Of all the Indian film stars I have interviewed over the last thirty years or so, three have struck me as being especially interesting.
The first is Dilip Kumar whose career encapsulates the story of India in the post independence years. The second is Amitabh Bachchan. I don't think you need me to tell you why he is special.
And the third is Shah Rukh Khan. A fortnight ago, I anchored a live discussion with Shah Rukh and Deepika Padukone, the stars of Chennai Express. Though we were supposed to talk about the movie, I think that both Shah Rukh and Deepika had tired of the endless promotional activities they had been required to undertake for the sake of the film. So both seemed quite pleased when I suggested that we keep the references to Chennai Express to a bare minimum.
I have known Shah Rukh for years. But the only time I have ever met Deepika was when I interviewed her for a TV show I used to do called Face The Music. At that stage, she was one of India's top models and it was in the course of the show that she announced that she was joining movies. She had just been signed up by Farah Khan, she revealed, for a movie called Om Shanti Om, which was produced by and starred Shah Rukh.
Deepika is now a big star. So I asked her to remember what it was like acting with Shah Rukh in her first movie when she was a nobody in the film business. Her answer was revealing. On the sets of Om Shanti Om, she said, she had never felt strange or awkward because Shah Rukh had looked after her. But now, she said, when she sees Shah Rukh, she feels that he is the one who needs looking after. Everyone who likes him, she said, feels protective about him. And she thinks that deep down, Shah Rukh is a very lonely person.
Shah Rukh was present on stage when she said all this and he did his best to make light of her perceptions. I have never seen Shah Rukh at such close quarters as Deepika has over the years so I am not sure that my opinion means very much. But I suspect that she is right. There is a lonely and private Shah Rukh beneath that extroverted exterior. And though he laughs about them, I think that the controversies have taken their toll on his psyche.
"Someday, somebody will write a completely honest biography of Shah Rukh Khan, one that deals with his status as an outsider from Delhi in an industry that is dominated by family businesses and where dynasty is the norm." |
I have some idea of what really happened at Wankhede Stadium and know that Shah Rukh lost his cool because communal abuses were directed at him and he felt responsible for the kids accompanying him. But he has never spoken in public about that encounter. And the world has chosen to believe the worst about him.
So it is with the controversy about the child born to a surrogate. At our event, he spoke about the pain he felt when the media went berserk speculating about the baby. I don't think he wanted to keep the birth a secret. But I think he wanted a degree of privacy till his wife and he were ready to talk about their new son. I don't think that is unreasonable. Everyone is entitled to decide when they want to talk about their children. But Shah Rukh Khan has never been entitled to that kind of privacy. No matter what he does -- and often -- no matter what he does not do -- the world gets involved.
At the event, he said that there was a time when he thought he could just brazen it out. After all, what did it matter what people said? But now that his children are beginning to ask questions about they see on TV or read about their father, he has come to terms with the fact that he cannot ignore what the media say. And yet, no matter how upset he gets, there is nothing he can do about it.
Someday, somebody will write a completely honest biography of Shah Rukh Khan, one that deals with his status as an outsider from Delhi in an industry that is dominated by family businesses and where dynasty is the norm. And perhaps, the biography will touch on his tendency to attract controversy no matter what he does.
I don't know when Shah Rukh will be ready to talk honestly about all the things that he has gone through. But at the event, he made one thing clear. He does not want his children to join films. "I am not starting a Khan dynasty," he joked. "There are enough Khans in the movie business already!"
Yes. But only one of them is Shah Rukh Khan.
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