SLB or Rajkumar Hirani: The better director/storyteller?

Both are creative geniuses. Whom would you rank higher?

Hirani for his range and ability to take serious issues and ask deeper questions, make audience think, without compromising on light hearted or entertainment factor and having more for character actors to do as well.

SLB is too one track, heavy, has tinge of doom in his films. And focuses more on leads and has okayish parts for rest of the cast. He has become stale since HDDCS repeating same old formula of 1 person in love with 2 or 2 in love with one and their parents who object to their relation or with courtesans, tragic characters or suicidal characters.

His films are more about grand decor, curtains, carpets, chandeliers than anything else.

Rajkumar Hirani's movies are more heartfelt but SLB is a creative genius. His movies are like painting, you could pause at any song/scene of his movie, and it looks picture perfect. I would say SLB is definitely a better director.

SLB is a maverick, a pioneer of his brand of cinema in India and a creative genius.

He is way above the likes of Raju Hirani. Even if we ignore his dubious personal life shenanigans, his terrorist white washing project Sanju definitely put a dent on his reputation as a film maker.

Arranging things like thousands of lamps, chandeliers, drapes, flowers, sequined attires etc in one place is creative genius?

I can't answer this.

Rajkumar Hirani is an engaging storyteller. He uses simplicity and humor to tell heartfelt, moving stories. Even if the topic is heavy, he addresses it lightly and deftly. His movies have a twinge of optimism and feel-good fun.

SLB is an engaging worldbuilder. He takes well-known stories or concepts and builds rich, immersive worlds around them. It's rare to see such visual storytellers. But his movies have a sense of ennui that doesn't make you crave it repeatedly.

Rajkumaar Hirani any day

Both have their own strengths and shortcomings.

Neither. Hirani has this tendancy to simplify complex issues which do not have easy answers as a fable.

SLB's characters are exhausting with their melodrama and divine love as if they are the only people in this world with problems. I'd have loved to see Bajirao's mother give him one tight slap for his tantrums. In a similar situation in PS-1, Aditya Karikalan's sister Kundavai tells him that the affairs to the kingdom is more important than his pouting over her splitting him from Aishwariya.

Also SLB puts his women on a pedestal as if they are a Devi.

Arranging things like thousands of lamps, chandeliers, drapes, flowers, sequined attires etc in one place is creative genius?