IBMD: Indian Basketball Movie Database

Imagine playing one on one, full-court basketball against the love of your life. You are a beautiful woman and he's a handsome man, and you are not just playing a game, but a game within the game. You want to defeat him, of course, because you're proud, and because he's riled up a gang of children around you to chant "girls can't play basketball". You want to prove them all wrong. But you also want to exert decades of pent-up frustration against this man. This man who was once your best friend, with whom you learned the game and honed your skills. This man, who years later, you find through the game again. And now, there's is something deeper in your connection. A little more chemistry. A little more passion. This isn't just one-on-one basketball. This is the beginning of a love story.

Now imagine you stop what you're doing mid-court to fix your sari.

Yes, you're playing in a sari.

Can you relate to this predicament? Have you ever fought for the game's honour against Cricket? Has basketball ever come in between your ambitions and parenthood? Is your dream to play one-on-one against the opposite sex so that you can eventually fall in love? Can you relate to using the help of a little extra-terrestrial to give your basketball team superpowers to defeat your bigger, badder opponents?

If you answered 'yes' to any of those scenarios above, congratulations, you're a lover of basketball in Indian cinema. As unlikely as it may be, there has been somewhat of an important and hilarious history of hoops and Indian films. Sometimes, basketball is only an important scene in the movie, highlighting the dramatic moment forever in the hearts of me and my fellow 'Hoopistanis'. Sometimes, basketball is a major plot device, setting in motion the cause and effect that leads to redemption or glory or heartbreak or a dance-break.

With this in mind, I present to you the comprehensive and running-list of IBMD, the Indian Basketball Movie Database. Several years ago, I'd written an article called 'Great Moments in Bollywood and Basketball', analysing memorable basketball-related scenes in three hit movies of the past few decades. The IBMD expands on that to include new movies and movies in Indian cinema (sometimes in other languages) outside the 'Bollywood' realm. In almost all these films, basketball was used as a vehicle or a metaphor to show true aspiration, a type of rise in one's status, an entry into an exclusive club. It is always a positive. Basketball mastery - whether used in a serious or a comical pretext, or an absurd one - is portrayed as a very special superpower.

There are many more films/moments out there that I hope to add to keep this list growing. Readers: please send me your suggestions of basketball scenes, not only in Indian cinema (of any language) but also in any streaming shows that we must pay attention to.

With that said, in order of release date, here is the IBMD:

Phool Aur Kaante (1991)

This early 90s hit was emblematic of its era: Action! Romance! Larger than life villains! Ajay Devgan (pre-Devgn) straddling two motorbikes at the same time! Perhaps more known for being Devgn's film debut, Phool Aur Kaante also features perhaps the earliest recorded hoops action in Indian film history, and all within the first fifteen minutes. In one scene, Devgn interrupts a terrible shootaround by his friends by dribbling the ball away into the locker room. In another, he is alone, shooting free throws - on the badminton court - going 4/4 from the line in less than ten seconds. Nothing better than a little a little forlorn basketball to get one's frustrations out, before beating up drug dealers in the very next scene. 

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998)

It's only right that we begin with the most influential Indian film ever made about basketball. KKHH was released months after Michael Jordan hit his final shot for the Chicago Bulls, and propelled an entire generation of young Indian players to take up the game (and maybe find love with their childhood bestie in the process). A few years ago, I wrote a long essay 'Kuch Hoops Hota Hai' on the surprising legacy of this Karan Johar hit on Indian basketball, featuring interviews with many top players of the national team who swore about how this film urged them towards the game.

KKHH is filled with classic moments. Kajol playing in a sari. Shah Rukh Khan's weird dribble and obvious dirty fouls. The awkward sexual tension between the two players at a kids' summer camp. The film used basketball as the 'cool' and 'western' thing that Indians in KKHH's fantasy-land aspired to. The film of course became one of the highest-grossing Bollywood releases in history and won tonnes of Filmfare awards. Khan and Kajol were in the primes of their careers, a get-together of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen earlier in the 90s. They play basketball as high-schoolers and then again as reunited adults. Cue song. Cue romance. Cue Salman Khan in a cameo making a Jordan reference. This movie had everything.

Koi Mil Gaya (2003)

The Hrithik Roshan film is primarily a rip-off of ET and Forrest Gump, but for its basketball sequence midway, it took a little off of Space Jam, too. Roshan and his friends (all children) have made friends with a friendly alien creature called 'Jadoo' who can help them do things of supernatural athletic ability. At one point in the film, Roshan's team - the Paandavs - play against a mean-looking bunch called the 'Kasauli Tigers'.

From the sidelines, Jadoo waves his magic on the Paandavs and Roshan, helping the movie star dribble like Allen Iverson and dunk like Zion Williamson in a video-game cheat mode. The Tigers actually go on a 49-0 run at one point, and Jadoo needs the sun to instill his influence on the game. When the sun does show, the game turns, and Roshan slam dunks his way (with a very high usage rate, I might add) to a huge comeback. In the incredible game-deciding sequence, Jadoo-powered Roshan intercepts a shot, jumps, does three body flips in mid air to land his feet on top of the oppositions rim, and then drop the winner. Wow.

