SAY OOOOM SHANTI OM

They laughed the minute SRK arrived on screen. They laughed some more when he flicked his fingers through his hair. They laughed when his 'filmi Ma' (Kirron Kher) rattled off one over the top dialogue after another. One of them laughed till he rolled off the chair. Even after the Happy's Thee End, they laughed all the way back home.

The audience in question was our four and eight year old, our helper who is Indonesian and knows very little Hindi and only understood half of the dialogues or the characters that were emerging larger than life. They might not have recognised the Dev Anand or the Rajesh Khanna or Govinda or Subhash Ghai or Manoj Kumar or anyone else for that matter. Yet that didn't come in the way of the laughs unlimited. If you are looking for something that effortlessly cuts across the age, language, race and every other conceivable barrier, then Farah Khan's latest offering Om Shanti Om has got to be it.

The movie starts in the 70s presenting King Khan as a struggling junior artiste - Om Prakash Makhija, who hangs around movie sets with his best pal Pappu Master, played to perfection by Shreyas Talpade. They dream of making it big in the movies, they dream of awards, ceremonies, speeches, recognition. They also dream of love. Om is in madly in love with superstar Shantipriya. Hold your breath for the stunning Deepika Padukone.

As the movie poster tells you "for some dreams, one lifetime isn't enough."
That's where the twist is. The villian (Arjun Rampal) emerges, love takes a beating, the story leaps know no bounds, though the fun continues as the dramatic story progresses. It's a rocking rollicking ride through some of the fascinating aspects and periods of filmmaking.

Remember those car scenes, where the scenery changes all the time or the superhero stuff brought alive through outrageous costumes and death-defying stunts. The mock tiger fights, the PR speak in the film industry - "we are just good friends." Blink, blink Rani, blink blink Preity.

Nothing is spared along the way. Script writers, actors, producers, directors, stunt men. And the industry joins in to make the laughs all the more real.

"Om who?" Amitabh Bachchan asks at the awards ceremony, that pits the acting talents of Abhishek Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Akshay Kumar and Shah Rukh Khan.

Then there are the foot tapping numbers that make you want to put your hands in the air, never mind if you are hot or not.

Often when a project of such scale is put together, no one even thinks of the entire industry of people working behind the scenes to pull it all together. Full marks to Farah for making all the spot boys, ADs, junior artistes and all the assistants look so good on screen.

This is the stuff dreams should be made of. Thank you all at OSO, for making them seem so within reach.