Shah Rukh looking back in anger!
Keith D’Costa
Shah Rukh Khan is the one star who I would say has evolved into a better human being than most of his peers. He has seen good times and bad. And yet, somehow, he has come through it all and managed to stay at the top for longer. Despite the life and death situations he may have faced, Shah Rukh has always done things for himself and not for his coterie of sycophants. And if you think Shah Rukh likes to shock, well, you are wrong. Read on and you will know exactly why he says things the way he did.
I have watched the steady, exciting rise of this star from when he started acting in films in 1991. From Hema Malini's Dil Aashna Hai to today, when he is shooting for Subhash Ghai's Pardes. Shah Rukh has always maintained that rugged, down-to-earth quality that everyone loves. He is pure and unaffected by the dizzying trappings of fame.
On the sets of Pardes, he is always teasing Subhash Ghai and new girl Ritu Singh Chowdhary (rechristened Mahima), helping her with her dialogues and explaining things to her. The crew loves him too. He is always there to listen to them, advise them, share a cigarette or even scrounge one.
Despite his self-imposed press ban, "I am sick of answering the same questions. How much more can I say? I have extended this ban till December," we discuss some of his private moments.
For example, I am amazed that Shah Rukh claims that he has never dreamt or fantasized about anything. "Whenever I need something, I think of how to get it. I have never fantasized. I have never dreamt. I have no aspirations, no ambitions. I have never dreamt of living in a fancy house or owning a yacht. I daydream when I have nothing to do. I read about TAG watches but didn't know what they were like. I liked the name, so now I have one. I've always wanted a Pajero, I have one. I've always wanted a Mercedes Benz, I have one. These are names I've known and wanted. Other than that, I've never fantasized. What is your fantasy?" he asks me...
...A wild night with Michelle Pfeiffer!
"Oh!" he's obviously surprised by my answer. "I've never fantasized about women or wealth. For me, it's always been more real."
Being a Scorpio man, he is more realistic than the dreamy Sagittarius that I am. "As an actor, I know how boring and uninteresting I am in real life. So I have generalised that every actor's life is as boring as mine. I have met almost every actor or actress. No matter how small a part I fantasized about them, it has disappeared. Your phase with Michelle Pfeiffer is just a phase, a five dollar phase that doesn't last long, especially the physical aspect. There is no one to have fun with. And I don't want to be stranded on a desert island with anyone."
Moreover, Shah Rukh does not dream about his future, nor does he plan for it. "It is a futile exercise. Everything is so fleeting, nobody can say what the future holds. You can plan as much as you want, but you can count on it changing at some point."
He believes that "at the end of your life, you should have a past with good or bad memories. Memories to make you laugh or cry. I like my memories a lot. That's why I live for every moment of my life and enjoy it. It's something I'll be happy to talk about later in my life. Even if it means talking about my mother's death.
I savored my mother's death. As an event, I lived it. I was happy with it and lived that role. When I cried, I cried with a happy feeling. Even when I had to break down blatantly, I did. I didn't want people to say, 'Look at Shah Rukh, look how strong he is'. I'm not ashamed to show that I'm weak. I didn't want to gloss over the fact that I cried when my mother died. I wanted to commit suicide too and would have done it. I wanted to go all out.
Most men don't cry at their mother's funeral because they are completely preoccupied with where she is buried. I didn't give a damn.
I pushed all of that aside to just be with my mother. I didn't want to remember her death through the arrangements I had made. Instead, I wanted to remember sitting next to my mother's beautiful face and crying.
If I ever have to witness a sad or heartfelt moment, I would live it to the fullest.”
Surprisingly, Shah Rukh talks about his father. He was 15 years old when his father died of cancer. “I was too young to understand my father's death. I have fond memories of him. You should always live in the moment. If you want to do something at any point in time, you should go ahead and do it. Very often it will turn out to be right.”
Why didn't Shah Rukh talk about his father before? “Because nobody wanted to ask.” Unlike many sons, Shah Rukh says that his father “was more like a friend. I was very close to him. If there is any virtue in me, I owe it more to my father than to my mother.” It was
only after his father's death that he became closer to his mother. “I have a lot of energy, enterprise, enthusiasm and zest for life, which I got from my mother. My father was the best man I have ever seen in my life. He was 10 years older than my mother and very handsome. He was everything I ever looked for in a hero. Not everything he did was right and he never acted like he was always right. He would tell me, 'Do whatever you feel like, yaar'. My father used to call me yaar. Once he called me a fool when I asked to go to Bombay to see Colaba (Mumbai area). He said, 'Don't be silly. When I was 16, I ran from Pakistan to Kashmir. You are a fool'.
