Shah rukh khan to 'Lead India'

JWT is handling the creative duties of the campaign, while it is the brainchild of Agnello Dias, NCD, JWT. The campaign breaks on August 14. The campaign will be launched with a two-minute film and will also feature on the front page of The Times Of India.

The Group has roped in actor Shah Rukh Khan for its first film. The TVCs of the campaign have been divided into six films with six different personalities communicating the message of the Talent Hunt. Along with Khan, the other personalities include Nandan Nilekani, Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors, Infosys Technologies Limited; Sunil Mittal, CMD, Bharti Group; Navin Jindal MD, Jindal Steel Power Ltd, and MP; Sachin Pilot, India’s youngest MP; Sabrina Lal; lyricist Javed Akhtar, and actor Abhishek Bachchan.

Elaborating on the idea of the campaign, Rahul Kansal, Brand Director, The Times of India, said, “Today we find the quality of politics getting hijacked with words like corruption. We thought of finding a way out where one needs to bring out the idea of meeting young people and explaining to them the importance of politics. As a young and free country, we need young Indians to enter politics. So TOI is taking this step to create a platform for the youth of India who possess the quality of a good citizen, and leadership, thus giving them an opportunity to make a difference.”

The campaign is a six-month long activity in search of young dynamics. On the promotional activities and tie-ups, Dias informed, “The activity will be across the print and television. Under television, we have six films showcasing the personalities roped in to communicate the message. The campaign will go across the Times Group network like Times Now and Zoom channels, and the other print networks like TOI and ET. For digital, the websites will be accessible.”

Talking about the criteria on the hunt, Kansal said, “As the hunt is for the youth, so definitely the age bar will be between 18-45 years. While other considerations like police record and a good citizenship will be taken note of, if a person is educated, it will be an added plus point to his/her characteristic.”

In every issue of the newspaper, there will be a nomination form that the contestant can enrol himself/herself for the hunt or log-on to the Times Group website for the enrolment.

TOI will also have a special content line-up provided for August 15. It will have 24 pages talking on the campaign and will have interviews of the six personalities on their views and their experiences about the whole campaigning of the Talent Hunt.

Kansal commented, “As we celebrate the 60th anniversary of Independence, TOI takes a first-of-its-kind initiative to present the youth of India an opportunity to make a difference. So this is one way that we will celebrate our Independence, and so have planned to break the campaign on the eve of I-Day.”

By: Tasneem Limbdiwala Source: TOI

SRK and his family The Khimpsons!

When Homer Simpson, the patriarch of the funniest family on the idiot box that kickstarted in 1989 as a series along with his family made his debut on the big screen in 2007, The Simpsons Movie took the world by storm.

Very much like our very own Badshah of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan, who’s a global face and a name to reckon with. King Khan’s transition from the small screen in 1988 to the big screen in the 90s is the stuff dreams are made of.

Team CT decided to colour the Simpsons a shade of Bollywood yellow with Homer turning into SRK and his family The Khimpsons! SRK’s witty remarks leave you speechless akin to Homer’s wisecracks. Sample this:

Homer: D’oh! Lisa: A deer! Marge: A female deer! Of course SRK beats him in the looks department with his dimpled smile and melting brown eyes. And Marge’s blue hair symbolises the fact that she is indeed the glue of the family very much like Gauri, except she has a brown mane. Bart becomes Aryan and Suhana’s Lisa. Never mind Maggie.

The kids could always eat noodles! Just like Homer, this Khan too swears by his family and places it above everything else. And even though, Aryan and Suhana have a long way to go to be as famous as the Simpson’s brat pack, wife Gauri more than epitomises the quintessential star-wife and is a glamazon and fashionista in the champagne and caviar set.

Paradoxical as it may sound, the two families do show some inherent characteristics that are hard to miss. Whether it’s Homer and SRK who are driven by passion to pursue what they believe in or their love for their respective wives, Madge and Gauri are the women in control when it comes to taking charge of their respective households.

And Bart shares Aryan’s passion for sports, while Lisa is the dahlin’ of the family very much like Suhana. Matt Groening, are you listening?

Source: Naval-Shetye Source: TimesNewsNetwork

Shah Rukh Khan has never played a Muslim character

I should have taken on colleagues who said Chak De! India will flop. But alas, I happened to share Shah Rukh Khan's pre-release prediction that while it will be a good film, it won't be a commercial hit, and let the bet pass.

