The first time that I met Shah Rukh Khan I was impressed by his gift of the gab. There and then—this was in 2001—I knew Shah Rukh could sell coal to Dhanbad, if the need arises. He spoke with a casual authority, as though he knew the gravity of every word he uttered, but didn’t want to harp on it.
The first time I met Shah Rukh, he was shooting for one of the few flops he has done. This was ages ago. When I left a message for Shah Rukh informing him I was in Mumbai he called back late in the night suggesting we meet the next day. The next morning I was with Mahesh Manjrekar and Namrata Shirodkar who were shooting at Joggers Park when Shah Rukh called on my cellphone inviting me over to the venue of his shooting.
I still remember the expression on Namrata’s face. “Shah Rukh actually called you?!” she was incredulous.
That was when I realized what star power is. And Shah Rukh has it in abundance. While he was shooting for Main Hoon Na at Film City in the suburbs of Mumbai, I saw Sushmita Sen’s sister drop into his van with some special herbal medicine, specially made for his recently operated neck.
Everyone cares for SRK and not just because he’s—to quote his oft-quoted phrase—the best, but also because he brings out the protective instinct in all those who are close to him, from wife Gauri and friend Karan Johar to Sushmita and her sis Neelam.
Besides being India’s most saleable star, he’s also the cleverest person I’ve come across. When he talks, the words spill out in a free-flowing and utterly charming mélange of self-revealing existentialism.
My first meeting with Shah Rukh was unforgettable. His good friend Juhi Chawla was also on the set of 1 2 Ka 4. Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani featuring both had just been released. Naturally, that was the main topic of conversation… until suddenly, Shah Rukh said, “Let’s go home. I want you to meet my wife and son.” Dodging all security, he hopped into my taxi, and we sped to his famous bungalow, Mannat, a hand’s throw away. The white interiors of the place gleamed in what I thought to be a rather clinical way. There, I met his wife, Gauri, and son, Aryan. A truly happy family.
Shah Rukh is a philosopher at heart, albeit a pop-philosopher, but nonetheless committed to a fierce and constant soul-searching that he defines verbally with easy designer-words. By using a language that sounds casual and is yet acutely penetrating, he creates the feeling of being a simple yet complex creature of calculated caprice.
I remember the first time I called him on his birthday and mentioned it’s also mine; he called right back to wish me. “How old are you?” he asked me in his direct way. I told him. “Oh, so ‘wishing you a long life’ goes a little shorter way for you than it does for me,” he replied.
Shah Rukh can catch you unawares. “Nothing escapes my attention,” he once told me. He’d also advise me against my friendship with a particular actress. “She’ll dump you. Nothing matters except your family,” he warned me from London two days before his famous back operation some years ago.
I was amazed that he could talk about something so distant during a time like that. He was completely right about the actress, of course. “Over here they all think only about themselves constantly. I want my close friends to come out of that,” he told me after a long interview.
The next time we met it was briefly on the sets of my dear friend Sanjay Bhansali’s Devdas. Shah Rukh gave his shot and looked at me with surprise. “I’ll be just come back,” he said. He never returned.
Somewhere I think we lost connectivity. We hardly ever spoke. When we did, it was very done, very guardedly. Shah Rukh felt I was allowing my other favourites to colour my judgement. I didn’t know or care to correct his perception… until the day I took my daughter, a die-hard SRK fan, to meet her idol.
The meeting was arranged by our mutual friend Karan Johar, who also accompanied us to the set of Farah Khan’s Main Hoon Na. On this occasion, when I saw Shah Rukh, I was struck by how frail the neck problem and surgery had made him. But the spirit remains unbroken…and the fans are still there. More of them than ever before.
I will never forget how beautifully and effortlessly Shah Rukh met my daughter, how much at home he made her feel, advised her on career options, fed her lunch, and insisted on having a picture taken with her.
My daughter, otherwise, even back then, a grown-up pragmatic 11-year-old, was reduced to sobbing ecstasy. I believe Rajesh Khanna had the power to do that to his fans. Now Shah Rukh had it. His star power and the positive energy that he exudes are indomitable. And he meets people with a genuineness that’s sorely lacking in other stars. No strained smiles, no strenuous efforts to make conversation…..Shah Rukh doesn’t need to play-act to impress.
No one can get to know Shah Rukh intimately. He has two walls around him. One that he allows his friends and family to penetrate, and the other, more impenetrable wall, which I don’t think anyone is allowed to penetrate. No self-sketch, or reams and reams of self-analysis, or even an autobiography can really reveal the real Shah Rukh Khan… the one behind the mask of superstardom who is as scared and insecure as any man… the one who doesn’t assert ‘I’m The Best’ but probably looks at the mirror in the morning and wonders, ‘Am I The Best?’
There is a deceptive aura of casualness to his conversations, deceptive because Shah Rukh never speaks nonsense. Words are not a waste of time for this Khan. While Salman uses his mumbled words to accentuate his ennui, and Aamir uses over-accentuated words (punctuated with uneasy laughter) to create an aura of a socially responsible citizen.
Shah Rukh’s words are not meant for effect. He says what he wants to, when he wants to.
Over the last 38 years of his career, Shah Rukh Khan has said all there is to say about him. His life is an open book. And I think his fans know him better than the fans of any actor in this country.
When Shah Rukh wants something, he gets it, no matter how.
Shah Rukh Khan is, in my opinion, a shining example of the aspirational post-Independence Indian. The outsider with no connections, the young progressive Muslim , breaking all preconceptions of the prerequisites of stardom, Shah Rukh was a star-kid even though his parents were not from the film industry.
His superstardom manifests the secret yearning of every young Indian: I will because I can.