Dhoom 2 (2006)

Oh, you thought we were done with Roshan pretending to be a basketball savant? Let me take you a few years forward to Dhoom 2, the successful sequel to the international spy/sexy/action thriller. Like Khan and Kajol in KKHH, here are a couple of more actors in their prime: Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. It's raining. It's night. There's a lot of leather. And Roshan drops the immortal words that are now the opening sequence of our Hoopdarshan podcast: "Yeh International game hai - Deemag is khela jata hai, gussey sey nahi" (This is an international game, played by the mind, not with anger).

He was talking about their sexy one-on-one game, of course, but this is Bollywood, so he was also talking about their international spy game. We get to see more of Roshan's questionable basketball skills. He travels a lot. He throws the ball into the basket instead of shooting it properly. Bachchan strips down to a tight mini-skirt. Roshan and Bachchan come awfully close to each other and drop flirtatious trash talk. I'm sorry, but Cricket could never be this romantic.

Ajinkya (2012)

I haven't yet seen an Indian film that uses basketball as a main plot-line as thoroughly as this small Marathi movie, Ajinkya. Ajinkya is about a basketball coach in Nagpur who is a relentless winner with a big ego. He wants his team to win every game by at least 25 points and has won the regional tournament for about 14 straight years. But then, some dumb things happen: 1) his wife wants to have a child, but he can't go with her to get her fertility results because of this year's tournament final; 2) he slaps his best three-point shooter for not wanting to practice and this player doesn't play for him in the final; 3) he loses the final and vows to give up basketball; 4) his wife - who can conceive now - doesn't want to conceive a child with him anymore; and 5) he leaves town alone heartbroken - without basketball and family - to work in Aurangabad.

The rest of the film is his redemption project in Aurangabad. Both the director (Tejas Deoskar) and leading man (Sandeep Kulkari) of this film have a hoops background, so even if the story itself is quite trash, the basketball emotions are realistic. The coach takes a bunch of rag-tag new players who don't know anything about the game in his new city and teaches them, and in returns, learns that having fun is more important than winning. They play the same tournament again and reach the finals. I won't spoil it any further. But conception is still involved. So is James Bond.

Vallinam (2014)

Shelf this one in 'TBD', as I've yet got a chance to watch this Tamil film and review it for its basketball moments. From early reports, I learned that the movie pitted basketball (the hero) vs. cricket (the villain). Directed by Arivazhaghan Venkatachalam, the film starred Tamil actor Nakul as the top basketball player who plays for India. Apparently, the final scene of the movie is a basketball game between the Indian team and a foreign team at an expensive set in Thiyagaraya Nagar in Chennai.

Half Girlfriend (2017)

Chetan Bhagat writes terrible books, but sometimes they make for good films. Half Girlfriend is not one of those good films. No, this one is about a romance that starts through basketball (have I heard this before?) in a fictional Delhi college between a girl from a rich, English-speaking family (Shraddha Kapoor) and a boy from a Hindi-speaking Bihari background (Arjun Kapoor). Despite their differences, they're both great basketball players and leaders of their respective women's and men's teams. Arjun coaxes Shraddha for a date through basketball, but she only wants to be his 'half' girlfriend. Which means, perhaps the equivalent of an NBA contract with a player option? They play a lot of one-one-one hoops, make a lot of NBA references, discuss their language differences, and sow the seeds of what will become deeper love later.

The NBA in India was actually heavily involved in partnering with this movie. NBA coaches worked with the two Kapoors in helping them look the part of hoopers on screen in production. References to LeBron and Durant and Curry are dropped liberally. NBA posters and insignia are seen often. The movie was even promoted around live NBA broadcasts in India in 2017. Anyways, a lot more happens after college for these two (basketball is mostly forgotten) and things get dramatic and sad and the Bill Gates Foundation is involved and the girl sings around in New York and the boy is drunk a lot. In the end, they get together, and basketball is involved again. I watched and reviewed this movie in great detail for its basketball stuff so you wouldn't have to.

Tarunyachya Lathevar (2017)

This Marathi film begins with two girls playing one-on-one in a dark indoor hall, right after one of those girls also practices her bharatnatyam skills on the same court. And we're off! This movie was directed/starred by the former president of the Maharashtra State Basketball Association (MSBA) and featured several actual Maharashtra players in action. The protagonist in the film loves basketball - as in, staring-lustfully-at-the-hoop-while-romantic-music-plays-in-the-background-for-way-too-long kinda love. There is a lot more basketball in this movie, including romance blossoming from basketball (of course), evil administrators, and of course, a big tournament. The game-scenes look organic and not choreographed, giving them a more realistic feel.

Chhichhore (2019)

One of the final films that budding young actor Sushant Singh Rajput starred in before his untimely death, Chhichhore is a college-sports comedy, a modern ode to the 1992 classic Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar. One of the earliest frames in the film is a basketball backcourt in a college campus, a foreshadowing of the sport that will play a major role in the film's eventual conclusion. The film takes place in two timelines, the present and the past. In the present, Raghav, the son of the separated couple Anirudh (Rajput) and and Maya (Shraddha Kapoor, in her second apperance in an IBMD film) attempts suicide after an academic failure. He is in critical condition, and ultimately, relies on stories and memories of his parents' college days to give him hope.

