Of all the Shah Rukh Khan memories I have, and there are so many, I keep going back to that one moment back in the summer of 2009.
We are in his BMW and driving from his Bandra bungalow, Mannat, to Yash Raj Studios in Andheri. The car stops at a traffic signal in Juhu and I see this urchin boy running up to the car and banging at the window. “Aye Shah Rukh, aap ka photo aila hai... aap ka photo aila hai...”
SRK brings the window down and tells him: “Thank you yaar... kahaan photo aila hai?” The kid smiles, almost blushes, and runs away even while he shouts: “Paper mein...”
When the car starts again, I have to ask him: “How did he know it was you behind the dark glass?” “I think he knows the car,” SRK smiles.
It was the most pure fan moment I had encountered and it remains so till this date. People love labelling Shah Rukh as this big global star, who can bring Berlin to a standstill as easily as he can get Dubai to jive with him, but the love for him is actually so much more rooted than it’s made out to be.
That’s why, unlike a Salman Khan or an Aamir Khan, it’s difficult for Shah Rukh Khan to pick his films. He feels the need to do a Raees after a Dear Zindagi, to mix a Paheli with a Don, an Om Shanti Om with a Chak De! India. Because that street kid at the Juhu Circle wants to see him as a blend of “baniye ka dimaag aur miyan bhai ki daring”, the NRI lady in Frisco wants to see him stretch his arms and romance Kajol in Iceland, and the film critic wants to see him make the chair creak just as a dear actor.
Shah Rukh once tried to club all of these different avatars under one tag — “emotional experiences”. “I have always thought of myself as someone who for the last 20 years in his own way — good, bad, ugly, fast, slow — has been able to give you emotional experiences rather than just films,” he had told me.
But actually what he’s trying to do is claim his share of every pie out there. Because there’s a Shah Rukh Khan for every audience and he doesn’t want to lose any of them. And sometimes in trying to get that balance right, he has headlined many bad films. But when your career is built on transforming from the most dreaded man on screen (Darr) to the most loved man on screen (DDLJ) within two years, it was always going to be tricky.
Given that the task at hand is so complex, you would imagine the man spending days and weeks and months deliberating over a script before saying ‘yes’. But what if I tell you, most of the times, he doesn’t even listen to an entire screenplay before giving the go-ahead. In an absolute contrast to Aamir, SRK primarily puts his faith in the person, not in the paper.
For a long time, Shah Rukh was content only doing films that his friends used to make. Earlier Aziz Mirza and Yash Chopra and then later, between Farah Khan, Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra and Farhan Akhtar, more than half his filmography is directed by his pals. “I can’t say ‘no’ to them and because they make a film every two or three years, as soon as I am done with one, the other is ready to start something new,” was his simple, logical explanation.
But with Adi moving on to a Ranveer and Karan on to a Ranbir and Farhan flipping to the front of the camera, SRK has had to find new directors to work with. And even now the man is picking his people rather than selecting scripts. Like he blindly boarded the Rohit Shetty Express, completely submitting himself to his brand of entertainment. “I really feel that the medium of film is the film-maker’s prerogative and an actor shouldn’t come in the way,” he has insisted.
If sources are to be believed, he’s not heard a line of Tanu Weds Manu director Aanand L. Rai’s script and agreed to play the lead role of a dwarf. Even for the Imtiaz Ali film with Anushka Sharma, Shah Rukh was more interested to work with the man who made Jab We Met and Rockstar rather than dissect and discuss every line of the new script.
I AM NOT GOING DOWN
Maybe not all of these collaborations turn out the way he hopes because the scripts are never put through the wringer. If King Khan has had big hits, he’s had mammoth failures. And regularly at that. Failures that have prompted magazines and newspapers to pronounce his career dead more than once. Like when Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, Asoka, One 2 Ka 4 were crashing back to back.
But everyone needs a hobby. And for Shah Rukh Khan, it’s resurrection. Every time you think that it’s all over for him and there’s no chance he’s going to bounce back, the man delivers a dream comeback. “I can take a lot of beating,” he once said. “My father taught me that the person who wins in the fighting ring is not the person who can hit hard, but the person who can take a lot of hitting. I have a very simple logic in life: you can hit me but I am not going down.”
5 films SRK shouldn’t have done
Guddu: Baazigar and Darr had already become big, so why do this inane sleeping pill of a movie? Just because Abrar Alvi (Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam) was associated with it?
