
Kapoor meets Shantipriya, reborn as Sandy (Padukone again), a fledgling actress, and ropes her into his plan. He devises a scheme to trap Mehra, who has settled in America as a Hollywood producer.

Thirty years later, Makhija, now called Om Kapoor (also Khan), is a great star, who gradually remembers his previous life. The second part deals with their rebirth. Makhija, by then deeply in love with Shantipriya, tries to save her, but both perish. He burns her to death in the same set he had built for his film. Shantipriya’s producer-husband, Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal) - who has not made his marriage public fearing that it would spoil the prospects of a blockbuster movie, “Om Shanti Om,” he is planning with his wife as the star - is devastated when he finds she is pregnant. One is Om Prakash Makhija (Khan), a struggling junior artist aspiring to become a big-time hero. Padukone essays Shantipriya, a leading ’70s Bollywood star whom men dream about. Its main appeal lies in the presence of Shah Rukh Khan, who decided to go shirtless here, a la Salman Khan, and in the curiosity value of newcomer, Deepika Padukone, daughter of India’s badminton champion, Prakash. The film, therefore, has little chance of making it big at the boxoffice. So have those where ghosts have been used to elicit confession from the guilty. Tales of rebirth have been beaten to pulp in Indian cinema.


She fails when she wraps this message in a story that is neither novel nor engaging. Khan captures the essence of this through exaggerated actions and dramatic dialogue that clearly convey ridicule. The parody is often humorous, and details all that was distasteful about Bombay’s star and studio systems, notorious for its ill-tempered and egotistic actors, cowardly directors, immoral producers, rank indiscipline and sheer waste of time and money. As a story about reincarnation, it disappoints. CHENNAI, India - As a spoof of the 1970s Bollywood, Farah Khan’s “Om Shanti Om” is well -conceived and executed.
