All eyes were on the Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan session at the India Today Conclave 2017 where the superstars were to talk about living as legends and the lessons they learnt. The conversation promised to be a highlight for the second day of the event. Unfortunately, Bachchan could not attend because Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s father Krishnaraj Rai passed away earlier in the day.
Shah Rukh Khan rose to the occasion with an enthralling speech and entertained the audiences, by donning the hat of the Dear Zindagi doctor to answer the questions posed to him by the three India Today moderators, Koel Puri Rinchet, Padmaja Joshi and Avantika Singh.
Talking about success and the fame it brings, Khan said: “The spotlight can be a frightfully lonely place. But accepting the beauty and the gift that comes from being in the spotlight is the only way to go.” He joked, “When people start throwing themselves at you, just make sure you always smell good, brush your teeth, have soft hair. I have a lot of ladies who like to smell me and grab me, so now I have lady bodyguards.”
The madness of social media has brought in another facet of being in the spotlight, the actor pointed out, adding that it was surprising how little of what people said on social media matters. “If I were to say ‘shut up’ to someone on social media, I’d get a much louder shut up in my face,” he said. Instead, his advice to those who want to say ‘shut up’ is to be gracious, be decent, bow down a little and then say the golden words. “Speak your mind to yourself in front of the bathroom mirror, or say them out loud in a padded room where your voice doesn’t leave the room,” he added sardonically.
Adding, “The good point about social media is you can put your point across. I do find good-thinking, smart, intelligent people going out there and kind of making a fool of themselves by refuting (rumours). You can’t spend your life explaining things and what you feel and what you mean to people.”
Talking about being there for his kids, he said, “I am planning to give up all (smoking and drinking) and try to be healthier and happier. I don’t want my children to hold that against me that I was not there. I want to be there to give them advice completely out of context and irrelevant. I want to find out about their personal lives when they are hating me for doing so. I want to be cumbersome and troublesome to my children. So I should work towards it and get healthy.”
Recalling the first time he was offered the opportunity to shoot with Bachchan for a cover of a glossy magazine, Khan said he asked the veteran actor how he spent his free time believing he’d get an inspirational answer. “Instead, he said ‘There are a lot of rats in my garden, so I run after them and try to catch them.’ I started wishing I had some rats or even cockroaches in my garden,” exclaimed Khan.
“Being legendary isn’t really about your actions,” he said.
