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