Since I started acting, I've made sure that every last ounce of my blood goes into my performance. So that you don't go home disappointed. So that you go home saying, "I love this guy so much. And he's worth my money."
I can only repay the 10 rupees I get paid by making you laugh, making you cry, entertaining you, making you happy.
Do you understand how much power you and your ten rupees have over me? Thanks to you, I have seen the world, stayed in the best hotels, eaten in the best restaurants, visited the best cinemas, the best theatres. Thanks to you, I find myself standing next to Amitabh Bachchan, saying hello to Hema Malini, dancing with Madhuri Dixit, talking to Parmeshwar Godrej and Rahul Bajaj. Mr. Vajpayee watches my films with me.
At a certain point, it starts to become unreal. Soon I'll be floating above the Eiffel Tower, owning the Taj Mahal, and being able to do anything. They make me believe I'm a demigod. I'm on a completely different plane.
And then, as I fly high in this unreal world, an unknown face suddenly appears: “Tell me, do you sleep in pink pajamas?”
Pink pajamas? You don't ask demigods questions like that! Who are you, I growl.
“I’m the guy who gave you the 10 rupees, remember?”
Oh yes, you are the guy who gave me ten rupees, you are the face I acted for. And if I have the right to make you cry for three hours in a dark room, you have the right to ask me anything you want. That is the price I pay for floating above the Eiffel Tower, for being a star.
I love being a star; I hope I die a star. And if millions of people come to take a look at me, bother me, watch my every move, want to know what I eat, what I drink, how I breathe, and whether I wear pink pajamas or red underwear, that's okay. That's better than dying unknown.
So I think this whole privacy issue is blown out of proportion. Nobody asks me, "Do you get mad because you have to wear makeup every day?" Of course I don't like wearing makeup, it's embarrassing. But it's part of my job. I also have to dance, do absurd steps, run through fire, hold my heroines' hands and say 'I love you' to them. But I wouldn't have it any other way.
I am the luckiest man in the world and I don't want to hide from the faces I am playing for. That's why I don't surround myself with security guards, I have never given an interview saying that I feel bad because I can't go shopping or to Chowpatty to eat bhelpuri without being harassed.
I'm not the kind of guy who goes out wearing sunglasses (honestly, I don't think I'm a big enough star to hide behind them). I watch movies in the cinema; I go to restaurants with my family and friends, even though I know that people there will harass me. I don't consider it an intrusion, but an occupational hazard. It annoys me, but it's okay.
Did I say I gave up my right to privacy? No, let's just say I learned to accept the lack of it. What choice do I have? How can I be a public figure and not expect the public attention and audience that follows me? That's stupid and I'm not stupid.
But it does hurt me. When it is direct and simple disrespect. When I am walking down the street and I don't know someone and they say, "Ai, Shah Rukh, kaisa hai re?" - that is really nice. But it is a completely different thing when someone says, "Ai Shah Rukh, tera picture dekha, ekdum bundal hai." Initially, it used to drive me mad. "Kaun bola? Kaun bola?" (What are you saying?) I would shout back. But not anymore. I have learnt to live with it.
The same goes for all the assumptions that people automatically make about me. If Shah Rukh Khan owns such a big house, he must be a fraud. If someone insults me and I get angry and argue with him, it is assumed that I was drunk, that I was wrong. On the sets, when I enter the heroine's room, I go in only to sleep with her. If I am in a hotel room with a woman because she is shooting with me or working with me, then of course I sleep with her too. All film stars are like that, yaar.
When I first saw stories like this in print, I felt like it wasn't so much my privacy that was being questioned, but my integrity. I told my wife and friends, "Don't read this sh*t." And because of this, I got into a lot of fights with journalists. They're so happy they 'got' us, but sometimes they get it so wrong that I've actually learned to enjoy it now. The only problem is that it can be very embarrassing to work with the other person afterwards.
But then I think if I was just Mr. Chopra or Mr. Kumar and I did some of those things, nobody would give a damn. It's more dignified to accept that people want to know everything about my life and the journalists are giving it to them. I know I can't fight them, so I'm joining forces with them and I don't think it's a defeat for me.
Take the time when Vir Sanghvi asked me on his show if I was bisexual. (He is not the first person to ask me that. Since I don't whore around, it is assumed that I must be homosexual or at least bisexual. He had told me that if I didn't want to answer a particular question, he would pause the camera. Well, I could have asked him to edit it out and he would have done so as it was part of the deal and he is a gentleman.)
Whether it was a genuine question or he was seizing the opportunity, I don't know, but he put himself in the line of fire. I could have asked him, 'Is that you? You tell me and I'll tell you.'
But then again, if I wasn't Shah Rukh, I wouldn't be on Vir Sanghvi's show, I wouldn't be doing him any favour by appearing on his show, there wouldn't be any ratings for that show and there wouldn't be any questions like these. It's a small price to pay for owning the Taj Mahal. If the media enjoys asking me such questions like am I bisexual or am I sleeping with X or Y, so be it.
But overall, I must say that the media has been more than fair to me. I have never used them to get where I am. I have been approachable and cooperative and have given them good material to write about if they want it. Because it is part of my job. I am a commercial actor, an entertainer and even my interviews should be entertaining (I sound so good; when I read them, my reaction is, 'Did I say that? That's cool'. The journalists make me look good, like Ashok Mehta and Binod Pradhan do).
It's like when the director and the actor work together to give the audience what they want. But when journalists start nitpicking, it's like the director is saying 'Main is hero ki vaat laga doonga' - how can this film ever be good? And that hurts me in more ways than one. Because you are doing this to me, to yourself and what you are doing is wrong.
After all, we're both selling dreams. There's no truth, I know I'm lying and you know you're lying. I need you and you need me to do this job for the people who want to read this stuff. That's what I say to every journalist who comes to me - can we accept that we're both lying and get on with the job?
And please don't think that by doing an interview with me you are getting a thorough analysis of Shah Rukh Khan. Come on, I am an actor, I can't stop acting. I will only let you see what I want you to see. Don't imagine that you have got some great insights, seen a deep and repressed part of me - and that too in a meeting of two hours! That is silly. I can understand my wife thinking like that, but not a journalist.
There are many things I never talk about, that nobody knows except my family and very few friends. If a journalist starts to get close to them, I will start to hide them. Remember, I have an advantage - I am an actor and my face only reveals what I want to reveal. There is a part of me that I keep to myself, that nobody can get into, because I really don't want anyone to know what is in there. It's not like there is much hidden there; it is not full of skeletons. But it is only for people who are very close to me.
Everything else is open. Including my house. I don't consider my house a private place that should keep me away from people. My personal space is in my heart, not in those four walls. I like people to come to my house, it's this Muslim custom of mine that people should be welcome there. I think it gives barkat (blessings) to my house.
Once a story went around that I had built a house without windows. Don't ask me why - my house has 37 windows. Yes, the walls are high, but only because people have this habit of throwing stones at my house for their amusement and my children might get hurt while playing in the garden. I don't hide behind high walls; nor have I entered an ivory tower with a sea view. Never. Because that would be the death of me as an actor and a star.
I have this huge fear that one day I will wake up, walk out of my house (who knows, maybe that house wouldn't be there either) and there will be no posters of my face, no one standing outside, no one shouting, "Ai, Shah Rukh!" No one will know me or remember me and I will have all the privacy in the world.
And I wouldn't want to. I would die if people didn't recognize me. I wouldn't know what to do at an event if people didn't approach me. I wouldn't be able to walk down the street if people didn't harass me. That's what I work for, that's why I need your ten rupees. Hell, I don't want privacy.