Koyla: Why pick a film where you can’t speak when one of your greatest skills has been the frenzied and intense dialogue delivery? This Rakesh Roshan film was born dead.
Duplicate: A Shah Rukh double role should have been an event. But with a script that wasn’t funny or thrilling and Mahesh Bhatt directing over the phone, a wasted opportunity.
RA.One: The intention was good but the terrific VFX work and the action set pieces paled in comparison to a stupid plot and even stupider characters.
Dilwale: The big SRK-Kajol reunion happened in such a mediocre movie that you have to blame Shah Rukh for green-lighting a project just because Rohit Shetty had dates.
5 films SRK should have done
Lagaan: When Ashutosh Gowariker first offered Bhuvan to SRK, he wasn’t really convinced about the film or his character. Aamir was, and well....
Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.: Sanjay Dutt was only supposed to do the Jimmy Sheirgill bit and Shah Rukh the title role, but he didn’t see much potential in this Rajkumar Hirani gem.
Slumdog Millionaire: Shah Rukh didn’t want to be such a minor part of what would have been his first major English-language film, but the way Anil Kapoor grabbed the part and made it big must have hurt SRK.
3 Idiots: Hirani again went to Shah Rukh and this time he wanted to play Rancho, with one caveat — he would produce the film. But Hirani didn’t want to leave Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who vowed to get a bigger star — Aamir Khan.
Ek Tha Tiger: Kabir Khan had gone to Shah Rukh to play Tiger but he turned it down citing date clashes with Jab Tak Hai Jaan. Tiger is now a major money-spinning franchise.
That the never-say-never guy is the owner of Kolkata Knight Riders explains how a team completely down and out would come back from the dead and lift the IPL trophy. “A lot of people told me to sell off the team. But no! This team is going to win. I am going to lift that trophy,” Shah Rukh had told me on October 10, 2011. On May 27, 2012, he did just that: lift the trophy.
And he brought Calcutta to a standstill after that IPL triumph by the Kolkata Knight Riders. Replete with a stampede outside the Eden Gardens. More than any entertainer of his generation, Shah Rukh can really get a crowd going. Having spent many evenings holed up in that press box at the Eden, I’ve noticed how SRK can single-handedly, okay maybe double-handedly, make thousands and thousands of people dance to his moves at will. The big question in the initial years of IPL was: “Are you going to watch the match or KKR’s 12th man in the stands?”
The occasion really doesn’t matter. Whether it’s mall (think City Centre for Ra.One) or stadium (East Bengal for Dilwale), his ability to connect with the masses is legen-don’t-wait-for-it-dary. Somewhere he turns these shows into a one-on-one experience for everyone present. And most of the times, these events are completely unplanned and unrehearsed. The man just gets up on stage and the script for the evening starts getting written as he goes along.
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THE SUN NEVER SETS ON ME
SRK’s ease and felicity with words and thoughts can only be compared to the hand-eye co-ordination of Virender Sehwag on a great day. There’s no question yet to be formulated that can’t be tonked out of the park by a smashing Shah Rukh Khan reply. Some day someone’s going to come out with a book with just his quotes and it’s going to be one fat book. With gems like: “Why do you wear shades at night?” “Because the sun never sets on me!”
And it’s not just the gift of the gab. Throw in some guts and gumption as well. Shah Rukh was the first one to come out and speak about the growing intolerance in the country. “Religious intolerance and not being secular is the worst kind of crime that you can do as a patriot,” he had spelt out on his 50th birthday.
PEOPLE BELIEVE I CAN’T ACT
It’s not easy being Shah Rukh Khan when all your life you are stuck between a bigger star and a better actor. And those Khans have been piling on the crores at will with every new release and questioning your true star value. Three Aamir films (Dangal, PK and Dhoom:3) and three Salman films (Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Sultan and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo) have made more money than SRK’s highest grosser till date, Chennai Express.
Even in the acting department, there has always been this huge question mark. While Salman doesn’t claim to be an actor — “you can accuse me of anything but not acting” — Aamir has done enough to be regarded as one of the finest actors of the country, even if he loudly throws in a Ghajini or a Dhoom:3. Remember when SRK was asked what he would do if he woke up as Aamir? “I would tell the world that Shah Rukh is the better actor,” he had dimpled.
“People believe I can’t act,” SRK had once opened up. “Just because I am cheerful and jovial and look good, doesn’t mean that I can’t act. Only if you look bad and your hair is not in place, you are considered a good actor.”
