Shah Rukh Khan fumes over Ramez Galal’s Ramadan TV prank

Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan was visibly angry, and even contained himself from punching Ramez Galal over a Ramadan TV prank.

A screen grab from MBC’s Ramez Taht El Ard.

It seems that Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan has forgiven Egyptian prankster Ramez Galal for dragging him out into the Abu Dhabi desert and setting him up to believe his end was nigh.

Friday night and after a week of promos, SRK finally appeared on MBC's Ramez Taht El Ard (Ramez Underground) — the popular but controversial reality TV show where mostly Arab celebrities are pranked in near-death scenarios. The episode had been highly anticipated.

Since the episode aired, a two-minute segment of the episode that was posted on YouTube late Friday night has already been viewed well over 1.4 million times as of the writing of this review. Also, Galal posted a picture and a video on his Twitter account (@RamezGalal) of himself with SRK, indicating that he had finally been forgiven by the actor, despite SRK leaving the scene of the prank visibly infuriated. “Don’t touch me. I don’t want you near me. You’re sick; you’re ugly,” SRK says to Galal at the end of the episode, once the prank is revealed.

The episode started off innocently enough. The “Prince of Indian cinema”, as Galal introduces him, is seen arriving to a remote shoot location in the Abu Dhabi desert via helicopter — that has been the case with every celebrity who was pranked before him (already, episodes featuring Lebanese singer Wael Kfoury, Egyptian dancer and actress Fifi Abdou and Algerian singer Cheb Khaled have aired since the start of the show this Ramadan).

SRK then mounts a camel that takes him from the helicopter landing site to a red carpet leading to large tents set up in the desert. The entire time, Galal is running a mocking commentary in the background. “His hair is unnatural,” says Galal as SRK is seen running his hand through his thick locks. “There must be a hairdresser hiding in there.”

SRK is then welcomed by popular Lebanese TV presenter and talk show host Nishan, who this season has been receiving a lot of flak for being in cahoots with Galal and assisting him in duping celebrities. Nishan spends 30 minutes with celebrities, interviewing them for his fake talk show. He asks SRK about his family, about rumours of him having purchased a home in Dubai’s The Palm, about his fitness regimen and about his love of coffee. “I drink a lot of coffee, actually,” says SRK.

Nishan even asks SRK if he thinks he is better than respected Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan at this stage in his career, and SRK responds by laughing as if the very idea is preposterous.

“I grew up watching Mr Amitabh Bachchan, he is my superstar,” says SRK.

Once the fake interview is over, SRK is taken in a 4X4 for a safari through the desert, accompanied by a young female assistant, a driver and a second man sitting next to the driver. All the car’s passengers, save SRK, are in on the prank.

Soon, it appears the driver has lost his way as well as lost control of the vehicle. SRK keeps his cool, but is visibly worried. The vehicle comes to a halt in what appears to be quicksand, beings sinking and the passengers scramble out of the windows and up on its roof. Throughout, SRK is seen helping his fellow passengers, pulling them back up whenever they appear to be sinking in the sand.

There’s no denying that SRK is able to keep his cool far more than other celebrities who had been pranked and who often resort to complete panic. Cheb Khaled even started praying, believing he was about to die.

A human-sized lizard then appears out of a nearby cave; it’s Galal dressed up in a suit, but SRK is still unawares. He stares at the lizard in disbelief and continues assisting the others. He neither screams nor curses; he tried flicking some of the quicksand in the face of the lizard to deter its approach — far more than others ever thought to do.

When the lizard suddenly sits up, lifts it head right off and reveals a grinning, sweating Ramez, who exclaims, “Hi, Mr Shah Rukh Khan! Hello,”, the Indian actor just stares with his mouth hanging open in shock. He then lets go of the man he was propping up and pushes everyone away from him.

“This is nonsense. You got me here all the way from India to do this,” says SRK, and begins threatening Galal. “Don’t talk to me. Get someone to get me out.”

Galal is seen simpering to SRK with repeated admonitions of “you’re my hero” and “you’re my dream” and “I swear I love you Shah Rukh Khan”.

“The less you speak, the better for you,” says SRK, and has to hold himself back several times from punching Galal. Instead, he throws him on the ground, and drags him through the desert by one leg.

Galal doesn’t give up in trying to get SRK to forgive him and laugh about the prank, but to no avail. SRK is finally seen getting into a waiting vehicle and instructing his security to get him out of there.

Galal’s prank show has become a Ramadan mainstay; this is the seventh year running for the show, as it returns annually with a different theme. Last year, Galal invited celebrities to a fake film festival in Morocco then had a fire break out in the room where they were being interviewed. The year before that, he took them on a turbulent helicopter ride over Dubai, making them believe they were seconds away from a fiery crash.

Past Western celebrities that have been duped by Galal include Antonio Banderas, Steven Seagal and socialite Paris Hilton, who threatened to sue both Galal and producers.

Ramez Taht El Ard airs daily during Ramadan, at 9pm on MBC Masr and 9:30pm on MBC