Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi - Plot

Plot

Shy, introverted and kind-hearted Surinder "Suri" Sahni (Shah Rukh Khan) is an office employee for Punjab Power. He meets the daughter of his former professor (M.K. Raina), beautiful and vivacious Taani Gupta (Anushka Sharma), during the preparations for her wedding. A short time later, the shocking news arrives that her fiance and his wedding entourage were killed in a road accident. Taani's father suffers a heart attack at the news. Fearing that Taani will be alone in the world, the professor, on his deathbed, requests that Suri marry her. Suri silently concedes because he likes her anyway, and Taani tearfully agrees for her father's sake.

After an impromptu wedding, Suri takes Taani to his ancestral home in Amritsar. While his good nature leads Suri to treat her with exceptional care – he even lets her have his bedroom all to herself – he is too frightened to profess his love for her. Taani tells him that, while she will try to be a good wife and thus respect her role in his life, she can never love him due to having no love left within her after the loss of her fiance. Suri, grateful for the increasing acts of wifely affection that she shows, proceeds to indulge her wishes. These include regular evening trips to the cinema to see Bollywood movies which appeal to Taani's fantasies about romance and her passion for dancing. She soon asks for Suri's permission, which he grants, to take an expensive dance class with a visiting Bombay company, Dancing Jodi, to unwind from her mundane life at home.

During those evenings spent at the movies, Suri realizes it is the strong, masculine images that Taani admires, and later he asks his long-time friend, Balwinder "Bobby" Khosla (Vinay Pathak), a hair-salon owner, for grooming advice so as to win her love. Bobby gives him a complete makeover which includes shaving off his mustache (an accidental gag), modding his hairstyle, and fitting him out in funky Western-style clothing including aviator-style shades with oversize pastel lenses. Suri is thus transformed into "Raj Kapoor," a name he borrows from the hero of a movie that Taani had admired. He joins the dance class to be near her. By chance, or, as he puts it, by divine choice, he becomes Taani's partner in the competition. Despite Raj's initial over-the-top attempts to emulate the "cool" images from movies, which turn her off, he and Taani become friends as they work together on their dance routine. Suri feels encouraged when Taani does not tie a rakhi (holy thread) on "Raj's" wrist during the festival of Raksha Bandhan (doing so would indicate that she thought of him only as a brother). Thus, after some time, Raj declares his love for her.

Taani is shocked, to say the least, and enters into a period of internal conflict. Suri also faces a dilemma in Taani's misery as his wife in contrast to her delight with his fabricated alter ego, Raj. He thus attempts to win Taani's love as Suri, an act which only alienates her further. She eventually runs away to find Raj to tell him the predicament she is in, hoping he will help her. He offers to elope with her, which she agrees to, tearfully. They set the date for their elopement to the next night, the night of the competition. Suri is disappointed that Taani cannot see his love for her as himself, only as Raj. Later that night, Suri tells Bobby that he will end the charade in his own way, sacrificing his cravings for her love, leaving her his property and transferring himself to Delhi.

On the day of the competition, Suri takes Taani to the Golden Temple to gain God's blessings for her performance that night and, internally, also for her life with(out) Raj. While there, Taani has a realization in which she believes God has shown her a sign that her marriage to Suri is divinely inspired. For the first time she reflects on her husband and becomes aware of the strength and integrity of Suri's character, something she can grow to love. Taani thus tells Raj that she cannot choose him over her husband. She leaves him in what appears to be a state of shock with tears in his eyes. When the time comes for their performance, Taani is stunned to see Suri instead of Raj joining her on stage. While dancing Taani puts two and two together and through a series of flashbacks awakens to the fact that Suri is in fact Raj. Backstage she confronts Suri, and when he confesses his love for her, she tearfully admits that she returns his feelings. The two, having won the competition, head off on a honeymoon to Japan.