Weak line of defence? But he does promise that we ain’t seen nothing yet. “Serious acting ke liye toh poori life baaki hai. Abhi chhichhodapan se kaam chala loonga.”
Call it chhichhodapan or what you will, there is no matching his energy level, on screen and off it. He’s a 16-year-old in a 51-year-old’s body. Whether running and vaulting in the chase sequence of Fan or smoking and adda-ing his way through a midnight-to-dawn dinner, there’s no stopping SRK.
Just like he finds a fifth gear when it comes to selling his film. He’s always made his music and trailer launches the Bolly events of the year and his pre-release interviews the most wanted.
The Ra.One music launch happened on one of the big floors in Filmcity. They had set up little tents behind the stage for media interactions. Arjun Rampal and Kareena Kapoor were there, yes, but everyone wanted the big Shah Rukh Khan interview.
There we were, journalists from print publications from all over the country flown in for the interviews, seated in the different tents, waiting for the King. He popped into each one of them, flashed his dimpled smile, checked whether we had been properly taken care of and answered the same set of questions on his upcoming film.
But the answers were never the same. The USP of Ra.One changed from one interview to another like the colours of a chameleon. To the senior reporter from Ahmedabad, “he’s made a film so big that his parents can see from the sky”. To the lady journalist from Indore, “it’s the film he wants women to watch twice”. And to the young cub reporter from Hyderabad, “it’s finally the film he’s made for his kids”.
That night every one of those film correspondents went to bed happy in the thought that they had got the best Shah Rukh Khan interview of all time. Every one of them had a headline they were dying to share with their editors. Every one of them was suddenly very excited about a film whose trailer they hadn’t really cared about. Every one of them was an SRK convert.
5 best pairings
Kajol: One of the greatest Bollywood pairings of all time. Marinating with Baazigar, simmering with Karan Arjun, blooming with Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, continuing to spread magic with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, K3G, My Name is Khan and even Dilwale.
Madhuri Dixit: They didn’t do a lot of films together, but SRK and Mads exuded a chemistry which was mature and resonant.
Dil To Pagal Hai was their big love story, the scenes in Devdas really hit the high notes on the passion scale.
Rani Mukerji: Sometimes fun and cute, sometimes charming and wistful, the SRK-Rani love stories were always special. Kuch Kuch, Chalte Chalte, Paheli, KANK...
Preity Zinta: From the time she asked him “Are you a virgin?” in Dil Se.., Preity’s on-screen chemistry with Shah Rukh has never disappointed, Kal Ho Naa Ho or Veer-Zaara.
Deepika Padukone: Shanti se pehle aur Shanti ke baad, SRK’s discovery is now on the brink of global stardom but DP’s pairing with King Khan is still unmatchable. Om Shanti Om, Chennai Express and even Happy New Year had unforgettable Shah-Deepika moments.
BEING... SHAH RUKH KHAN
But conversions have happened the other way round, too. Friends and colleagues have suddenly found themselves at the pointy end of Shah Rukh’s release strategy. From his Devdas director Sanjay Leela Bhansali to the man who gave him Karan Arjun and Koyla early in his career, Rakesh Roshan, no one has been spared.
King Khan has a simple theory about the release of his own films — the date he chooses to arrive will depend on him and not on any other film or star. This is the Scorpio in him, competitive to the core. When Bhansali didn’t change the release date of Saawariya despite Om Shanti Om coming on the same day, he vowed to “destroy” the other film. And destroy he did, taking the marketing game for his home production to another level.
Similar head-on battles were orchestrated for Jab Tak Hai Jaan vs Son of Sardar and Dilwale vs Bajirao Mastani with mixed results. But now with Raees vs Kaabil, things have got even uglier with exhibitors supposedly being forced to give more shows to the Shah Rukh film despite promising both producers a 50-50 spread.
“I don’t feel ill about anyone. I don’t even feel nice about anyone. I just don’t think about them. I am selfish that way. I think about myself and my films,” the SRK way is very clear.
The three Khans have ruled the Bolly roost for more than two decades now. But with all three of them batting at 51, it’s not going to be easy to continue leading from the front doing what they have been doing for all these years.
Aamir made the switch long back and started playing characters. Salman has always played Salman and it’s still paying off. Shah Rukh continues to oscillate between playing the character and just being himself. There are takers for both but without the numbers adding up, it’s bit of a struggle.
Retweeting every block booking, every ticket purchase, every fan review... there’s clearly more than a hint of desperation to tell the world that he still can. And yet after all that, Raees has struggled to even hit the Rs 150-crore mark.