The 'past' timeline takes place in those college days of the parents. Anirudh (Ani) and motley crew of hilarious friends are the 'Losers' of Hostel-4 (H4). Ani ambitiously decides that H4 should put that reputation to rest by winning the colleges General Championship, a tournament of multiple sports that is always won by H3, the fancy and gifted arch-nemesis of H4. Through hilarious means of self-motivation, a little trickery, and some distraction, H4 get close enough to get themselves in contention for the championship - all they need are three more gold medals in chess, relay race, and basketball on the very last day. Through dramatic means, chess and track golds are secured.

That leaves basketball. H4 are led by Ani, who is supposedly a state-level player, and H3 are led by Raggie, a talented athlete and the film's smug villain. Unlike past Bollywood moments, this basketball game is actually very-well choreographed. Both teams seem to be using the motion offense, moving excellently without the ball, using picks and screens, and passing fluidly. Most of the buckets are mid-range jumpers. Layups are rare, threes are nonexistent - it's Daryl Morey's nightmare. H4 trailed by 12 at halftime, but as it is in all these basketball movies, the underdog 'good guys' made a huge comeback in the second. Eventually, it comes down to the final shot: H4 are down 2 with six seconds to go. Ani calls a timeout... and his 'radical' game-plan is - to attempt a three-pointer. Ani loses his man, catches the ball at the top of the key, and lets off a weird one-handed shot that reminds one of former India international Narender Grewal. The shot bounced all over the rim, a reminiscence of Kawhi Leonard's four-bounce Game 7 winning shot in 2019. But guess what - Ani misses!!!! It is a truly unexpected shock. The hero lost and let everyone down. But even in loss, he gains the respect of his opponent. The lesson we are left with is that it's not the result that matters - it's the effort. And it is perhaps this lesson that aids to Raghav recovering from his surgery in present day and living to provide the film a happy ending.

Chhalaang (2020)

Rising Bollywood star Rajkkumar Rao plays a slacker Haryanvi public school PT coach in the comedy Chhalaang ('Leap'). When he has time on his hand, his character Montu leads a group of right-wing goons to thrash and reprimand innocent couples hanging out together in public parks on Valentine's Day. Later, the daughter of one of these needlessly-harassed elder couples becomes Montu's co-worker - he is attracted to her and, after a little bit of traditional Bollywood persistence, she actually forgives him and considers him as a romantic partner. None of this is about basketball yet, but I wanted to set up the premise just so we are all clear on how absurd things are going so far. 

The rest of the film is about more such transformational moments of growth for Montu, and the biggest challenge comes when a well-trained rival coach is hired by the school. Montu and this other coach decide to confront their differences with an intra-school multi-sport contest in Basketball, Kabaddi, and Relay Racing. In true underdog fashion, Montu trains a bunch of underdog players in his gender-neutral lineup, and in the process, learns a little about maturity and responsibility etc. himself. A highlight here is the scene where the students perform a dribbling drill using cow-dung as obstacles instead of training cones. The basketball game is actually well choreographed and fairly entertaining for Bollywood's low standards - Montu's team loses because their best player - Pinky, a mixture of both finesse speed and bruising athleticism - is injured halfway. Nevertheless, the coach is happy that the kids gave their best and weren't completely embarrassed. Yay, sportsmanship! 

Upcoming Bollywood film 'Half Girlfriend' will feature a lot of basketball

If you've paid attention to any of my work the last couple of weeks, you would've noticed that I called attention to the 1998 Bollywood classic Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and its influence and legacy on Indian Basketball. The super-hit film will be remembered for the awkward and flirtatious basketball romance scenes between Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol. KKHH, followed by Koi Mil Gaya and Dhoom 2 have been the only mainstream Bollywood films to feature basketball in a major way. And considering their box office returns, all three discovered that basketball in Indian cinema apparently equals to big bucks.

It seems now, perhaps, that another Hindi film is finally willing to take a chance on hoops again.

Based on a book by India's highest-selling English novelist Chetan Bhagat, the film Half Girlfriend - scheduled to be released in April 2017 - is currently being shot in New Delhi. Production information has revealed that Half Girlfriend's star pair Arjun Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor have both been honing their hoop skills as basketball will be a used as a major plot device in the movie.

I haven't read Half Girlfriend, because Chetan Bhagat writes as well as James Harden plays defense, but a quick Wikipedia search of the book's plot reveals that much of the story is about a protagonist who makes it to St. Stephen's College in Delhi on the sports quota as a basketball star. Eventually, the common love of the game leads him to an on-again/off-again relationship with his love interest (his half girlfriend).