In hindsight, after watching -- and being swept away by -- the amazingly simple, yet amazingly inspirational film, I cannot stop raving about it. I thought Swades would be SRK's finest effort ever; but Chak De shows that the actor in him -- when not subsumed by his superstar status -- has a vast reservoir of emoting left to satisfy fans and critics alike for many more years.

Chak De's appeal among the audiences shows that even sans commercial considerations like song and dance, the mandatory fights, there is a vast market for a straight-forward, well-narrated tale. We have always known it from the multiplex hits like Bheja Fry etc; now we know such a market exists for stars and superstars as well. No one need remains a prisoner of their image.

Chak De is the tale of a disgraced hockey captain, Kabir Khan, and his attempt at redemption, reclaiming his honour by leading the unsung women's hockey team to world cup triumph. Yes, it is thus a story about gender equality -- a point that gets hammered many times through the narrative with dialogues like 'Tumlog belan chalanewali kidhar skirt pahinkar hockey stick leti ho?'

But to me, the film came across, and appealed, not for the blow it strikes for the country's most neglected sport nor for the fact that it shows that women are no less than men in any sphere they choose.

The film warmed to me because this was the first time the M-word has come to be at the centre of the superstar's oeuvre.

For throughout his illustrious career spanning two decades, Shah Rukh Khan has never played a Muslim character -- if you ignore that cameo in Kamal Haasan's Hey! Ram. Even in Chak De, there is NO allowance to the character's faith barring the name, Kabir Khan, the scraggly beard he sports, and the aadab with which he greets others. Not once is Kabir Khan shown doing the namaaz, not once is he shown clad in anything but 'Western attire', not once does he ever say he is a Muslim.

But, much as the script overtly downplays any mention of Kabir Khan's faith, it is Khan's dilemma as a Muslim in today's India that courses through the narrative.

And that's the way Shah Rukh would have wanted it, I am sure. Unlike the other two Khans who share the mantle with him.

I have no idea if Salman Khan has played a Muslim in his films, and if he has, what kind of Muslim the character was. Aamir Khan, given his nod towards realism, portrayed one that remains etched in my mind, Rehaan of Fanaa. Rehaan was a Kashmiri terrorist, clearly showing that Aamir will not duck any uncomfortable issue when it comes to his cinema. Rehaan fascinates me no end, since it was played by the same actor who also played ACP Rathore in the memorable Sarfarosh, the film that head-on tackled Pakistani terrorism in India.

Since then, I have been puzzling over the kind of Muslim Shah Rukh Khan will ever play, and the kind of film it will be. I got my answer with Chak De.

Shah Rukh has, in the past, spoken about his views on Islam, including to us, and they are reflective of the kind of person he is: Easy-going, and married to a Hindu. He is also extremely careful of the kind of roles he plays, and this extreme discretion is the reason -- I think -- that it has taken him this long to play a Muslim.

It cannot be easy to be a Muslim, in India and especially in these times. The moderate Muslim, who is in an overwhelming majority I am certain, has to constantly fight two demons: One from the past, of Partition and his/her perspective on Pakistan, a Muslim-majority nation inimical to India; and another ghost from the present, when Muslims are usually accused of engineering terrorist plots in India. Their silence often is reflective of the silence of the majority, of which we all are guilty of, but the silence of the Muslim is the one that is constantly highlighted.

A still from Chak De! IndiaI am sure SRK himself has had to face this dilemma, this doubt over his commitment to India. And it comes out in a searing line in the movie: 'Aise log Partition ke time mein hi Pakistan jaana chahiye tha.' It is a line, a charge, that must trouble SRK no end, as it does no doubt to millions of other Indians, for it returns to haunt him during the movie.

In my mind, the central theme running through the movie was: Can a Muslim be a Muslim and be loyal to India? Or to modify that, What must a Muslim do in the face of doubts over his loyalty to India?

It's a pressing question, for as SRK stops short of saying in another place, there is no second chance given to Muslims. When his friend, after pitching for SRK as the coach of the national women's team, consoles SRK's past failure by saying everyone is allowed one mistake, Humsab ki ek ghalati maaf, Shah Rukh Khan disagrees wryly: Sabki nahi, sabki nahi.

He doesn't use the M word here, or in any other place, but the message is very clear. There is no second chance to the Indian Muslim if he fumbles. As he repeats it towards the end, the burden of failure is too much to carry, most don't have it in them to survive.

But Kabir Khan has it in him. Falling off the radar for seven years, he resurfaces to reclaim his honour, restoring the public's faith in his nationalism. All the while training the young girls he only harps on one theme: India, nation, the tricolour. Submerge your regional identities, he exhorts them, play as Indians, be Indian, you are not from Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Manipur, Jharkhand... And, though he doesn't say it, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Parsi, Sikh. And when you play as an Indian, not only is the acclamation sure to follow, but it also wipes out any lingering doubts over your love for your country.

