Saif & Kareena: Meet KareLi

Alright! Alright! You’re a couple! I got the memo, ok? I saw the fugly ass monster tattoo, winced through the grainy video of Parikrama on stage, heard about the ring and know that you have a movie coming out this April. Mission accomplished yet? No? Okay, then: You’re a power-couple. There, I said it. Long have I struggled against the always magnetic pull of an attention-starved celebrity couple but I give up. All hail the It Couple: Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor. Crown Prince and Princess of All Bollywood.

They so pwetty, they make me eyes bug out. They so in love, it melts me icy heart. They so cool, it burn my gut (although that could be indigestion. Damn you, lamb curry, damn you!).

But what is all this Saif and Kareena business? It Couples require an It Name. This is not only true but it’s practically a law. And by “practically”, I mean I’m gonna do it so it might as well be a law. Actually, I was half tempted to use this opportunity to damn whatever moron first came up with that cutesy idea in the first place but I had so much fun thinking up a name for these two that I was able to find some measure of forgiveness in my cold, withered heart. So…

Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor. The possibilities are endless.

Say you went the surname route: KhaKa. Like Kafka but shallow and in designer togs. Or there’s the first name tag like Sareena, which kinda sorta sounds like Czarina. It’s fitting coz Saif is royalty and Kareena is Bollywood royalty (and never lets you forget it) whose Grandpa’s movies were big hits in Russia. See? Perfect. Except, of course, Sareena could also suggest that Saif is the Czarina which means he’s a queen. And I think that was Saif 1.0 not the manwhore Saif 2.0 version, don’t you?

Some of the names are just too unflattering like NaAli or KaAli - and the latter is racist as well as being inaccurate so let’s give it a miss.

You could go the Om Shanti Om route and call them Saif Kapoor or Kareena Khan, which would be doubly ironic because the two of them already have the most wanted surnames in the film industry. Actually, I vote we give Kareena the title of Khan in any case coz she’s such a little tiger. Starving tiger with a massive head these days but hey, it all photographs beautifully, so who cares?

I tried hard to put Saif first in the long-held tradition of TomKat (cute), Brangelina (borderline annoying) and Abhiwarya (seriously?! Was the person who made up that name on crack or just terminally lazy?). Unfortunately for Saif, in spite of possible monikers like SaifKapoo and SaiKa, most names skew Kareena-wards. Including my personal favorite: KareLi.

It has a certain pizazz to my ear that all the other contenders lack. For one thing, it’s such a comforting sound: it might be a first cousin of your humble karela. It says, “Don’t be afraid. I only look glamorous and vain on the outside. On the inside, I pick my nose one nostril at a time, just like you.” And in these days of the anti-Northie bias, it’s a reassuringly Mumbaiyya word - Kareli. As in, “Anything kareli for my fifteen minutes in the sun!” But put on a little make-up and slip on those high heels, and it sounds sort of exotic, especially when you say it with the right accent: Kare-Li. Bollywood can get all the Russian and Slav background dancers it wants, but we all know the hearts of Indian men really go dhak-dhak for that Oriental look.

Kareli also has another advantage - any children born of this union will automatically become Children of the Kareli and they could probably get a franchise out of it. Hopefully it won’t be a horror franchise (aww, poor kiddies) but you know what they say about two pretty people: yup, Rumer Willis.

Just sayin’.

Long live Kareli.