Karan Johar looks exasperated. Another pitch, another script flung into the air. “No, no… I’m done with all this,” he declares. No more extravagant song sequences, no more sugar-drenched romance. The very things that made him “Karan Johar” — his banner, his brand — no longer excite him. He craves something fresh. Sensing an opening, his writer perks up, reads the room, and pitches the most “un-Johar-like” idea imaginable: a long-form tale about a Bollywood mogul who keeps launching star kids in big-budget spectacles. The formula works. The money flows. The noise is deafening. Until one day, an outsider enters the scene, challenging the nepo-king. A clash ensues. Johar pauses. Then, with a spark in his eyes, he exclaims, “This! This is what I call fresh!” It’s dark. It’s juicy. It’s everything Bollywood pretends doesn’t exist. To some, it feels like reality; to others, it reeks of self-indulgence. But here’s the kicker: this wasn’t some real-life pitch meeting. It was just a promo for last year’s web series, Showtime, produced, of course, under his own banner. This promo is seminal for several reasons. First, and most obvious, it managed to pack more wit, nuance, and entertainment into three minutes than the 300-minute show it was promoting. Second, it puts on full display the self-indulgence that Dharma (tic) Productions has turned into an art form. But most of all, it was symbolic of something glaringly absent: self-awareness — the very DNA of their being. They might be self-indulgent, but they’re highly aware of it. They might be making a spectacle out of themselves, but they always make sure to laugh at it first — and the loudest. Post Credits Scene | Nadaaniyan: Ibrahim Ali Khan makes one of the worst debuts in years; is Karan Johar determined to set fire to his career before it even begins? Since his debut with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Johar has championed a cinema of meta-winks and in-jokes. Nobody navigates this zone better than him; nobody in the industry does it quite like he does (barring Farah Khan in her prime directorial days). That’s what makes him a clever yet constantly evolving filmmaker. Trolls may argue otherwise, but he has always adapted his grammar, his storytelling, his sensibilities shifting with time. Detractors might turn a blind eye, but he has long embraced his flaws, his political incorrectness — often turning them into the very punchlines of his own jokes. There’s undeniable joy in watching a mainstream filmmaker-producer openly mock himself, refusing to take his persona too seriously. What’s less joyous, however, is seeing his production house turn that bravery into a formula — churning out film after film trying to be Johar-esque, yet failing spectacularly. So, Nadaniyaan, their latest release, starring Ibrahim Ali Khan and Khushi Kapoor, feels less like a film and more like Dharma playing a round of Mad Libs: new star kids, same old template. Another shiny entry in their ever-expanding catalogue of films that do little more than mimic their most successful launchpad: Student of the Year. So, you get a campus that’s basically St. Teresa’s (SOTY, deja vu?), until Ms. Braganza (Archana Puran Singh) waltzes in, and suddenly, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai mode is activated. Critiquing patriarchy? Check. Calling out classism? Check. Because Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani did it, so why not? Gen Z’s obsession to talk in Instagram coded captions? Triple check. You forgot Call Me Bae? Just if you don’t know Dharma never breaks tradition. Somewhere, a Kal Ho Naa Ho dialogue is randomly, effortlessly dropped. I’ll repeat that this is every Dharma film ever meets every Dharma film ever — until you're stuck in a Dharma multiverse where the only escape is another Dharma film. Nadaniyaan isn’t just another meta experiment from Johar & Co. It is just a hint at their entire rulebook, stitched together with self-referential bravado. Whether it’s Student of the Year 2, Good Newwz, Jug Jugg Jeeyo, Govinda Naam Mera, Selfiee, Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani or the more recent Bad Newz, the impulse remains the same: a film so fixated on being in on the joke that it forgets to be anything else. Sure, not all of them collapse under the weight of meta-excess, but something like Bad Newz? That’s simply the crest of the wave, a spectacle so enamored with its own self-awareness that it loses sight of anything deeper. Its principal language? Meta gags. Its core theme? Bollywood nostalgia. Every other dialogue is a recycled line from their own films. The jokes just wink at their past work, repackaged as punchlines. The real question is: how far can self-referencing really take you? And how long can nostalgia keep propping up insipid writing? The issue isn’t self-awareness; it’s the lack of wit that should accompany it. Dharma’s films aren’t simply self-aware; they are so consumed by it, as if no other identity exists. The real problem is the way pretentiousness is paraded as conviction, the illusion that they have cracked the box-office code. Perhaps that isn’t their intent, but that’s what it feels like when you sit through their films. Because why turn a playful indulgence into a formula? What once felt like breezy, self-referential fun now reeks of something calculated. It feels less like a creative impulse and more a shallow attempt to milk the internet’s collective nostalgia. It no longer feels like frothy, escapist entertainment but an empty, self-serving loop, recycling moments, characters, and stars across films with no organic purpose. In that sense, each new Dharma film isn’t its own diegesis — it’s just another interchangeable piece in a cinematic ouroboros, endlessly feeding on itself. ICYMI | Vicky Kaushal’s Chhaava is weighed down by its own fundamental cluelessness The issue is simply that those bankrolling these creative choices fail to recognise that not everyone possesses Johar’s flair for meta-commentary. Few have his panache for self-deprecating humor, and even fewer can wield nostalgia as both a tool and a trick. A film like Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani stands apart because its nostalgia is textured. Here, Johar isn’t merely referencing his own films or retro Bombay cinema for the sake of evoking warm memories. He’s also subverting the very tropes that once defined his oeuvre. Take, for instance, that electrifying pre-interval moment when Dhanlakshmi (Jaya Bachchan) locks eyes with Rocky (Ranveer Singh), delivers a decisive command for the family, and seals it with a sharp line “Keh diya na, bas keh diya.” It’s meta-humor at its most potent — where context meets subtext, where an inside joke doubles as sharp commentary. You laugh, but you also see the point Johar is making. This is Dharma operating at full capacity: indulgent yet incisive, self-aware yet never self-parodic. It plays with its own legacy but never diminishes it. But then, you look at the promo for Nadaniyaan, it is a meta spectacle where a classic Kuch Kuch Hota Hai scene isn’t just performed but parodied by Khan, Kapoor, and Singh. And you wonder: is this just nostalgia dressed up as innovation? Is it a loving nod to their legacy? Or a well-rehearsed trick to keep milking the Shah Rukh Khan effect? Or worse — has Dharma mastered the art of weaponizing its own past to seem effortlessly modern? Because, at its lowest, it wields wokeness as a shield. It doubles down on the same formula, cloaking nostalgia in meta-winks, and mistaking self-referential nods for evolution. But at its highest, it revels in its own indulgence, wearing its gloss and glamour like a second skin — unapologetic, yet never unthinking. It never abandons the formula, nor does it follow it blindly. Instead, it bends and reshapes it, weaving new politics into old patterns, entertaining without justification, evolving without announcement. Because true reinvention doesn’t come with a wink; it arrives when you’re too enthralled to notice.
