Shah Rukh Khan The King of the Bollywood

He is a Muslim who is worshipped by hundreds of millions of Hindus, Christians and, of course, Muslims, all over the world. He's often called India's Tom Cruise, and India's Tom Hanks. But unless you have Indian ancestry or have been to India or Pakistan, chances are you've never heard of Shah Rukh Khan, a.k.a. SRK or, as he's affectionately known, King Khan.

Nobody could have predicted that this short Muslim guy lacking conventional good looks would one day become the biggest star in the world. Hindi cinema tends to be ruled by dynasties. New stars are usually the children and grandchildren of past movie heroes and heroines, or come from other powerful families in India. Shah Rukh had no such connections.

How Shah Rukh defied the odds to become King Khan is the subject of Anupama Chopra's smart biography, The King of Bollywood.

Disclosure: Anupama Chopra and I have the same literary agency and we know each other slightly. It was that connection, discovered with a simple Google search, that scored me an electronic file of the book well in advance of publication. As a long-time lover of Hindi cinema and Indian film in general, and as a fervent Shah Rukh fan, I was looking forward to this read, and Chopra did not disappoint me. Her book is not just an insightful biography of Shah Rukh, it's a witty and thoughtful history of the Wild West that is Bollywood and, by extension, a portrait of the New India.

Shah Rukh Khan was born in Delhi in 1965 to Meer and Fatima Khan. His father's family had been followers of Badshah Khan, a colleague of Gandhi's and his Muslim counterpart in the non-violent movement to obtain Indian independence. They were educated people with an artistic bent who always struggled for money; Shah Rukh and his sister were brought up in "genteel poverty." Meer was a secular Muslim. Fatima was devout yet modern. She prayed five times a day. She also worked as a family magistrate, helped promote Indira Gandhi's birth-control program in the Muslim slums and ran several businesses after her husband's death in order to support the family.

As a child, Shah Rukh liked Urdu poetry, dress-up, mimicry and Hindi movies. He was an exemplary student, who studied under the Irish priests of the Congregation of Christian Brothers. At an early age, he demonstrated a talent for creative pranks (one of these, involving a brown suede shoe, is laugh-out-loud funny). When he was caught, his good grades, quick wit and personal charm always got him through.

Surprisingly, acting was not SRK's first choice for a career. When he did go to Mumbai, home of the Hindi film industry we know as Bollywood, it was not to find an acting role, but to find an ex-girlfriend who had spurned him, a young Hindu woman named Gauri whom he later married. While he was there, a few people saw his potential and steered him into acting.

Things were rough, but he struggled and persevered, making do with supporting roles in small films or on TV, displaying a multitude of talents, moving with ease between comedy and drama, heroes and anti-heroes, until he finally got his big break.

His entry into Hindi films in the 1990s coincided with rapid and dramatic change in India. Shah Rukh came of age in the 1980s, when action films and Amitabh Bachchan's "Angry Young Man" characters still personified the average Indian's frustrations with the country's institutions and injustices. These roles made Bachchan a virtual god. When economic liberalization came to India, after decades of socialist-inspired entropy, the country needed a new persona to symbolize new problems. Shah Rukh was the Everyman, the boy next door - not, Chopra says, "an inaccessible celestial being but simply the most charismatic member of the family," who evolved into "an articulate global Indian who was equally at ease in a nightclub in Paris or in a village in the Punjab."

Chopra's most important point is this: As a Muslim married to a Hindu, and as a modern, free-thinking man who nevertheless respects the best Indian and Islamic traditions, Shah Rukh Khan bridges the gaps in the Indian imagination and soothes the conflicts of rapid industrialization. This is important not just to India, but to most of the world. The United States, and the West in general, are no longer looked to for help with democratic ideas in the developing world. India, the world's largest democracy, with more than 20 official languages and as many major cultures, has more relevance for people in tradition-bound countries who are seeking social and economic progress without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. For all its fantasy, Bollywood more accurately reflects their daily conflicts than Hollywood can.

This translates into huge popularity for Shah Rukh all over the world, especially in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East (as well as Korea, East Africa and Germany, which has three magazines about Bollywoodfor non-Indian readers).