Arjun Kapoor, who plays Madhav Jha in the film, has spent the last month training on the court to make his basketball scenes more realistic (Shah Rukh, Hrithik, Kajol, and co. have so far shown how wrong basketball scenes can go in India if the actors have no clue how to play the game) and it seems to have paid some dividends. A few days ago, he tweeted a short video of his practice scenes in Delhi and announced that more 'Basketball Diaries' from the film's shooting will be coming soon. International stunt and sports director Robert Miller has been working to train both Arjun and Shraddha Kapoor to make the basketball scenes look realistic for the film. Much of the filming of the basketball scenes in Delhi have been taking place at the SRCC college court.

It's admirable to hear that the film's director Mohit Suri and the star actors are putting in a genuine effort to make the basketball scenes in Half Girlfriend more memorable. However the rest of the film turns out to be, I hope the hoop scenes can inspire another generation of ballers like KKHH inspired players 18 years ago. And if basketball's charmed effect on the Indian box office is any indication, Half Girlfriend may already have sealed its success story.

Kuch Hoops Hota Hai

The surprising legacy of a Bollywood classic on Indian Basketball

This article was first published in my column for Ekalavyas.com on June 1, 2016. Click here for the original feature.

It’s 1998, and there are only two types of basketball fans in India. Those who know everything about Michael Jordan. And those who know everything about Shah Rukh Khan.

It’s 1998. Michael Jordan, the greatest player of his time – and as history would remember it, the greatest player of all time – had just hit his ‘final’ shot to win a dramatic NBA title over the Utah Jazz in the summer (Two years later, he would return to pro basketball in a Wizards uniform). It would be title number six for MJ, and for basketball fans in India, the image of Jordan hitting the game-winning shot would leave an indelible imprint forever.

It’s 1998. Shah Rukh Khan, the biggest Bollywood star of his time – and as history would remember it, the biggest Bollywood star of all time – would star in the super-hit film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, the first introduction of basketball to a mainstream Indian audience. To Bollywood fans in India, the image of SRK awkwardly dribbling against his eternal screen love-interest Kajol would leave an indelible imprint forever.

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Kuch Kuch Hota Hai didn’t take place in India. Sure, we’re told that the two major settings of the film – the High School and the summer camp – are Indian, but nothing about them, except the language and the occasional sari, was truly desi. Instead, the film finds itself in a parallel perfect world created by first-time director Karan Johar, a world where East and West collided, where Rani Mukerji knew her shlokas as well as she knew her rock-n-roll. Where High School looked like a scene from the Archie Comics. Where there was no serious crime or poverty or politics. Where the most pressing issues to humanity were love triangles.

Where basketball – not cricket – was India’s favourite sport.

There is an adage among hoop analysts that the ‘NBA is a copycat league’, that a winning system shapes the next generation of teams around the league. This is why big men were all the rage for the Celtics, Rockets, and Pistons in the 80s, the hunt for athletic shooting guards began following Jordan’s dominance in the 90s, and small-ball became the blueprint for teams when the Golden State Warriors perfected the model.

Success breeds imitation, and the adage is no different in Bollywood. So, as he was coming off of a role as Aditya Chopra’s assistant director in the 1995 Bollywood classic Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, 26-year-old Johar decided to adopt the formula of DDLG into his directorial debut. Also featuring the Shah Rukh and Kajol combo, DDLG became one of India’s most successful and its longest-running film. During the montage of the hit song ‘Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye’, Khan gave a brief glimpse of his on-screen basketball “skills”, as he awkwardly dribbles and dunks in the rain.

How to make the perfect Indian romantic comedy? A pairing of India’s hottest on-screen couple, Khan and Kajol? Check. Exotic foreign locations and expensive international brands? Check. An unstoppable soundtrack with cross-generational hits? Check. Love triangles? We got two of them. The ‘coolness’ of the West in a clash with Indian sanskriti? All day. More basketball? Hell yes!

The roles of the main cast of characters in KKHH seemed well-defined. A traditionally ‘hot’ girl, a ‘tomboy’ girl, and the loveable guy in the middle. Kajol, the typecast ‘tomboy’, was dressed in the early posters of the film cradling a basketball with her hat on backwards. Here – Johar seemed to be saying – is a girl who does ‘cool’ the way those in the West seem to do it.

Johar put together this recipe and created and perfect Indian blockbuster for its time. Upon its release, KKHH was the most successful Indian film of 1998 and one of the highest- Bollywood films ever. It ran in Indian cinemas for 52 consecutive weeks. Overseas, it grossed more than any other Indian film had ever had until that point. It dominated the Indian Filmfare Awards in Jordanesque fashion, winning Best Film, Best Director (Johar) Best Actor (Khan), Best Actress (Kajol), Best Supporting Actor (Salman Khan, in an important cameo), and Best Supporting Actress (Mukerji).

KKHH caught Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in the primes of their careers as they went on to remarkable fame in the Hindi film industry. Khan, in particular, developed to become the most bankable and popular Bollywood actor worldwide. After directing the hit debut, Johar made some of the most popular and lucrative films in contemporary Bollywood history, including Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Kahbi Alvida Naa Kehna, and My Name is Khan. 

