INSTEP Magzine


The man who would be king King of Bollywood by Anupama Chopra is a must read for all Shah Rukh Khan fans as it takes readers into his life beyond the cinema screen, explaining why and how he became India's most saleable brand. By Aamna Haider Isani

King of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema By Anupama Chopra is an intelligently written and well researched book that gives a detailed account of Shah Rukh Khan's very rugged journey to recognition. It peddles through the alleys of the Qissa Khawani Bazaar in Peshawar where his father, Meer belonged, New Delhi where Shah Rukh was born and finally Bombay where he came in search of stardom. But it isn't a biography, simply because the aim of this book seems not only to document the life of the living legend but to brand him as one of the winning stakes in a financially booming India. The book actually essays the progress of India in relation with the growing enigma of Bollywood and pinpoints Shah Rukh Khan as the most sellable commodity in it.

Having said that, it most certainly is a must read for Shah Rukh Khan fans as it provides details of his life that add to his iconic stature without dwelling too long on the flaws that might threaten it. Like every typical formula block buster coming out from Bollywood, this book too has Shah Rukh as the hero who at the end of the story emerges as the good guy, the super star and the great actor despite the frequent failures and flop films. In fact, after providing endless details of his arrogance as a superstar, it ends with him being uncharacteristically humble when he says, "I know it's going nowhere. At the end of all the awards, rewards and adulation, I'll be an old man coming to a function…Maybe I will be a small dusty man in a small dusty town."

It's as if Anupma Chopra is being defensive on his behalf which indicates that she, like all of India, is too much in awe of him to write an entirely realistic portrayal. The book is written as a fan's insight into his life rather than a journalist's. However, King of Bollywood SRK does provide interesting information about the actor's life that one doesn't generally get to hear about in the press; his relationship with the Underworld for instance. In the chapter titled Mobsters and Movies, Chopra explains how 1997 became "the year of living dangerously" in Bollywood. It follows the film industry after the 1993 blasts in Mumbai and how in 1997 Abu Salem – "Dawood's trusted aide" – turned his attention to Shah Rukh Khan.

"What is the problem, sir?" the book narrates Shah Rukh when he received his first call from Salem. As a high profile Muslim actor, SRK was under threat as was most of Bollywood and was given police protection. Salem replied that he was angered by Shah Rukh's refusal to work in a project being made by a Muslim. Fortunately at the time Shah Rukh happened to be working with several Muslim directors and pointed this out to Salem: Mansoor Khan, Abbas Mustan, Aziz Mirza. "Salem saw Shah Rukh's logic and decided that he would, after all, spare his life. "Log bolte the tu bahut proudy hai lekin tu bada sharif hai,' he said. 'Abhi police ki zaroorat nahin tereko. Main nahin maroonga."

Abu Salem's calls continued, however, and Shah Rukh comments that it was "like living under a telescope. It was very depressing and very scary…I'm not macho enough to turn around and say that I wasn't scared of any of these guys. I was shit scared." It was an uneasy time in his career but according to the book, Shah Rukh had faced so much depression and tragedy in his life that he had learnt to find an unhealthy catharsis in his work. He threw himself into films after the terribly tragic deaths of his father and mother which are detailed in the book, giving insight into incidents that were to mould this man's personality. Shah Rukh had already debuted in television with the hit serial Fauji but in 1991 when his mother died "Death created a star," the book states. "Shah Rukh sank into a fog of despair and anger…he began to feel suffocated in Delhi. Two weeks after his mother's death he packed his bags to Mumbai, and landed at Viveck Vaswani's hose at 5 am. 'Let's make films,' he said."

That was the year Shah Rukh Khan married Gauri and won his first Film Fare Award for his debut in Deewana. The book portrays Shah Rukh as the angry, stubborn and proud yet fearless actor that many fans identify him as. "By September 1992, Stardust headlines were asking: CAN THE INDUSTRY DIGEST SHAH RUKH KHAN'S ARROGANCE?" He was unapologetically confident of his brilliance as an actor and had equally undiplomatically, announced he would take over where Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan had left.

This is the SRK people see today, though they do not know much of what made him into the man he is. This book takes one into circumstances that make you feel stronger for him than any of his films can. He comes across as a sad young man looking for love, with an eagerness to please and yet being a daredevil to take on the toughest. That he did by accepting to be cast in negative roles in films like Darr and Baazigar; they were roles that Aamir Khan, Ajay Devgan and Sanjay had declined from fear that they would "diminish their heroic image." Shah Rukh was cast as a last option but wow, what an impact these films had on Bollywood. "They changed the rules for what constituted a Hindi film hero," Chopra writes in the chapter Murder, He Wrote. It was no longer necessary for a hero to be the good guy, the noble knight in shining armor. "We don't have to like him," Shah Rukh said of the modern day hero, "just the story he is telling."

"Even though Amitabh had earlier elicited the same passion, fans rarely thought of Vijay and Amitabh as one. Vijay was working-class, seething, and sophisticated. But with Shah Rukh, the distance between actor and image blurred. The audience believed that Shah Rukh was Raj. He became every girl's fantasy lover, every sister's brother, every mother's son. In short, a superstar." The book takes you through the friends he made, especially Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar. It describes the effect each of his major blockbusters had on Indian cinema; the fact that the Maratha Mandir Theatre in south central Mumbai has been playing DDLJ on repeat ever since its release in 1995. It also describes the impact his flops had on his life. In The Fall from Grace the author takes into account the period in SRK's career when he had launched his production company Dreamz Unlimted with close friend Juhi Chawla and Aziz Mirza. It failed to sustain itself and in 2003 when Shah Rukh cast Rani Mukherjee (a new comer then) in place of Juhi in Chalte Chalte, the partnership fell apart. The book informs of all necessary statistics about Shah Rukh Khan's life but at the same time it very notably evades all controversies regarding his love life especially his rumoured romances with his heroines, especially Juhi Chawla and Kajol. It portrays him as a morally strong man committed and faithful in his marriage to Gauri. As an actor he won't think twice before pushing his heroine off the ledge (Baazigar) but will get squeamish in a romantic sequence, vowing never to kiss on-screen. In essence, the book may go into the intricate details of counting all the bones in Shah Rukh's body, but it doesn't rattle any skeletons in his closet. In a way that fact also adds to the man's powerful standing in India. It builds him as a brand, throwing in his influence on Indian fashion and marketing for good measure. "After Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was released, the orange sweatshirts, which Rahul wears in the film, were sold out at the Oxford Street Gap store in London." And SRK threw himself into marketing the brand he had developed for himself. He put a price on himself and would endorse any product for that price. Here in Pakistan we have often wondered what motivates him to put his name to everything from Pepsi to computers but the book clarifies, "His reasoning was practical: He was an indiscriminate endoser-for-hire because advertising money enabled him to do the films he wanted at a reasonable price. For preferred producers such as Aditya and Karan, there were no monetary discussions." In a nutshell, the book answers questions about SRK's life as long as these questions are not too invasive. It is highly recommended for all those film enthusiast who are besotted with Bollywood as much as they are with SRK. The book has been written by a true fan and needs to be read like one too!