Like everybody else, I too have a favourite Shah Rukh Khan story which I have sometimes talked about and would like to share on his 50th birthday.

Mine was the first editor's cabin Shah Rukh stepped into in Mumbai when his friend of the early 1990s, Vivek Vaswani, brought him to meet me. His friendship with Karan Johar hadn't even been conceived at that stage. Shah Rukh had signed Hema Malini's film Dil Aashna Hai . Deewana, the film in which he vroomed to stardom, was not yet in his kitty.

I was excited to meet him because I'd found him charismatic and impressive in the TV serials Fauji (directed by Chunky Panday's uncle Col Kapoor) and Circus (directed by Aziz Mirza and Kundan Shah), and wanted my staffers to interview him. Simi Chandoke, Zoom TV's glamour anchor today, still remembers wondering why I was asking her to interview this unknown boy from Delhi. She also recalls that I spoke highly of his screen charm, and had pushed her to do his first interview for our magazine, Showtime .

Shah Rukh couldn't keep away from his cigarettes even then. Publisher Nari Hira, who had turned health-conscious, had declared the entire building a "No Smoking" zone (long before it became fashionable to do so). We had no ashtrays anywhere in the office. So Shah Rukh had helped himself to the dustbin and dropped his ash into it. But smoke he did.

Since he was never the sort of eager wannabe who carried his portfolio around, we'd opened out publisher Nari Hira's cabin and shot Shah Rukh's pictures there. At that time, even the publisher had wondered who this boy was.

But our sister publication, Stardust , got the cue from us and called him "The New Kid On The Block" or something like that. For some reason, SRK often remembers that as his first interview.

What I can say 24 years later is that Shah Rukh's fame and fortune may have burgeoned but he hasn't changed one wee bit from the boy who'd walked into my cabin. Today when he jokes with Rajdeep Sardesai that at 50 his memory's fading, so he doesn't remember his old promise to quit smoking in his golden year, he echoes the same self-willed young man who reached for the dustbin but wouldn't put his cigarette away.

Also, his connection with the makers of Fauji and Circus continues in some strange way. The Fauji maker's nephews, Chunky and Chikki Panday, are Shah Rukh's closest friends. While Chunky and Bhavna Panday are on the same party circuit as Shah Rukh and Gauri Khan, Chikki remains the 4am friend the superstar quietly visits. Circus maker Aziz Mirza was his partner for years in the production company Dreamz Unlimited; the Mirza kids and SRK are still close. To this day, Shah Rukh quotes Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa as one of his favourite films. This was the one he did early in his career with Kundan Shah, the other director of Circus.

Unchanged is also the fact that, much like the superstar of today who cares a damn for consequences, Shah Rukh had gone back to Delhi soon after his first interview and quietly married his girlfriend Gauri Chhiba. Those were the days when even a pedigreed actor like Rishi Kapoor had spent sleepless nights wondering if his career as romantic hero would be over, before he finally wed his girlfriend Neetu Singh. But Shah Rukh wed his girl and brought her here, mini-skirted and sexy, and flaunted her openly.

Stardom didn't dare elude him. It still doesn't. As he told Rajdeep and later some of us who'd gone to meet him at Taj Lands End on his 50th birthday, his arms would forever remain outstretched in the lover boy pose because "You can't take the romance out of Shah Rukh Khan, whatever his age."

"Age and box office are just numbers," he said to the many queries about his turning 50.

By the way, neither on Rajdeep's show nor at the media meet the next day did Shah Rukh make any of those statements about being a Muslim or having to prove his patriotism. It was only because Barkha Dutt chose to harp on his Muslim identity, on the three Khans being Muslims in a Hindu-majority country, on his having to prove his patriotism etc., etc., that Shah Rukh came out with the statements he did. There were far too many questions from her revolving around his being a Muslim.

Surprisingly, though Barkha had moderated an excellent discussion on the proposed bill on surrogacy just the day before, she didn't pose a single question to Shah Rukh on it. That would have been relevant and topical too, since he was widely reported to have had baby AbRam through surrogacy.

To escape the tired old intolerance debate, I asked Shah Rukh his views on the surrogacy draft bill. Caught up in his birthday celebrations, he hadn't kept track of it. But yes, he was all for regulation. He spoke about how surrogacy was a gift for couples who couldn't have kids on their own. And warming up to it, Shah Rukh said he'd heard that in countries like Sweden there was an attempt to transplant an entire womb into that of a woman who couldn't conceive. "And you know I'm all for modern technology," he dimpled.

Therefore, I'd say, whether it's the vitriol of the Sadhvis of the BJP or Barkha relentlessly spotlighting his Muslim identity, Shah Rukh Khan has much more than the "intolerance" spiel to offer.

Happy 50th to the Delhi youth who remains largely unchanged.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author