The legacy of KKHH is cemented forever for Indian audiences. But beyond the romance, the comedy, the hit songs, and the fashion trends it set, KKHH also brought basketball into the mainstream Indian consciousness. The basketball scenes from the movie introduced novices to the sport, while fans and players felt validated that their niche sport had briefly become a national sensation.

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KKHH’s used basketball as a major plot device, unlike any Bollywood film before. Anjali (Kajol) and Rahul (Khan) are best friends who bond over basketball. Johar’s hoop-romance even pre-dated the 2000 Hollywood film Love and Basketball. However, while Kajol and Khan covered the flirtatious ‘love’ part well, there wasn’t much attention paid to the duo actually learning any real ‘basketball’ skills.

Never mind that. Early in the movie, we see Anjali and Rahul play in a full-court one-on-one game in a closed gym at their school (Khan was in his early 30s while playing a High Schooler, because Bollywood said so) that soon becomes extremely testy. Rahul, who always gets dominated by his platonic friend Anjali, resorts to cheat and foul to gain advantage. Anjali clearly wins this matchup and holds both a physical and a mental advantage over Rahul. Khan’s super-high, slow, one-handed dribble would go on to haunt Allen Iverson forever.

The scene also establishes questions over gender roles, which develop as a parallel story-line through the course of the film. Anjali is accused of crying like a girl, and then complains that she doesn’t want to be called a girl anymore. She is the third wheel in the romance between Rahul and Tina (Mukerji), but later in the film, when she makes her transformation to a more traditionally ‘feminine’ woman, Rahul is both attracted to her new avatar while simultaneously missing his tomboy, basketball-loving old friend.

Divya Singh, former captain of India’s women’s team and now a junior international coach, recalls how the basketball scenes and, specifically, Anjali’s character, reminded her own youth, when she was that rebellious athlete in Varanasi’s conservative society fighting to play a ‘boy’s game’.

“I remember it clearly,” Singh told me. “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was the third movie I had ever seen. I was a junior player for Uttar Pradesh back then and all the senior players used to say that me and Trideep Rai (Varanasi-bred former India Men’s basketball captain) used to play and fight like Anjali and Rahul! Some of those fights even got really serious, and people in Varanasi used to joke that it was our story!”

“I truly loved that movie when it came out!” she added. “I could really relate to it, because I was a tomboy like Anjali. But I also used to laugh at the way Shah Rukh and Kajol played – they should’ve at least learnt how to play basketball for the movie!”

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But it’s a scene in the second half of the movie that eventually went down in Bollywood Basketball lore. Rahul and Anjali are now ‘grown up’ and estranged. Tina, Rahul’s wife, is dead, but not before passing on a message to her daughter – also named Anjali – to help reunite Rahul with his old friend. The film shifts to the summer camp (‘Camp Sunshine’) setting, where the daughter is finally able to facilitate this reunion (I’m grossly over-simplifying here. Go watch the movie).

Except now, things are different. Anjali isn’t the tomboy anymore: she has exchanged her athletic gear for a ‘feminine’ sari and seems to have given up on her basketball past. Anjali is also now engaged to Aman (Salman Khan). The old friends find it hard to connect again. It’s awkward.

Basketball to the rescue! The daughter is aware of the friendly basketball rivalry between Rahul and Anjali from their past and, through some trickery and reintroduction of gender stereotypes (“girls can’t play basketball?”) she’s able to get Rahul and Anjali to shed their formalities and reprise their long-standing basketball rivalry at an outdoor court.

The one-on-one, full-court game, appropriately titled on YouTube as the ‘Basketball Affair’, is iconic, influential, and hilarious. Rahul keeps on his formal shirt and tie. Anjali plays barefoot in her sari (here are a couple of people taking David Stern’s Dress Code to much greater heights), which, in 2016 would’ve definitely been sponsored by Under Armor. After some flirtatious trash-talk, the game begins.

There is obviously no referee in this game, and Rahul is allowed to commit multiple violations in each possession. Anjali, at the 3:20 mark in the video, steals the ball, but must fix her sari before taking a jump-shot (#IndiaBasketball). Of course, no ‘sexy sari’ moment is complete without potentially-scandalous waist touching, and Rahul obliges, heightening the sexual and competitive tension between the two. Even though it’s a full-court game, both seem to be shooting at the same basket. Frustrated by Rahul’s sneaky improvements (and continued use of gamesmanship tactics to get unfair advantage), Anjali brings him down with a foul that would’ve made Bill Laimbeer proud. The two begin to argue the same way they used to as High Schoolers. Anjali gets flustered. The kids begin to chant that “girls can’t play basketball” (WTF?). Everyone laughs at Anjali.

Cue song. Cue romance.

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There have been several great moments in basketball and Bollywood, and I wrote about them in greater detail for my blog six years ago. KKHH wasn’t the first Bollywood movie to incorporate basketball, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

“The basketball quotient in KKHH was a novelty at the time,” recalled Jamie Alter, Sports Editor of Times of India Digital and one of India’s premier 90s Bollywood experts. “It has not been paralleled since, with the buffoonery shown in Koi Mil Gaya and Dhoom 2’s (lame) attempt to make basketball in the rain sexy.” 