Chopra quotes the director Mahesh Bhatt declaring that Pakistan will never go to war with India because Shah Rukh lives there. It's hardly an overstatement. Despite the banning of Indian films in Pakistan, SRK's videos are everywhere, and you can't walk through a bazaar without seeing his photograph every few steps. In Afghanistan under the Taliban, when all movies were forbidden, Shah Rukh's movies circulated widely in a samizdat-style system.

Though she clearly has a great affection for her subject, Chopra doesn't omit his flaws. Shah Rukh can be cocky - which both helped and hurt him coming up - and he seems to hold a grudge for a long time, though without apparent vindictiveness.

Chopra, a respected film journalist with an impeccable family pedigree - she's the sister of Vikram Chandra (Sacred Games) and the wife of Bollywood director Vidhu Vinod Chopra - has an insider's view of King Khan. But you needn't be an insider. She's such a gracious and interesting guide that you don't have to be a Bollywood fan, or know anything about it, to enjoy the ride.

When you've finished the book, head to the video store to rent Veer-Zaara, Dil Se, Main Hoon Na, Dil To Pagal Hai, Devdas, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna or any of the more than 60 movies Shah Rukh Khan has made.

Source: GlobeAndMailCanada

Chak De Phatte!

Chak De Phatte’ wait a min was that wrong, oh yaaah! It’s ‘Chak De India’. A slight alteration in the name and see what a sensation it has become all over the world.

The film Chak De India starring SRK and 16 new girls, has been, talk of the town. It’s bound to accumulate the best awards for this year.

Shimit Amin the director and Jaideep Sahni story writer had gone through an extensive research for the film. And it has paid off well. Amul in its new print ad celebrates the success of Chak De India. The Amul girl dressed in the uniform joins the SRK on the field.

Source: IndiaFM

Next movie, I’m just going to wear an underwear over tights and be a superhero: Shah Rukh Khan

Shah Rukh Khan is shooting a dreamy number for his home production Om Shanti Om at Yashraj Studios and you wonder whether he can switch into Chak De India mode. He does, telling you all about how he played hockey with his father and how his son can beat him at soccer.

Does your role in Chak De India mirror your real feelings on hockey?

This film is my take on sports in general, hockey, cricket or football, plus the role that women should play in society.

See, every year I do a film like that. I love women and make no bones about it. I have an immense amount of respect for them. I think I’m brought up like that because being with my mom early, then my sister, then my wife. Even my best friends are girls, whether it’s Farah or Juhi. I like girls more than guys.

Did your father teach you hockey?

Yeah, we used to play together. Like I play hockey with my son. Whatever sport I’m at, my rule is that I teach him for a year and then he should overtake me. In soccer, he’s much better than what I was at his age. Of course, he’s smaller so I can push him around.

Even my daughter — I want her to be a runner and swimmer. Because she’s good at that, not because I’m pushing her. I think she runs like a gazelle (laughs).

I run with her every evening or whenever we get time. I would like to encourage them and hope they start beating me. My dad did the same. Even in chess.

In your school magazine, you were the star sportsman in hockey, cricket and soccer.

Yeah, I was (grins) but now I don’t play as well.

Which was your favourite?

I think I played hockey the best. Then I was a very good wicketkeeper and soccer came next. I wasn’t very good at soccer, but I had stamina. You know midfield, running around, giving my life for the game.

Apparently you hated the beard in Chak De...

Yeah yeah, I don’t like it. I’ve never grown a beard. You take a bath, but it doesn’t make you look clean in the morning. My daughter wouldn’t kiss me.

Yes, during Paheli they hated the moustache…

Yeah, I think my kids hate me with moustaches and beards. Next movie, I’m just going to wear an underwear over tights and be a superhero. They don’t like me with all this stuff.

I think they have an image of a father in the house who’s easygoing and soft, clean-shaven. My daughter gets very disturbed. My son is very conscious of how I dress up.

