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Divided by class but united in fandom, they remain steadfast in their search for intimacy, independence and fun. Embracing Hindi film idol Shah Rukh Khan allows them a small respite from an oppressive culture, a fillip to their fantasies of a friendlier masculinity in Indian men. Most struggle to find the freedom-or income-to follow their favourite actor.
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In this most unusual and compelling book on the female gaze, the author gleans the details on what Indian women think about men, money, movies, beauty, helplessness, agency and love.
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Read an excerpt from the book below.
If you haven’t heard of Shah Rukh Khan, you stand to be judged as provincial and clueless in the places I come from. So global, so pervasive is his fame that it has become tradition for foreign politicians and pop stars to pay homage to him during their encounters with India. ‘Senorita… bade bade deshon mein’, Barack Obama said in a speech, instantly winning the crowd’s goodwill by quoting a famous Shah Rukh line from Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. The popstar Zayn Malik and footballer Mesut Ozil are fans. Actor Riz Ahmed tweeted about ‘geeking out’ when he received praise from Mr Khan. Korean soap stars and boybands love him, recreating his songs and moves. He has active fan clubs from Nigeria to Peru. Singapore has named an orchid after him. At Davos in 2018, he won the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award with Elton John and Cate Blanchett. The actor was awarded for his ‘leadership in championing children’s and women’s rights in India.’ The tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is lit up in honour of Shah Rukh on his birthday. As Fatima Bhutto wrote in New Kings of the World, her study of the growing reach of Asian popular culture: ‘Today, Khan though little known in the West, is one of the icons of a vast cultural movement emerging from the Global South… Truly global in its range and allure, it is the biggest challenge yet to America’s monopoly on soft-power since the end of World War II.’
It feels impossible to write anything original about an icon as self-aware and intelligent as Mr Khan. During an interview in 2019 with the American late-night legend David Letterman, the actor described himself as an ‘employee of the myth of Shah Rukh Khan.’ In 2016, Shah Rukh entered into an uncanny dialogue with his own celebrity in a film titled Fan, in which he played both a fanboy and the fanboy’s favourite film star. Popular Indian film critic Baradwaj Rangan described the film as a ‘risky deconstruction of his inherent Shah Rukh-ness’. Many commend the film as being one of the actor’s greatest performances. In 2009, he starred in Billu, a film which shows the electrifying effect a star very similar to Shah Rukh has on village life and young rural women. One of my favourite Shah Rukh fan service films is a small-budget movie called Shahrukh Bola ‘Khoobsurat Hai Tu’. The film, released in 2010, features a remarkable performance by Preetika Chawla as a young woman who sells flowers on the street. A mad Shah Rukh fan, she yearns to meet her hero. One magical day, she happens to sell flowers to Shah Rukh himself. The actor appears in the film for a minute-long cameo. As he pays for the flowers, Shah Rukh tells the young girl that she is beautiful. When she narrates these events to her friends, they scoff, especially when she tells them Shah Rukh complimented her appearance. The plot is focused on how the fan daydreams and fights to prove her story is true—that she met Shah Rukh, and that she is beautiful.
In 2017, Shah Rukh delivered a TED talk in Vancouver. He drew an amusing parallel between the journey of humanity and his own journey as an ageing film star, emphasizing the need for compassionate love as an overarching principle for how humans should approach global policy, automation and each other. In our world of emotional cowardice, censored thoughts and cynical actions, his call to compassion didn’t feel clichéd. Lofty romantic notions are radical these days.
Mr Khan introduced himself to the Canadian crowd, many of whom were unaware of the extent of his fame, as a 51-year-old movie star, ‘the Muslim son of a broke freedom fighter.’ In a light-hearted display of vulnerability, characteristic of his public persona, he says, ‘Before this talk, I decided to take a good look in the mirror. And I realized that I’ve started looking like my own wax statue at Madame Tussaud’s. I wondered: do I need to fix my face?’
I tear up a bit as I write this, because it must take unimaginable bravery for an icon celebrated for his youthful romances to acknowledge age on his face. That too, amidst a roomful of strangers. Then I laugh. Because I’ve heard many Shah Rukh detractors repeat the exact same criticism about him, of how he’s become a caricature of himself, how he is too old and too haggard to play the lovelorn hero. Do they learn their insults from the self-deprecating things Mr Khan says about himself? Or is Mr Khan acutely aware of how people see him? I suspect it’s the latter. The man displays a remarkable understanding of his own cult and celebrity – the good, the bad and the wrinkled.
So, it’s tough to say anything new here. Because no one seems to interrogate their own icon with as much scrutiny as Shah Rukh himself. But let me introduce you to some private and public facts.
Through the years, I’ve come to know many people who’ve met the man or interviewed him. I’ve even had friends who’ve delivered TED talks on an Indian television show hosted by Shah Rukh. At the risk of sounding unhinged, I’ve begged for details from anyone I’ve known to have encountered the actor. What did I learn? I learned that he smokes Classic Milds. Each person I spoke to walked away from their time with him feeling like a superstar themselves, having been subjected to a relentless charm offensive. Not every interaction was necessarily pleasant—some of my interlocutors had been bruised by his humour and fierce dedication to his work—but everyone felt that Shah Rukh was kind, quick-witted, and deeply conscious of his media image. Male journalists in Mumbai said the actor changed the energy of any room he walked into. Anushree Majumdar was a film journalist at the Indian Express in 2018 when she interviewed Shah Rukh. I interviewed her about her interview. ‘My thirty-five minutes’, she said, ‘was like being in a movie with him. He makes you feel that you’re the most important person in the room and is so sharp and present that you never have to repeat a question or a word, he gets it all the first time. He has the ability to see something in you in that first moment and he tailors himself to your personality, without changing what is expected of him. He’s truly special.’
Another journalist-fangirl recalled an embarrassing episode. She was asked to interview Shah Rukh in 2016 for a magazine. At the close of her interview, she asked him about his perspective on romantic love. ‘I don’t know why I asked him,’ she told me. ‘I wanted to stop myself, but I couldn’t. It’s not like he is a scholar on the subject, nor is he my therapist. But you know, I had to know what he thought of love. He defined love for our generation. I could not help myself. It was my one and only chance.’ Shah Rukh politely replied, telling her that love contained the multiple shades of all the characters he’d played over the decades. That love was silly, obsessive, playful, sweet, jealous and heartbreaking. He then obligingly filmed a short video greeting for the journalist’s mother, a fellow fan, making both women ecstatic.
An American friend, unfamiliar with Shah Rukh’s films or star status, spotted the actor at a party in London. She described him as ‘a brown Cary Grant,’ and has been a loyal fan ever since. Of all the stories about selfies and fan moments I’ve been privy to, my envy was most provoked by an economist-policy wonk-fangirl who bumped into Shah Rukh at Heathrow. She trailed him through the fast-track immigration queue and they chatted about her job as an economist at a leading commercial bank. He promised her a selfie after they cleared passport controls. Once past immigration, she found Khan waiting patiently to pose for their photo, which she promptly shared with her husband and friends.
