In Conversation with Shahrukh Khan

He was born a Muslim, went to a Christian school and has a Hindu wife and two secular kids and did I forget to mention he also happens to be the most famous Indian. Shahrukh Khan is the true son of India and his story from the humble beginnings to super mega stardom is one full of will, determination, and sheer belief in oneself.

Paras Sharma at FilmiTadka had the opportunity to interview the super mega star of Bollywood, none other than Shahrukh Khan, the king of bollywood; following are the excerpts:

Shahrukh you are looking fabulous and thanks for coming to FilmiTadka office for this interview.
Shahrukh: Thank you very much for inviting me Paras.

Well although you are looking fabulous, but we hear that you aren’t in well shape, and also I can see you aren’t feeling well at the moment.
Shahrukh: Yeah I have hurt myself I keep hurting myself I need to understand that I am cut off only for romantic films and not meant for action films (also interesting is that this the man who has the ultimate six pack abs), well this six pack is only exterior but inside I am hurt, there used to be a movie of Eddie Murphy, where used to say, you know I am a Karate man I bleed from the inside.

Shahrukh you worked really hard to get that six pack thing, and which is no easy thing at the age of 42, so doesn’t it feels bad when people often say mean things like it is not real it is Photoshop, silicon, camera work, etc?
Shahrukh: People can say what they wish to, and I respect that. My advice to people would be to go ahead with Photoshop, with liposuction, and if they get six packs like mine, god bless them, and tell me also how achieved that, write to me, enlighten me; I will also love to follow an easier regimen to get six pack abs.

You have got everything Shahrukh; you have all the money, a great family, huge fan following, what still drives? Because you seem driven today than ever before?
Shahrukh: No I really do not have anything, I often tell this to people who are young or who as old me also, see success is very subjective, when I decided to become an actor, my logic was that I am going to give it the best shot, make lot of people smile along the way what started happening was that I made too many people smile, and I don’t deserve this, so I don’t know how long am I going to last, but at the end of it all I want to say is that I don’t owe it to anyone, including audience, because I am going to say listen I deserve it because I gave you back enough. People say I am King Khan, which I think is a clever journalist eclectic, I truly believe a king is not how much he earns, how much he takes, a king is how much he gives, I don’t think success as the finishing line, so I don’t think I have anything.

People often say that as high as you go that is how low you have to fall in the way and all stars eventually decline, have you prepared yourself for that?
Shahrukh: Yeah about 72 years from now, when I am 117 years old, I am very disturbed by the thought that at the age of 117 I’ll be a failure star, I feel really sad thinking that.

All your life you have worked towards being recognized and then spend the rest of your life wearing the dark glasses to hide yourself, I love being recognized, I love the fact that people love me, I love the fact that people think that I am a star, I love the fact that on Fridays I make people smile, when it is taken away from me for whatever reason, lack of my talent, lack of my hard work, or just the fact that nobody is interested in me anymore which will happen, I am not preparing myself for it, but I can tell you that I will be shattered, I will feel very sorry, but then I’ll start directing the films.

Shahrukh we just now talked about being a super star and then hiding the rest of your life wearing dark glasses and all, don’t you think it is hard to play your own big brother, you get a minute for yourself, even you are free or having rest, media comes up and says – SRK is having rest, etc.
Shahrukh: The line is blurring between real me and the actor me, but I am always acting, whenever there is a camera I start acting, whenever there are more than two people in front of me I start acting, so my friends also ask how do you rest, every second of yours is being scrutinized, so people from the outside is only seeing the actor side of me and never the real side of me, so I can give a lot, as an actor I can give my 100%, but the real self of me is never out in the media so people are not taking a single second of my life out of me.

People think that you are one of the luckiest and most liberal thinking Muslim in India and normally Muslims are unhappy and that is why all these communal things happen, what is your take on this?
Shahrukh: Most of the Indians are liberal thinking; we have only four agendas – security, education, economic development, removal of poverty, there is no fifth agenda.

But people who throw bombs or all of these things they don’t even know what they are doing and why they are doing it.

I mean look at this guy, what is his name, Ajmal Kasab, just hear him, where is ideology, where is any logic, where is any sensibility, where is any education, where is the one sentence which he said so that one can at least say – Oh! Ok so this was the reason why he did that, but why killing, is it because you are poor, so? every poor person should start killing, or is it because you are uneducated, so? Should every uneducated should start killing? There is no logic with these people, you connect this with the unhappy Muslim of India.

Shahrukh your love affair with Gauri Khan, which is a childhood love affair, is a Yash Raj Film in itself, can you please share something with us about how it started?
Shahrukh: Actually I am in awe of women, when I am in awe that means I am a little shy of women, yes I do a lot of romantic films, but in actual I am shy of women, so earlier I used to go to these parties, in our parties boys used to sit on one side and girls used to sit on the other side, when some George Michaels song comes in we used to go over and ask them can I have this dance with you? But I never could do this in my whole life.

So in one party Gauri was there and I sent a friend of mine to ask her that will she dance with a friend of his? And in which she got confused and said no, she said that she is waiting for her boyfriend to come and she will dance with him, which later turned on that the guy who came was her brother, she lied because just didn’t want to dance with any of the boys, so I went over to her and asked can I be your brother, to which she said no I’ll marry you.
Shahrukh you are a unique actor who has been linked with men and women, so how do you deal with all of it? Or have you ever crossed the line in terms of really having a relation with the stars or directors?
Shahrukh: I am not only metro sexual, bi sexual or tri sexual, I am all sexual, and Yes I have relations with all of them, I had sex with all the directors, actresses, actors, I have been linked with, see I really find it strange that people reduce the relations to just sex, I am not linked with all of them but Karan Johar, and I love him, but that doesn’t mean that I have hot and sweaty sex with him, actually when at home we laugh at it, I mean I remember once I was at home Gauri and Karan were lying in the bed, they were chatting, and there was a lady who used to work in the house, so when I came home, she came to me and told me – “sahib aap jab ghar mein nahin hote ............................” so I told her that yes I am really jealous because Karan is really supposed to be lying in bed with me.

Do you worry that your kids might not grow up in an atmosphere which is real, will they have a sort of upbringing you had?
Shahrukh: The biggest fear I have is that whatever my kids (Aryan and Suhana) do in their lives in terms of work, they should just over come this image of being the kids of this big movie star, and for which I try to never tell them that their father is this super star, I attend their school functions, I teach them, I play with them.
I am also happy about them because I got to travel out of India at the age of 26 or 27 for the first time, but for them I think it is a gift that they are seeing the world first hand at such an early stage, and when they arrive they will be well informed and confident.