“In 1998, basketball to the mainstream Indian audience was probably limited to Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls versus Utah Jazz and some very rare ONGC v Punjab games on Doordarshan,” he added. “So KKHH went a fair way in putting basketball into at least one segment of the public’s conscience, even if it was hardly authentic. There hasn’t been anything like that replicated with such dedication - though even now, thinking of Shah Rukh and Kajol bobbling along with a basketball makes me chuckle - and no heroine has tucked in the fall of her sari so emphatically as Kajol did during the summer camp face-off.” 

In 2003, Hrithik Roshan would star in Koi Mil Gaya, which borrowed inspirations from ET, Forrest Gump, and Space Jam in its basketball sequence. Roshan and his team ­- the ‘Paandavs’ – receive special powers from an alien called ‘Jadoo’ to dominate their rivals. Please pay special attention to the 7:58 – 8:09 mark in the video, where Roshan completes pretty much the greatest move ever: he intercepts a shot, jumps, does three body flips in mid-air to land his feet on top of the oppositions rim, and then drop the game winner. Incredible.

Three years later, Roshan would be showing off his questionable basketball skills again, this time as super criminal Aryan in the film Dhoom 2. Roshan plays a one-on-one game in the rain with Aishwarya Rai, which also doubles as a metaphor for the international heist lifestyle. It’s in this scene that he drops the immortal line – which currently serves as the opener to my Hoopdarshan podcast: “Yeh international game hai Sunehri. Deemag se khela jata hai, gussey se nahi” (This is an international game, Sunehri. You have to play with your mind, not your anger).

But KKHH, indisputably, had the biggest impact. Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, captain of India’s men’s basketball team, recalled how many of his small town and village acquaintances were introduced to the game of basketball itself because of the film alone.

“This was the first time that basketball was shown in a big Indian movie,” Bhriguvanshi told me “It became a ‘cool’ thing because basketball was looked at as a fancy game, and we felt even better because there were two big stars playing our favourite sport. I had many school friends who didn’t know what I did for a living until I said that I play ‘basketball, just like that movie!’”

Divya Singh agrees about the film’s impact, too. “A lot of youngsters started playing basketball after that movie. And they started dressing like Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, too. It became a style statement.”

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It may still be a smaller sport relative to cricket, but basketball is a lot more popular in India than it was 16 years ago. India continues to steadily improve at the international level and even pulled off a historic win over China in 2014. The NBA has made major inroads in India, opened up an office in Mumbai, and has set up grassroots programmes the country. An Indian – Satnam Singh – has even been drafted into the NBA. Suffice to say, the Indian mainstream recognizes basketball as more than that vaguely ‘western’ way of Rahul and Anjali to flirt in KKHH.

Yet, the film’s continuing legacy on Bollywood and basketball is undeniable. Amar Acharya, an Indian-American and a well-known NBA blogger and masthead for SLC Dunk, told me continued familiarity with Bollywood helped him share something with other NRIs (non-resident Indians) of his age, and with desis around the world. But the basketball angle in KKHH took it even further.

“Basketball in KKHH codified in my mind the possibility of basketball being a medium infrastructure sport for the middle and upward economic classes of my motherland,” Acharya said, “In a place of cricket, Kabaddi, and field hockey, there was something that could be a step up – a sport for the developing classes who themselves were stepping up in line with greater educational opportunities, and a better life than their parents before them.”

If basketball in KKHH can represent aspirations for a better future, there could be better days ahead. The big screen adaption of Chetan Bhagat’s Half Girlfriend will have its young lead stars Arjun Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor exploring the cocktail of basketball and Bollywood romance. Meanwhile, the real life story of Chhattisgarh’s successful women’s basketball team will be an inspiration for another future film produced by Lara Dutta.

Alter believes that KKHH remains Karan Johar’s defining movie and the one that helped define, much like its predecessor DDLJ, the landscape of modern Hindi film romances. “So did basketball play a role in shaping the images of two of Bollywood’s biggest stars, and undoubtedly the modern era’s most famous on-screen couple? Absolutely.” 

*

Even after the iconic summer camp basketball scene, the KKHH basketball love story doesn’t end before one more twist. The game rekindled the Rahul-Anjali friendship, and even laid the groundwork for future romance. But things change when Anjali’s fiancé Aman Mehra – played in a memorable cameo by the other Bollywood superstar in the film Salman Khan – makes a surprise visit to Camp Sunshine on a rainy evening.

Rahul, in his forlorn depression, does what all hoop fans do at moments of stress: he hits the court. Aman sees him practicing, and is terribly impressed by Rahul’s awkward basket followed by uncoordinated bounce ups of the ball. In a weird American accent (Aman is an NRI living in London and that was Salman Khan's “research”) he says, "Wow wow wow, amazing man, too good, just like Michael Jordan, my man, you're too good."

And with that, he brings the basketball premise of KKHH full circle, perfectly marrying Bollywood's 'Badshah' Shah Rukh with the baddest badshah to ever hit the basketball court: Michael Jordan. Everyone, including India’s most famous actor in one of the biggest films of All Time, wanted to be Like Mike.

