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http://www.tehelka.com/story_main27.asp?filename=Ne100307_I_m_doing_CS.asp

Face Me

Shah Rukh Khan is usually restricted to speaking on Tag Heuer and his fabled competition with Amitabh Bachchan post Don and KBC. But in an unusually forthright interview with Shoma Chaudhury, he talks of much more. Islam, loss, death, fear, politics, films, women, sexuality, sensibility. This is Shah Rukh unplugged


The sun is setting over Film City. A perfect globe of saturated orange. It could have been made to order. High up on a hill, at its very peak, a caterpillar of men pulls at massive ropes. Others stand around in formal black coats. Some wield guns. Behind them looms a horizon of blackened, burnt buildings. There is a hushed bustle in the air. Suddenly, a figure in carnation red whooshes up into the sky, arms flung out in high drama, cape flying out in perfect billow. In his arms, there’s a Barbie-woman, in equal red. Strapless gown, black cascading hair, slim leg tantalizing in its slit. They whoosh up, then the crane sets them down with a jaunty bounce. A male voice cries out, “Oohri baba! Mohabbat Man to your rescue. Baby, shall we dance?” And a troupe of fairy dancers engulf them.

The sets of Farah Khan’s new film, Om Shanti Om. One could not ask for a more perfect first introduction to the Bollywood superstar, Shah Rukh Khan. It is how you imagine him. Wildly theatrical. Kitsch. Unabashed. In the 20 years that he has been riding the crests of Hindi cinema, he has sent out a curious musk. You think Shah Rukh, you think charm, wit, materialism, scale. You think charisma. You think success. You think trappings of stardom.

You don’t necessarily think integrity, art, perfection. Vision.

So what is Shah Rukh Khan really about? Is the musk accurate? One might wonder why one should be interested at all. As Shah Rukh himself has often said, he’s just an entertainer. Why should it matter what he is in the flesh. But it matters. The stars might scorn the idea of their influence. But cinema — and Bollywood in particular — has a grip on the Indian psyche that is unmatched by anything in the country, perhaps even religion. And Shah Rukh has been at its zenith for 20 years. He is, in a sense, the most public image of our collective selves. We want to know what that image stands for. What courses beneath the carnation red cape and red boot with spurs. Put a story out on Shah Rukh, and you can be sure, the most disdainful of us would devour it.

Curiousity is a powerful precursor to influence.

Shah Rukh comes off the sets of Om Shanti Om and is enveloped by a boisterous gang of kids. His son leads the pack. Their affection is palpable. You get into his car. It feels like a spaceship. Later, his house rises like Kubla Khan’s Xanadu at the edge of the sea. But the Shah Rukh Khan you meet then is much more than the musk. Thirty thousand words in four hours. A scathing sarcasm for socialism “soaked in the smell of whisky and smoke” — Black Label and 555 at that. A spirited defence of individualistic capitalism.

Yes, Shah Rukh has worldview. You may or may not agree with it, but it cannot fail to challenge you.

I have an elder sister. She became very ill after my parents’ death. She lives with me. She reminds me everyday that I cannot live the life my father did
Shah Rukh, a couple of weeks after KBC began, there was a report in the HT that the show had plummeted. How do you respond to such things?

Obviously, I was upset and angry. A few years ago, I would have been even angrier. I’ve a lot of friends within circles which matter for film and media. But I never use this because one day they in turn will start calling up on you. It’s like the mafia. Media, politics — it gets very closely linked. 

There’s been a lot of talk about your proximity with the *his and Mukesh Ambani, and what that means.

Which is stupid because I’ve known them for years — the *his before I was a moviestar, the Ambanis since I was in Bombay. I am not at all interested in politics. My children study in Nita’s school, she’s also a friend. I know Tina equally well. But now that they’ve split up suddenly, people think I’m aligned to one camp. People are so used to their own cliques, they don’t expect someone in my position not to have one as well. I have cliques — but they are just close friend cliques, or my kids’ gang, and that’s what I’m happy with. I am not at all interested in joining politics.

You’ve been in a pre-eminent space for years. Has a certain emptiness crept in? Are you looking for new horizons? What are your triggers?

I’ve been working long in this business. There are no triggers to tell you honestly. One thing is — if it can be called a trigger — I think like a kid. I mean, you saw it just now, I’d wear a red Superman costume and do something so silly at the age of 41. I find silliness to be the most intelligent thing in the world. I was reading somewhere that if you like Shah Rukh you are considered a jhalla. I’m not justifying how I am, but I think the true measure of intelligence is when you start enjoying the silly things, when you don’t look down upon silly things. I really enjoy the small things of life. That keeps me going. The second thing is, I never get attached. I put a lot of effort into a film, but I don’t get attached. I just need to be very clear in my head that if it succeeded, it was because of only one thing — hard work. And if it failed, it was in spite of the hard work. I couldn’t live with the thought that something succeeded but I didn’t work for it, or it failed, *, I should have worked harder. For me just hard work matters. I think the simplicity of my reason for working keeps me working. There is no complexity to it at all.

Delhi and Bombay represent a spectrum change in your life. Are you radically different today?

No, I think I’m the same. Age has changed me a bit perhaps. I’ve lost some innocence; I think I’ve lost a lot of impatience. People who knew me 18 years ago say I’ve lost some of my edge. I’ve become diplomatic. I’ve often been told that honesty from someone in my position hurts. I’ve been made to understand that appreciation from a movie star like Shah Rukh Khan can matter more than to hear the truth from him. So I gauge that now. But it’s not something I am unaware of. I know I do that at times. So yes, maybe I’ve lost a bit of edge. I used to fight a lot more, I used to beat up journalists a lot more...

Mar 10 , 2007