About five years back, I had casually asked him whether he can put a best-before date on his stardom. The King had smiled and said: “If I am not able to extend this for another 10 years... it’s going to be shameful. Having the biggest house in the country, having the best pals, being f***ing Shah Rukh Khan....” n
5 biggest box office
Chennai Express: When he was really struggling to match up to the other Khans, SRK hired Rohit Shetty to orchestrate his first 200-crore blockbuster.
DDLJ: The Aditya Chopra movie which continues to run after 22 years in a Mumbai theatre and in people’s minds, one of the greatest films of Bollywood.
Happy New Year: More than the merit of this SRK home production, the unprecedented pre-release marketing made this heist-movie-meets-dance-film collect the crores.
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai: Karan Johar’s debut film was a little juvenile, very melodramatic but the emotions rang true and found a huge fan following then and over the years.
Om Shanti Om: Farah Khan’s best film borrowed from some forgotten Hindi film classics concocting that perfect masala film which was lapped up.
Team t2 tracks SRK
He sat down, lit a cig and turned towards me...
So many lifestyle journalists of our times have a Shah Rukh Khan “wait” story that it’s become a topic when we meet! Well, mine is five hours — spent in the Darjeeling Lounge of ITC Sonar. It was during IPL 2012 and it was a match day. SRK had given us time for a shoot around noon. We arrived at 11.30am. And then we sat. Drank tea. And sat. And made friends with the squiggly worms that float in the air if you stare at one spot too long.
Around 5pm, there was a sudden electric charge among the people in the lounge. The King had arrived. “He’s SO fair, he’s SO slim,” were my first thoughts.
He walked in looking clueless, vulnerable even. Sat down on a sofa, lit a cigarette and turned towards me.
“Where should I stand?” he asked me. I blanked out for a nanosecond because THE Shah Rukh Khan was speaking to me. Then the journo in me took over and there I was, suggesting shoot angles and poses and whatnot.
I also needed something to write with the pictures. I asked him if he would consider buying a house in Calcutta given that he was the KKR owner and needed to come to the city often.
“Oh, but where’s the money?” he replied, dazzling me with a dimpled smile. Before I could process whether the Badshah was pulling my leg, his team had rushed him to Eden Gardens.
Laughing, wisecracking... at 1am!
I have never been a fan of Shah Rukh Khan the star and actor. But there’s something about Shah Rukh Khan off screen — the man, the father, the talker — that gets me every time. Any journalist who’s ever spoken to SRK will vouch for the fact that the man is an interviewer’s delight. Yes, he will keep you waiting till the time your fingernails grow a few inches, but once he’s with you, he’s all yours for those 20 minutes.
Over the years, I have interviewed SRK many times — Calcutta to Mumbai to Hyderabad — but one meeting stands out. In Calcutta to promote Happy New Year, SRK breezed through his various commitments for the day, before settling down for an interview at 1am. Yes, smiling, laughing, wisecracking even at 1am, the man was such a pleasure to speak to, the interview quickly transitioning to a sort of easy banter.
What sealed it for me? When he dimpled at the end of 30 minutes, gave me a warm hug and said: ‘You are so good at your job… you never looked down at your book of questions even once. I loved that!’
Thank you, SRK!
Jaan of the party...
The best thing about summer is IPL and the best thing about IPL is getting to party with Shah Rukh Khan after a KKR win at Eden. Our “Raees” is the heart of the party. Black tee, ripped denims and sneakers are his party staples and that’s enough to make even a 50-year-old man squeal in excitement. #TrueStory
And for lesser mortals like me, he makes me go weak in the knees every single time he walks past me, talks to someone with his crooked eyebrows and crinkled eyes or just smiles. Dayyyyuuum!
And then he takes over the dance floor, Umesh Yadav matching him step for step. SRK makes everyone dance, yes, even a
Sunil Narine! When “boss” decides to jive, everyone comes alive clapping and cheering while the DJ goes into a tizzy spinning one SRK track after another. Shah Rukh’s energy meter is infectious (the party continues till dawn, at least) and age is just a number for him.
Being able to stand next to him and click a picture and have him wait patiently even as my phone decides to malfunction… he’s such a darling, even at 5am! And this time when I see him celebrate a victory, I will probably be singing “Jo teri khatir tadpe pehle se hi, Kya usse tadpana o zaalima” in my head *blush* #FanForever