Fast forward. Tears are shed. One wedding is replaced by another. Cue song.

*

1998 was the summer that Jordan retired, and everyone – from Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson to LeBron James and Kevin Durant – tried to fill the void. In their own way, Johar, Khan, Kajol, and everyone associated with KKHH tried to fill a void, too. Where Jordan’s Bulls dynasty ended, the Johar and Khan dynasty began, starting with KKHH and continuing through to a whole host of similarly-themed romantic comedies.

Soon enough, directors influenced or opposed to Johar’s formula found success in Bollywood. By 2016, Michael Jordan and Shah Rukh Khan became crying memes and kids wanted to grow up to be Steph Curry.

But KKHH was never forgotten, and its magic was never duplicated. And as a legion of Indian players and fans will attest, the film’s legacy continued to have an unexpected, memorable impact on Indian basketball.

Great Moments in Bollywood & Basketball

"Yeh International game hai - Deemag is khela jata hai, gussey sey nahi"

(This is an international game, played by the mind, not with anger).

The wise words above were first spoken by Indian movie superstar Hrithik Roshan as he faced Aishwarya Rai in a 1-on-1 basketball game / flirting session in the film Dhoom 2. Now, I'm sure that the Zen Master aka Phil Jackson would've been very proud of Roshan's 'Zen' advice, but this isn't the only classic moment of Basketball in Bollywood. The Indian film industry, the largest in the world, may not have produced hoop-related classics such as He Got Game, Hoosiers, Rebound, White Men Can't Jump, Space Jam, The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, Above The Rim, Basketball Diaries, and etc, etc, etc...

But, inspired by this article by Sportskeeda's Dibyasundar Nayak on the Top 5 Bollywood Movies on Sports (the list included cricket, hockey, football, and cycling), I decided that it was time to reveal to you some great basketball scenes from Hindi movies. Yes, there have been rumours circulating off and on for nearly a year about '4 PM on the Court', India's first basketball movie, but until this film is released, we have to make do with the limited amount of Bollywood Hoops action we have.

So, without further ado, I would like to present to you the Top 3 Great Moments of Bollywood & Basketball. I have embedded the videos, and below them, added my detailed comments. All three of the movies mentioned below were superhits, which can only lead me to conclude that Basketball + Bollywood = gold.

3. Koi Mil Gaya (2003)

Dhoom 2 wasn't Roshan's first stint with basketball: that moment belonged to the movie Koi Mil Gaya. Although I haven't had the heart or the motivation to sit through the entire film, I can guess that the story-line was a cross of ET, Forrest Gump, and in the basketball sequence, Space Jam. Basically: Rohit (Hrithik Roshan), a full-grown man of limited intellect, finds an alien called 'Jadoo' who helps him get achieve supernatural things. In this classic 9-minute scene, Roshan's team - the 'Paandavs' - which include him and four children, play a game of basketball for the 'Hero Cup' against the mean-looking 'Kasauli Tigers'. My running notes are below the video:



- There is something about the skin-tight vests on everybody.
- Paandavs have sneaked in the alien 'Jadoo' on to their sideline.
- Good touch in naming the team Paandavs, by the way. The Mahabharat's 5 brothers, five guys on the court.
- Jadoo has given Roshan some ill dribbling skills... Leads me to believe that Allen Iverson may have also had close encounters of the third kind.
- Oh man! Hrithik goes FAAAR above the basket for that 2-handed dunk. His WAIST is aligned with the basket there.
- I know Hrithik's the best player but dammmn he's being selfish out there. This is like Kobe in 2006. Who's Kwame?
- At 1:49 - NBA goaltend, probably legal by FIBA and thus India rules though.
- Good call by the Tigers to FINALLY quintiple team Rohit aka Hrithik.
- HAHAHAHAH 2:20 the Tigers player Freddie Weis'd the little Sardar kid... HAHAHAHAHAH
- Bruce Bowen would be a good fit with the Tigers, specially after 2:50.
- After 3 minute mark.... the kids are jumping but can't release the ball. No travelling call REF!!! What is this? A bunch of LeBrons playing here?
- That's a whole lotta dunks in this game. Now I wanna see Blake Griffin suit up for the Tigers.
- Halftime at 4:09 after a 49-0 tigers run (DAMN!).
- 4:38: AAAh so that explains the shooting slump for the Pandavs. Jadoo cant help them cheat if the sun isn't out.
- And so Roshan prayes to God for sunlight... Obviously no matter how great the Jadoo-led Pandavs become, they will never do well in the NBA indoor stadiums.
- 5:30 onwards... All I can say is DAMMMN!!!!!!
- And now, the Pandavs, who are taking Jordan's 'Air-time' concept to another level, are introducing you to the new unstoppable No-gravity offense.
- 6:56-7:05: Roshan with perhaps the greatest move EVER? He gets the ball at his own free throw line, flies and bounces to dribble once at the halfcourt (this bounce may have been repeated here to show its full awesomeness) and then dunks it in.
- Paadavs have responded with their own 42-0 run to make it 48-49
- Ref didn't call a single shooting foul all game by the way. Good clean fun, this.
- I'm sorry, I take back what i said a minute ago. 7:58 - 8:09 is the greatest move ever. Hrithik intercepts a shot, jumps, does three body flips in mid air to land his feet on top of the oppositions rim, and then drop the game winner. Incredible.
- Not fair, Paandavs cheated and had the alien with them. We need the Tigers to get some assistance. I suggest have Donague bet on them and then officiate the game.
- Cheater Paandavs won the Hero Cup.

