Flashback Friday: When Shah Rukh Khan’s double stepped in for Pardes’ Yeh Dil Deewana song

Shah Rukh Khan’s filmography, especially from the 1990s, is dotted with a number of iconic songs that still remain fresh and loved among Bollywood fans even today. The spirited song from Pardes, Yeh Dil Deewana, is definitely one among them. But not many would know that Khan made use of a double for the song.

The film’s director Subhash Ghai had made the revelation in a 2020 interview he gave to Bollywood Hungama. Opening up about the soundtrack, he revealed that the film’s music had been made over the course of two days. He recalled how he had invited Sonu Nigam over to a small studio in Mumbai, and told him to sing as loud as if he was ‘striking a hammer’. Yeh Dil Deewana was the last song they had to record, and they had two days left.

Although Khan was present and cooperative throughout the shoot, he had to leave two days earlier towards the end of the shoot, as his wife Gauri Khan was pregnant at the time. They shot the song first in Los Angeles and before Khan had to leave, Ghai asked the former to come in the morning so that a few close up shots could be filmed. Ghai said that he picturised the entire song in two hours that morning. “If you see the song has various locations and not just one. All the longshots of the car were taken with Shah Rukh’s duplicate. Shah Rukh had only given closeups,” Ghai said.

In addition to Khan, the 1997 film also starred Mahima Chaudhry, Apurva Agnihotri, Alok Nath and Amrish Puri in prominent roles. The film was also remade in Telugu as Pelli Kanuka (1998).

Pardes is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video.