Shahrukh, Dogs and some thoughts!!

When I was in school, I used to hate Shahrukh Khan, maybe because the girls loved him, or maybe because I wanted to prove myself different. However, with time, the perception has changed. i still don't say Shahrukh is a great actor or a great human being. but I simply have come to love his way of portraying a non-existent personal life as if it were real.

For those who haven't yet seen the documentaries The Inner World of Shahrukh khan and The Outer World of Shahrukh Khan, I strongly recommend them as a must-see. London-based Indian writer and film maker Nasreen Munni kabir made those back in 2005. They revolve around two small stages of his life-one during the shooting of Main Hoon Na (that becomes the inner world) and one during his famous US-Canada tour (the outer world)..


While the Inner World focuses on the actor's personal life-his wife, his kids, the unmarried elder sister; the outer world shows the love he gets from all over the world- the image that he projects to the world.

Now why would it be interesting? Isn't it an old-fashion to romanticize celebrity life and make them look like God? Well there lies the difference- both the films intelligently tries a different approach- a Shahrukh khan who's no idol, who's not perfect-but immensely successful- a story of You and me- a story of dreams!

Now this sounds like romanticism again- yes, it is romanticism-but what makes it different is the way it is articulated. You can't say who deserves the maximum credit-the director or the actor, but they both sure deserve accolades. e.g- if we see a teary eyed Shahrukh in his school church, we don't believe it to be real..We know he is an actor-but when Shahrukh keeps on smoking Classics incessantly and getting massages from his doctor for his troubling back; that clubbed together with his teary eyes gives an impression that everything is real...we think this Shahrukh is real,one who smokes, suffers, hits clubs, has a family and also gets emotional in his school churce-he suddenly becomes you and me- a human being..And we start taking everything seriously-as if we are watching a common man's life unfolding...kudos to the makers.


Now moving to a different perspective- the man is an entertainer. Yes his jokes are idiotic and stupid at times (read the towel act at filmfare), but he entertains nevertheless. He does not goes around taking up social issues he does not understand (pun definitely intended), he does not let his dark side come into focus. when he attended a birthday party of a co-star's girlfriend and blabbered some insult on the host, the media did take it up-but just for a day, he restrained from commenting-such a clever thing to do to avoid controversies. This is not to say he is perfect ..He is surely not. he's not a great actor either- i would rate Paresh Rawal and Ranvir Shorey ahead of him any day (Or even Akshay Kumar for that matter), but what i am trying to say is that he has shown how to handle stardom. He has taken it in sporting spirit when someone compared him to a dog licking his feet. Or even when he is compared with the Big B. Actors are professionals, they should know how to handle the profession. And that dignity is a virtue. Shahrukh has that. And that's precisely why he has been "the man to go to" in Bollywood for such a long time. I admire the man for that!!