No rest for SRK

Shah Rukh Khan landed in India this week for a surgery on his left shoulder. But two days within his coming back home, Khan was seen at a promotional event of his sitcom Ghar Ki Baat Hai at Taj Lands End.

But that’s not the only thing. King Khan, who will be out of action – read filming for My Name is Khan – for eight weeks, will be making appearances, promoting Billu Barber and filming for adverts in his period of “rest”.

After attending a launch of Red Chilies’s Idiot Box’s first show on January 27 and then on February 1, SRK will be a part of the Nach Baliye finale. SRK will be on the show to promote his home production movie Billu Barber along with the leading lady of the movie Lara Dutta.

A source from the show informs, “We were thinking about many options but when we heard that Shah Rukh was in India, we approached him. And he agreed to be a part of the show which was very nice of him. In the last season he came to promote his movie Om Shanti Om and we received a good response for it so we were keen on calling him on the show again.”

Shah Rukh is also expected to film a couple of advertisements for the products he endorses. He will also be looking into the IPL plan for his team Kolkata Knight Riders. The IPL season will begin soon and Khan is looking at potential players for his team.

“Since I have a forced holiday of eight to nine weeks, I will be attending most of the creative meetings of Idiot Box (SRK’s TV production house). It is fun to attend it and it also helps to flesh out stories. I want devote some time for the promotion of Billu Barer which I could not do as yet as I wasn’t here,” says SRK.

Shah Rukh injured his left shoulder while performing an action sequence during the shoot of Dulha Mil Gaya. He was recently in the US for a 45 day shoot of Karan Johar’s My Name Is Khan. But with his shoulder injury re-surfacing, Khan took the decision to come back home for surgery. He has been advised 8 weeks of complete rest after the operation. But it looks like rest is the last thing on SRK’s mind!

SRK loves Priyanka more than Deepika or Kareena

If Priyanka Chopra declares from the rooftops that she is Shah Rukh Khan's biggest fan then it is with reason. The superstar, who has been taking more than a passing interest in the music of the films he produces, decided to give away a large portion of his duet in " Billu Barber " to her.

"Shah Rukh took very close interest in each one of the songs. He isn't a musician, but he has an instinctive ear for music. It takes him just a few seconds to approve or cut down a track," told composer Pritam Chakraborty.

With the songs meant for Kareena Kapoor and Deepika Padukone, Pritam faced no problems.

"Shah Rukh loved his songs with Kareena ('Marjani') and Deepika ('Love mera hit hit'). They were straightforward dance songs with shared grooves between Shah Rukh and Kareena and Deepika," said Pritam.

The song with Priyanka needed special treatment and Shah Rukh made Pritam re-work and re-record the song.

"Shah Rukh's song with Priyanka 'Khuda-ae-kher' is not an item song. It's a love ballad that the pair playing Bollywood superstars emote to in front of the camera. Being a love song Shah Rukh felt there wasn't enough of the female presence in the vocals. He made me re-record the song with more for the female vocalist (Dominique) to do since he wanted Priyanka to have an equal number of lines," the composer said.

"It was entirely Shah Rukh's idea to give Priyanka more lines in the song. He's a very generous entertainer. If you see him on screen he never tries to steal the limelight from his heroines. Even ' Khai ke paan banaras wala ' in 'Don' had a lot of Priyanka in it although it was entirely Shah Rukh's song," Pritam added.

Asked about Shah Rukh's generosity, Priyanka sighed and said: "What do I say? Now do you know why he's my favourite?"

Irrfan Khan and Lara Dutta, who play a rustic couple in "Billu Barber", will later be seen enacting the same Shah Rukh-Priyanka ballad.

SRK mends bridges with Manoj Kumar

Signaling the end of the bitter war that ensued between Shah Rukh Khan and yesteryear actor Manoj Kumar with the release of Om Shanti Om in 2007, Shah Rukh visited Manoj recently and spent nearly four hours with him.

He shared some light moments with Manoj’s grandchildren too. Shah Rukh also went to enquire after the health of Manoj’s ailing mother-in-law, Savita Devi, who is SRK’s late mother’s good friend.

Says Manoj, “Look, there wasn’t ever an epic war between us that we wouldn’t meet again. He made a mistake and apologised for it. My 94-year-old mother-in-law had to be recently operated upon, and Shah Rukh wanted to meet her. My mother-in-law used to make khakras for Gandhiji. She is a former MP from Congress and Shah Rukh’s mother was a social worker, that’s how they met.”

Ask him more about the visit and Manoj continues, “Shah Rukh asked me why I was not making films anymore. I asked him what his problem was if I don’t make any and just rest at home. We joked about it. It was nice to meet him, I hardly interact with present day stars. I’ve just spoken to Aamir Khan over phone. And imagine, I haven’t met Salman since the last 19 years, despite his father, Salim Khan, being one of my closest friends.”