The Female Gaze of ‘Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai’

When Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai came out on January 14, 2000, its star Hrithik Roshan almost quit acting altogether. “I entered as nobody. When I came out, there was hysteria all around me,” Hrithik Roshan told interviewer Simi Garewal. The film was so successful — the highest-grossing of the year until Mohabbatein — that gang members had tried to extort profits from his father Rakesh Roshan, also the producer and director. When his father refused, they shot him. “I wanted to quit films,” Hrithik Roshan said. “All this is not worth his life.” Thankfully, his father survived.

Never before, it seemed, had a male debut garnered so much attention. Some critics said Hrithik was a long-awaited addition to the superstar pantheon of the three Khans: Shah Rukh, Aamir, and Salman. But, perhaps, none of that hysteria about this actor — who could dance, emote, and more — would be possible without one woman behind the camera: Honey Irani. The scriptwriter, behind some of the most iconic lines in Hindi cinema (“K-k-k-kiran”), had created the perfect story for a male lead, one that centered what women want.