In the public domain, Kabir Khan worships the tricolour, breathes for India. We don't know what he does behind the doors of his home, which he so eloquently shuts on us in the last scene. The message is clear: Whatever I am in my home, when I step out, I do so as a proud Indian.

For someone like me searching for the kind of Muslim SRK will play, and I daresay the kind of Muslim SRK is, Kabir Khan is the answer. For Muslims caught in the pincer between extremism and majority scepticism, Kabir Khan provides the answer. For the others, Chak De provides some great moments.

By: Saisuresh Sivaswamy Source: Rediff

Interview With King Khan

Film City is the dream factory. But it has been commandeered for the next stage — the conversion of dreams to action.

Shah Rukh Khan is to kick off The Times of India's 'Lead India' campaign, the dynamic follow-up to its 'India Poised' campaign so inspiringly launched by Amitabh Bachchan.

On January 1, 2007, the Big B had presented the vision of an unleashed India. On August 14, King K will tell the nation to harness that awesome power into action. His message consists of two simple letters which combine to form pure, hard muscle, 'DO'.

Amitabh Bachchan had stood against the magnificent sweep of the Bandra-Worli sealink. The venue for the SRK film is the unvarnished Studio 4 of Film City. It looks like a dilapidated warehouse. Its walls are a scabrous black,
a leftover from a previous incarnation as a set which needed this somber feel.

Studios can change their garb faster than an actress in a song sequence. The next film shot here might convert this into a mock marble mahal. But, for the Times production, Studio 4 has been left unadorned, except for a small cocoon of intimacy created with the help of a curtained window (false), a wicker armchair (real), and mood lighting (generated).

Under the orchestration of a mop-haired director, the set is being readied; the shots being framed. The dolly camera glides up and down the track like a railway inspection cart.

Nests of yellow bulbs are being suspended from the roof's iron webbing by a trapeze electrician undistracted by the buzz on ground zero. Amidst the huddle of technicians and production assistants, the teaboy bustles, his stalagmite of paper cups glowing eerily in this darkened cavern.

The anticipation is as palpable as an item girl. And just as it is becoming unbearable, the hero arrives — King Khan dressed as a commoner in fashionably faded blue jeans and simple, V-neck tee which shows his lean, six-pack frame without showing it off.

Stud is not his name, or his game. A hush falls, all action freezes, and is immediately defrosted by the white heat of flurried action.

The director spells out the sequence, SRK listens as intently as though he were back as a 10-year-old at St Columba's, rehearsing for his first role in 'Oz'. He lips the script with coiled concentration; measure tapes are uncoiled from his head to the camera.

The crucial letters, D and O, are buffed to a gleam; a gleaming forehead is puffed over. The director barks out the LCA cliche. The camera rolls as the lights go on and the action begins.

Shah Rukh Khan plays with the alphabetical duo, suspends the 'O' from the ledge of the 'D', ting-tings them together like a bus conductor's bell, and starts speaking. He doesn't act, he lives, breathes, exudes the script. It's a two-minute, controlled depth charge, an intense, condensed Chak de India, spurring the nation to action. By the end of it, you want to rise from your seat and surge forward, in much the same way as he stands up and walks into the camera's rapt face.

He does several takes, first in English, then in Hindi. He reviews the results, goes through the revisions. Then Shah Rukh Khan has to rush to shoot for Om Shanti Om. There is no time for the leisurely interview we had planned in the spotted 'vanity van' which has been sitting like an expectant monster Dalmatian outside Studio 4.

He offers to speak to us on his drive to Studio 11. Arguably the BMW is more comfortable, so we willingly sink into the champagne leather seats. It glides like a panther through the lush monsoon grass as SRK responds to questions at a speed to match.

On the way back, ensconced in the plush depths of the ultimate driving machine, we resist the temptation to fiddle with the gizmos, or play the poseur with the D&G shades which wickedly beckon from the arm-rest. Mohan, who has been instructed to drop us back to reality aka Studio 4, points out the permanent sets.

"Yeh courthouse hai, wahan Church hai, aur baju mein college. Jiska kaam pade, wahan shoot karo." We luxuriate in the extra bonus. The next best thing to be given the tour of Film City by Shah Rukh Khan is to be given the tour by Shah Rukh Khan's driver.

Source: TimesNewsNetwork