My father would never get angry or hit me. If I did anything wrong, he would tell me to apologise or make things right. That's how I got a sense of right and wrong." Shah Rukh goes on to narrate an incident when he threw a stone which bounced off the ground and knocked out his friend's teeth. Later, the friend's drunken father came running to Shah Rukh's house with a knife and threatened to kill him. "My mother was scared but my father promised to send me over to apologise. My father was sure that I could handle the situation without getting hurt. So I went over and explained what really happened. That's how I learnt to admit when I was wrong."
He seems to have learnt a lot from his father, who was a lawyer by profession. "However, he never practised law," informs Shah Rukh. "He had several businesses - a transport business and restaurants."
And yet Shah Rukh decided to become an actor instead of taking over his father's business. "I never thought about going into films, nor did I want to act in Hindi films. It was a spontaneous decision when my mother died in 1991. That was the time when I came to Bombay."
Shah Rukh was a state-level sportsman. But a back injury forced him to give it up. After that, he took up theatre and later television serials like Fauji, Circus and Wagle Ki Duniya. It was Viveck Vaswani, Kundan Shah and Aziz Mirza who finally convinced him to go into films.
Normally, I wouldn't have called it fate. But as far as Shah Rukh is concerned, you can call it that. Had he not gotten injured, Shah Rukh would have followed in his father's footsteps. "Actually, I was studying economics. I wanted to do my degree in business administration and start a company. I gave it up as soon as I started working on serials. When my mother died in '91 after three months of illness, I was depressed and came to Bombay. I was ready to try films for a year. Then I started feeling alone, so I married Gauri.
We got married on October 26, '91 and I came down to Bombay. The next day, I was supposed to shoot for a song sequence for Hema Malini's Dil Aashna Hai. Now I am here for good."
Gauri is the one person who plays the lead role in Shah Rukh's life. "I first met Gauri on October 25, 1984, at a party. I saw her dancing. Since I had been to an all-boys school, I was nervous about approaching Gauri in case she rejected me. So I asked Gauri's friend, who was my friend's friend, to ask her to dance with me. It was that phase when boys felt that falling in love was for wimps. That Dennis the Pain phase where you get a girl's phone number, flaunt it, kiss her and then talk about it. It was that age where you talk more and do less. Somehow I liked Gauri a lot, she was 15 then. She was the first and last woman I asked for a dance. I want to put it very romantically, we are still dancing."
Marriages, they say, are made in heaven. And the roads to heaven are paved with many obstacles. So was the process that led to Shah Rukh and Gauri's wedding. As Shah Rukh says, "It was a very difficult marriage, Hindu-Muslim. Gauri's parents thought I was the wrong guy. I had long hair, belonged to the wrong religion. I had no parents. And I was working in TV serials. I would do the same if my daughter was with someone like Shah Rukh Khan. I would think 89 times before saying yes! Now they like me. It would be better if they liked me."
Although it has been five years since Gauri married Shah Rukh, they are yet to start a family. "I want to start a family in '97. If we have a child, I want to be able to spend a lot of time with my child - say six to eight months - so that I can instill my values in the child. Gauri is scared of that, but I will do everything the same way. I want my child to grow up like me. Also, I want to spend a lot of time with Gauri when she is pregnant."
Last but not least, Shah Rukh wants a bigger house.
"I work very hard so that I can afford a bigger apartment where my child has his own bedroom."
You must have guessed by now that Shah Rukh and Gauri's marriage is a happy one. But "we have nothing in common. Gauri and I don't agree on anything. The only thing we have in common is that I love each other and Gauri loves me. And hey, yes, we both like dancing. Gauri likes to sleep without being touched, while I like to be touched. She likes to sleep in the dark, I want it light. She likes to sleep at a particular time, I don't. She likes to eat at a dining table, I hate that. She likes to dress in a particular way, I don't like getting ready at all. She likes to stick to some kind of schedule, I hate it. We don't agree on anything. If I like something, Gauri won't like it. If she asks me, 'Do you like this dress?' she knows I won't. But somehow we respect each other. I guess that's why we are still together like this."
But there is one thing that both Shah Rukh and Gauri don't do. "She doesn't tell me not to do something because she doesn't like it, nor do I."
He went into films to stop thinking about the pain he felt after his mother's death. "Yes, I wanted to get over the depression in Delhi. It was more a personal reason to do films than the professional one of becoming the best. I wanted to overwork myself. I didn't want to get caught in a vortex of depression. Since I am an extremist, depression would have made me worse. I could have started drinking or taking drugs. Six years ago, I didn't smoke. Now I smoke like a chimney. Before marriage, I couldn't handle situations. When I got married, I didn't want to allow my inability to cope to ruin my wife and sister's lives. I wanted them to be happy.
It wasn't the desire for money, glamour, fame or good roles that drew me into films. I wasn't 100 per cent happy." Today, though, he is happy with the success he has had, but his past will always haunt him and remind him of what life used to be like.
As Shah Rukh says, "God took away my parents but he showered me with blessings. Whenever I want something, it happens. That's why I say I never get things through manipulation. It's just that I would do it on my terms. That would make me happy!"