2. Dhoom 2 (2006)

And now we arrive to this famous scene in Dhoom 2 that I mentioned earlier: Aishwarya Rai Bachan vs. Hrithik Roshan 1-on-1, a scene vying to be the greatest movie 1-on-1 battle since Ray Allen (Jesus Shuttlesworth) vs. Denzel Washington in He Got Game... Again, this is a movie that I haven't seen in its entirety, but the plot is something about international criminals, most of whom are sexy. In this scene, Rai and Roshan play against each other in the dark, in the rain (for the love of the game, I presume).



- I would also like to mention here that Aishwarya Rai (aka Sunhari) will refer to herself in third-person during the entire duration of this clip.
- Take note boys: If you dribble the basketball in slow motion in the rain, Aishwarya Rai will stare at you.
- Both in Koi Mil Gaya and in this one, Roshan has stayed surprisingly consistent to his basketball-playing gear, which has included a tight vest and trousers. This time though he has a bandana on, which means that he is badass.
- Also to further emphasize that basketball is hip, the director would like you to hear people rapping.
- 0:47: "Hey... Are you like, Checking me out?"
- 1:20: Time to play. Aish strips down to her mini-skirt. Recently, FIBA controversially discussed the idea of more revealing uniforms to sex up the women's game: Aishwarya Rai here is Exhibit A.
- Ok so it's ON!
- Roshan and Aish have their own modified version of flirtatious trash talk that Gary Payton may or may not approve of.
- 2:48: That's a carry Roshan, seriously. I'm serious about him getting as many travel calls as LeBron.
- By the way, Hrithik Roshan doesn't shoot the ball at the basket, he throws it, kind of like I did when I was 8.
- 3:06-3:12: Aish displaying her back to the basket skills.
- 3:20-3:23: Woah, what? Travelling, Aish.
- Roshan can ball but obviously need 'Jadoo' to dunk.
- 4:10-4:20: Some sick handling skills by Roshan, sort of.
- Roshan: "Yeh International game hai - Deemag is khela jata hai, gussey sey nahi". Someone teach him the Triangle Offense already, he already has the attitude!
- If you haven't gotten it yet, they aren't talking about basketball, they're talking about crime. Which is also an international game, played by the mind, not with anger, apparently.
- 5:46: Money shot!

1. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998)

Aah.. We're now at the main event. This one movie single-handedly turned a whole legion of young Indians to take basketball a little more seriously. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is one of India's greatest romantic classics, and this particular scene features a basketball game between two former friends who find and love each other later in their lives. This is the only movie of the three featured here that I have seen fully. So it's Shah Rukh Khan, one of India's biggest stars ever as Rahul vs. Kajol (Anjali). When they were in college, they were best friends, and she used to kick his ass. Now, they have a frosty relationship, but maybe hoops are going to bring them closer together. Let the love and basketball resume.



- I'm getting a flashback. The two kids are actually pretending to fight to make the two main characters play ball again and thus, eventually become close again.
- The debate within the kids and the adults here is: Can girls play ball? I think we're about to find out.
- 1:13-16 Kajol challenges him - it's ON!
- 1:50: And they're FINALLY on the court. I guess it's going to be a full-court 1-on-1. Although this looks like a small court.
- Yes, before you ask, Shah Rukh is going to keep his tie on.
- And yes, Kajol is playing in a Sari and barefoot. Man, I wonder what David Stern and the NBA's strict dress code regulations have to say about this.
- 2:10-2:15: Flirtatious trash talk during basketball is obviously something us Indians are great at.
- There is obviously no one to referee in this game, and Shah Rukh is being allowed to commit multiple violations in each possession.
- 3:20: Kajol steals the ball, but then has to fix her sari before the jump-shop. #IndiaBasketball
- Are they both shooting at the same basket. Wtf?
- 3:33-3:36 Oh no he didn't. If Ginobili was Kajol in a Sari, he would've flopped at that gentle touch of the waist and won the foul right there.
- 3:58: Shah Rukh Khan has clearly learnt dribbling from the finest.
- 4:03: DAMN she tripped him! REFF!!!! That's a potentially career-ending type of foul. Andrew Bynum would be proud.
- 4:40 onwards: Hahahah... So this part is, basically, "Let's all mock the Loser Girl while she stands sadly in the middle of the court."
- Of course, it all ends up all well and good, and hoops makes them friends again.

So that's it folks. Basketball helped underdog kids and Hrithik outdo the 'bullies' with magic, helped two young criminals spark a special friendship, and brought back two friends closer together again.

Moral of the story: Basketball in Bollywood, Bringing People Together. And ensuring blockbuster movies.