedy and humour to entertain but save for few occasions, comedy and humour both are childish. The romance is one-sided for almost entire length of the film. The film has three songs with appeal, of which ‘Indiawale…..’ has been overplayed but still liked as it comes at the end as a victory song. Photography is good. Heavy editing was needed. There is not much scope for histrionics. Shah Rukh gets the best lines and most footage and his usual self. However, he is surrounded taller and stronger guys around except Vivaan and that does not please the eye. Deepika has to dance and moisten her eyes on regular basis, which is it. Boman Irani is wasted. Vivaan has a pleasant look with a smiling face and acts well too. It is Abhishek who justifies the funny lines he gets, some good and some PJs. Jackie is fine.
Happy New Year is at an advantage being a solo Diwali release while, on the other hand, it is also at disadvantage because of its length which makes only four shows a day possible. Looking at the response, it will have to make the most of the holiday weekend.
Producer: Gauri Khan.
Director: Farah Khan.
Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Jackie Shroff, Boman Irani, Sonu Sood. Also in special appearances: Dino Morea, Prabhu Deva, Malaika Arora Khan, Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Dadlani, Sajid Khan, Anupam Kher.
In a music industry that often rewards speed, spectacle, and instant recall, Navjot Ahuja’s journey feels refreshingly different. His story is not built on noise. It is built on patience, discipline, emotional honesty, and a quiet commitment to becoming better with every passing year. After 14 years of struggle, learning, performing, and writing, Navjot stands today as an artist whose success has not changed his centre. If anything, it has only made his purpose clearer.
For Navjot, music has never been about chasing fame alone. It has always been about expression. It is about writing more truthfully, singing more skillfully, understanding himself more deeply, and becoming a kinder human being in the process. That rare clarity is what gives his journey its beauty.
Where It All Began: A Writer Before a Singer
Indian singer and songwriter Navjot Ahuja’s musical journey began in the most familiar of places: school assemblies. But even then, what was growing inside him was not only the desire to sing. It was the need to write.
Long before he saw himself as a performer, he had already discovered the emotional release that writing offered him. For Navjot, words became the first true channel for feeling. Songwriting came before singing because writing was the only way he could let emotions flow through him fully. That inner pull shaped his artistic identity early on.
Like many young musicians, he sharpened his craft by creating renditions of popular songs.
Those experiments became his training ground. But the turning point came in 2012, when he wrote his first original song. That moment did not just mark the beginning of songwriting. It marked the beginning of self-definition.
A Calling He Did Not Chase, But Accepted
What makes the latest Indian singer-songwriter Navjot’s story especially compelling is the way he describes his relationship with music. He does not frame it as a career he aggressively pursued. In his own understanding, music was not something he chose. It was something that chose him.
There was a time when he imagined a very different future for himself. He wanted to become a successful engineer, like many young people shaped by ambition and conventional expectations. But life had a different script waiting for him. During his college years, around 2021, music entered his life professionally and began taking a firmer shape.
That shift was not driven by image-building or industry ambition. It came from acceptance. Navjot embraced the fact that music had claimed him in a way no other path could. That sense of surrender continues to define the artist he is today.
An Artist Guided by Instinct, Not Influence
Unlike many singers who speak openly about idols, icons, and musical role models, Navjot’s creative world is built differently. He does not believe his music comes from imitation or inherited influence. He listens inward.
He has never considered himself shaped by ideals in the traditional sense. In fact, he admits that he does not particularly enjoy listening to songs, especially his own. His decisions as a songwriter and singer come from instinct. He writes what feels right. He trusts what his inner voice tells him. He positions his music according to what he honestly believes in, not what trends demand.
That creative independence gives his work a distinct emotional sincerity. His songs do not feel calculated. They feel alive.
The Long Years of Invisible Struggle
Every artist carries a chapter of struggle, and Navjot’s was long, demanding, and deeply formative. One of the biggest challenges he faced was building continuity as the best new indian singer songwriter in an era where musical collaboration is increasingly fluid.
For emerging singers, especially those trying to build with a band, consistency can be difficult. Instrumentalists today have more opportunities than ever to freelance and perform with multiple artists. While that growth is positive and well deserved, it can make things harder for singers who are still trying to establish a steady team and sound around their work.
For Navjot, one of the most difficult phases came during 2021 and 2022, when he was doing club shows almost every day. It was a period of relentless performance, but not always personal fulfillment. He was largely singing covers because clubs were not open to original songs that audiences did not yet know.
For a new Indian singer and songwriter, that can be a painful compromise. To perform constantly and still not have the freedom to share your own voice requires not just resilience, but restraint.
“Khat” and the Grace of Staying Unchanged
After 14 years of effort, Navjot’s new love song Khat became a defining milestone. Professionally, he acknowledges that the song changed how society viewed him as a musician. It strengthened his place in the public eye and altered his standing in meaningful ways.
Yet personally, he remains unchanged.
That is perhaps the most striking part of his story. Navjot says his routine is still the same. His calm is still the same. His writing process is still the same. He does not want success or failure to interfere with the purity of his art. For him, emotional detachment from public outcomes is essential because the moment an artist becomes too attached to validation, the writing begins to shift.
His joy comes not from numbers, but from the attempt. If he has tried to improve his skill today, if he has written his heart out more honestly than before, then he is at peace.
Growth, Not Glory, Remains the Real Goal
Even now, Navjot is not consumed by labels such as singles artist, performer, or digital success story. His focus remains deeply personal. He wants to sing better. He wants to play instruments better. He wants to understand himself more. And he wants to become a kinder person.
That is what makes Navjot Ahuja’s journey so moving. It is not simply the story of a musician finding recognition. It is the story of an artist who continues to grow inward, even as the world begins to look outward at him. In an age obsessed with applause, Navjot reminds us that the most meaningful success often begins in silence, honesty, and the courage to remain true to oneself.
