Kamath’s Cafe

Thursday, February 8th, 2007

Love hurts

This piece was the cover story for Marie Claire (February 2007) 

“The mobile number you are calling is not reachable.” I am trying to reach Shah Rukh Khan for Marie Claire’s Valentine Special but his majesty’s phone is switched off.

Photographer Atul Kasbekar did mention that SRK’s phone kept beeping right through the shoot and the missed calls and unopened text messages piled up even as SRK fussed with the white shirt that he insisted on wearing with “My own jeans since I have over a thousand pairs. Each time I find the perfect fit, I buy four to six pairs.” Atul suggests nixing the shirt and going with a white T-shirt instead. That does the trick. There is no army of personal stylists spoiling. King Khan is firmly in charge.

For someone who enjoys near-royal status, the Badshah travels light. There is no extended entourage, no secretary, no diary. Just a Nokia Communicator with an 80-meg memory card that contains a phone book with some of the most powerful names in the world.

And the names of some of the most beautiful, most desired women on the planet. Shah Rukh has had the good fortune of loving them all, leaving a few, losing some and never having to say alvida.
However, he has played anything but the traditional lover boy. Trace his journey over the last 15 years, the dominant theme skims to the top: love hurts.

“Tu haan kar ya na kar
Tu hai meri Kiran”
-Darr

SRK didn’t woo, coo, croon or swoon his way to fame. He killed. He pushed Shilpa Shetty off a high rise. And a lady-killing Baazigar was born.

SRK’s first film with Yashraj (aka chocolate factory and candy floss mill) also broke the mould. In Darr, he played a manic, obsessive lover who stalked the girl of his dreams and had chilling conversations with his departed mother.

Like in Baazigar, SRK paid with his life in Darr. His attraction was fatal.

Main aapki beti ko cheen ne nahi, pane aaya hoon.
-Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge

Circa 1995 AD: It was the year after Hum Aapke Han Koun (HAHK). SRK was raring to prove hum aapke hain Khan. HAHK was a tough act to follow but SRK found a four-letter solution in DDLJ (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge). It marked SRK’s transition from non-conformist anti-hero to conformist hero. He chose to win over the girl’s family rather than elope with her. The only glitch was that the girl was on the threshold of an arranged marriage and her spurned fiancée decided to go after SRK and pulverize him. A superstitious film industry believed that it was obligatory for SRK to have a bloodied nose in the climax in order for a film to succeed. DDLJ went on to become the longest-running film in the history of Indian cinema. At the time of writing, the film is still running at Mumbai’s Maratha Mandir cinema and is probably enjoying the world’s longest theatrical run. Maybe there is something to those superstitions. And maybe SRK will continue to get hurt in the climax reel.

“Jis ladki se main pyaar karta hoon,
Who to is duniya mein hai hi nahi”
-Mohabbatein

At the turn of the century, SRK had evolved to a point where the woman of his dreams was no more. But he continued to love her, insisting that love was unconditional and death be not proud.

From killing for love to dying for it, SRK has played every shade of a lover. He drowned his sorrows in Devdas, wore a pace setter to aid a weak heart in Kal Ho Naa Ho, left his home Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, left his country in Veer Zaara and left the world in Paheli.

And so you seek an audience with SRK to discuss matters of heart, hearth and hurt. But the mobile continues to be off while KBC billboards across town have a beaming SRK proclaiming the phone lines are open. Ah, sweet irony.

Unlike his mobile, the man is perennially switched on. Right now, he is shooting in synch-sound for his home production, Om Shanti Om at a sprawling set symbolically perched at the highest point of Mumbai’s Film City. The text messages reach him after a lag of nearly seven hours. SRK ko pakdna is seemingly namumkin.

Shooting wraps up, the shift done and you realize what separates the man from the chocolate boys. He heads straight for another studio at Film City and begins another full shift at the Kaun Banega Crorepati poking and prodding participants, even giving them a shoulder massage to put them at ease.

In the back of his mind or, more precisely, in the small of his back, SRK knows he could use a massage himself.

But the Shah must go on.

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