He doesn’t like me wearing churidars and achkans. My daughter is very opinionated with my hair, beard, moustache. She’d say, ‘I don’t like it papa, I won’t kiss you.’ Even I don’t like it. I like my cotton clothes and hair all ruffled.

What do they think of your long hair now?

My daughter is ok with it because she looks a lot more like me now. They don’t mind my long hair. See once I bathe, it just flops in front. They like it.

How do youngsters treat sport today as opposed to when you were playing?

I would like my children to be sportspeople above actors, actresses or producers — if they chose to. I would be really proud. I feel proud when I see kids wearing studs on a soccer field.

I go every Sunday now to play soccer. I take my son. I have this group that’s very good — Dino and all — they allow me to play. I think I must be the oldest there so they are kind to me.

I play with my kids — I’m now clearing up a place in my house and asking my wife if we can make a soccer field there. I play any game. I play pittoo with my children, breaking those stones.

You have to sweat in a day. I remember when I initially started doing movies, when I did Dilwale, I didn’t think that I had done a good film because I hadn’t sweated. It was a love story and I had never done one before that. You have to sweat everyday.

I make it a point to play an hour every day, even if it’s Playstation in the night. In my house, we play dog and the bone, langdi, chor sipahi, soccer, badminton, everything.

Except swimming, I’m not good at that. My kids are always sweating, always dirty — I love it. I believe kids till the age of 15 should be disheveled, dirty, sweaty, rolling in the mud and have marks all over them. And their shoes should always stink.

ShradhaSukumaran, MidDay

"Shah Rukh Khan has proved his range as an actor with right opportunities,"Kunal Kohli

He’s a fallen hero who failed to save India’s fortunes in the finals of a crucial hockey tournament. To retrieve his lost glory, he takes on a women’s hockey team and leads them to win a global championship. Meet Shah Rukh Khan the actor, not the star.

In a new age Bollywood, when star actors choose to steal the show with offbeat roles, Khan somehow ended up restricting himself to mushy glamorous romances, thanks to buddy Karan Johar’s money-minting movies (mostly at the overseas box office). However, with Chak De India, everyone’s talking about Khan’s versatility. The king of bubblegum films let’s his histrionics take over for a change.

“His range as an actor is huge; he is someone who has performed street theatre,” says the film’s director Shimit Amin.

“It’s unfortunate that Shah Rukh’s true acting potential has not been tapped properly. It is filmmakers like us who don’t offer him challenging scripts. He has proved his range as an actor with right opportunities,” says director Kunal Kohli.

Khan, who shot to stardom with Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman, Deewana and Baazigar in the early ’90s, emerged as the most popular actor in the NRI market with Johar’s glossy romantic drama archetype.

“Our cinema is becoming bolder and Shah Rukh is supporting it,” says Ritesh Sidhwani, producer of Don. “In Don, he broke his romantic image to play the ‘cool’ villain.”

“In most of his films, Shah Rukh Khan’s overwhelming image surpasses the characters he enacts, something that has not happened in Chak De,” says Anupama Chopra, author of King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema.

“We associate him with these romantic films because they were hits.”

Unfortunately, films like Swades and to some extent, Paheli, where Khan tried to move away from the stereotype, failed to make a mark at the BO. In this context, the commercial success of Chak De is all the more important. “It’s common in our industry that when a ‘different’ film becomes successful, more filmmakers are encouraged to experiment,” says Honey Irani, script and storywriter of Darr, one of the films that made Khan popular as an anti-hero in the early ’90s.

In the mid ’90s, when Khan had become typecast as the passionate anti-hero with hits like Baazigar and Darr, he went on to redefine his image (after offering duds like Anjaam, based on the same theme) as the romantic Raj and Rahul with the record-breaking Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, and consequently Johar’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

This November, Khan will be back again as a larger-than-life hero in Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om, but there are concerted efforts at moving away from the glam. He will reportedly play a Muslim protagonist in Johar’s forthcoming My Name is Khan (working title), which unlike the latter’s regular fares, is said to deal with terrorism and being a Muslim in post 9/11 New York. He is also supposedly featuring in Rajkumar Hirani’s next, loosely based on Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone.

Source: NewIndPress