Happy Birthday, SRK Mere Dil Se Gratitude Is Too Small Word For A Badshah

ALI PETER JOHN

I don't know how long I will remember my birthday(and I am very fond of remembering them and celebrating them with the excitement of a child), but I know for sure that I will remember my birthday of my second life, literally, till the end of the days of my life and a great part played by Shah Rukh Khan who is also known as Bad Shah Khan and the king of romance, in films strictly because he has not given anyone a chance of talking about his having any other affair with women during the last twenty-seven years in this industry where affairs, making and breaking up are a way of life.

It is his birthday and I am writing this piece as my tribute to the Badshah and his Badshah at of his empire which is his heart which has a place for millions at any given time.

On November 19, 2016. I am on my small walk which is also my form of praying and a time when I get some of my best thoughts. I remember the advice given to me by my friend, Grace who had once saved me from an accident which could be the end of my life and she had asked me to look all around and then cross the road and I followed her advice on that morning too. I cross the road successfully, but I stop to pick up some fallen flowers which is also my every day habit, now grown into a part of my prayer. I try to stand up after clutching the delicate white flowers, when I find myself cruelly knocked out by a water tanker. I have a feeling that I am dead, but fell alive when I see the queue outside the bank of India, all of them scared victims of Modi's “notebandi”. A part of the crowd come rushing to help me, but the damage has been done. The tanker crushes my entire left foot. I try to stand on one leg and collapse when I see a little but rapidly flowing river of blood flowing on the road. Three men rush me into a reluctant auto driver's vehicle and take me to the Kalsekar hospital where I have not seen any patient for years, it is like a haunted house and one man standing at the gate tells the people with me not to waste time there and take me to the Cooper Hospital and I am pushed into the ICU and placed between two dead bodies and my foot put into a plaster without any attention paid to my profusely bleeding wound. I surrender and close my eyes till I see my brother-in-law Sudhir who comes as a savior and within minutes an ambulance carries me to the one-time well-known Nanavati hospital. It takes a team of several junior doctors to rip off the first plaster and put my foot into another plaster and move me to Ward no.9, Bed no.20 where I am destined to live and die several times during the next four months.

As I lie in bed, I wonder from where the money would come for the treatment. The same evening my foot goes through a five hours long operation under Dr. A.R. Karkhanis and am surprised to find myself alive the next morning, but with a massive plaster and scary looking spikes protruding from within the plaster.
The pain doesn't worry me so much as the money that would have to be arranged and I didn't have any at around noon I received the kind of news that only god could bring, the message had come from the Badshah, Shah Rukh khan. it said that all the expenses for my treatment as long as I was in hospital would be borne by the Shah Rukh Khan trust. from that moment, I went through nine major surgeries. a major plastic surgery, several blood transfusions, every kind of injection, test and experiments were made on my body and I became a VIP patient in the ward and my foot became a museum piece for all the doctors, nurses and visitors.

I realised that the bill must have gone very high and I expressed my fear and insecurity to Ms. Karuna Badwal, the manager of SRK and she just said, “Don't worry, Ali, you just take care of yourself”. I heaved a huge sigh of relief and I wondered who there could be a man like SRK who could give till it hurt “the message of Saint Teresa who has a special place in the Nanavati Hospital”. The evening I was carried out of Ward no.9, I didn't have to ask what my bill was and no one asked me any questions. The Badshah had given me a feeling of being a Badshah, so what if I was a Badshah with only one foot!

On his birthday, I wish I could like Rajesh Khanna tells his sister in the memorable film "Anand", "Kaash main yeh keh sakta ki meri umar tujhe lag jaaye", say the same to SRK.
Whatever my story is I will tell the truth to the whole world, whether Badshah Khan feels embarrassed about it or not and whether he likes it or not. Where do we find men like him in a world where men and women pass by the suffering and mumble, "so sad, so bad” and move on…?

3 years later, my foot still gives me pain, but when I think about the gesture of the Badshah, the pain gets less and sometimes even vanishes.

THE YOUNG MAN STANDING ALONE ON THE STREETS OF BOMBAY DREAMT OF OWNING BOMBAY ONE DAY

Why is it that some of the best of stars don’t open up in the interviews conducted by some of the most professional journalists who are known for getting the best out of Presidents, Prime Ministers, fiery leaders belonging to different parties and believing in different ideologies talk their minds and heart out to them? Why is it that the same stars open up completely when they are aware that they are talking to one of their own colleagues from the industry? Why do celebrities like Simi Garewal, Karan Johar and now Anupam Kher get the most difficult stars to get most candid and talk about their lives and their loves so very openly? Why do these celebrity- anchors manage to make stars talk about their most innermost secrets when talking to fellow stars who they have known for years and even those who they have known only as their peers and seniors? These are just some of the questions that have come to my mind whenever I have seen a Simi Garewal show, a Karan Johar show and “The Anupam Kher Show- Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai”...

It was an absolute delight to watch the first episode of Anupam Kher’s show on Colors and to make it a show that would be looked forward to in the near future Anupam and Colors made sure that they started on a high note, started with the King himself, Badshah Khan, aka Shah Rukh Khan. SRK was never so open in answering every question that Anupam asked him and was more than the King or Badshah he was, he was. Abdul Rehman (his real name as was discovered on the show), the boy from Delhi who never wanted to be an actor....
Yes, Shah Rukh Khan who is supposed to be the second richest actor in the world today never wanted to be an actor, not even in his dreams. Abdul Rehman (SRK) always had the ambition to play football and he kept trying till he injured himself waist downwards and that was the end of his dream to play football soon or anytime in the future....

He never knew what to do next. It was while he was busy doing nothing that his father once asked him what he planned to do in the future and he said “nothing” and his father told him a line in Urdu which he has never forgotten to this day. He said, “Jo Log Kuch Nahin Karte, Woh Kamaal Karte Hai”...

Shah Rukh remembered his first appearance on stage. It was a play in English directed by Barry John who was to be his acting Guru in the future. He was one of the hundreds of male dancers and had just one line to speak, “I have a letter for you, Annie”. His next attempt as an actor was in the TV serial “Fauji” made by the retired Col. Kapoor because none of his sons wanted to act. His performance in the play marked him out and when well-known directors from Bombay were looking for a young actor to be cast in their serial, “Circus”, they instantly opted for this new boy from “Circus” who had by now become very popular all over...

Shah Rukh was still not interested in taking up acting as a full-time career but soon things started happening and he was surprised. The first call he received from Bombay was from Hema Malini. The call was from her niece but it was on behalf of Hema Malini who wanted to know if he was interested in acting in a film she was directing. Shah Rukh and his family could not believe that it was the Hema Malini who had called and all was quiet for some time. The second call was from the well-known director Harry Baweja, a call which was taken by his mother and who was so excited that she wrote the name of the director on the wall. SRK said he was so grateful to Mr. Baweja that he could do anything for him....

He finally landed in Bombay with only his one- way fare which he had already spent. He had several days without any work and slept on pavements in Bandra. It was on one of these pavements that he once screamed out “I will buy Bombay one day”. He thought he had gone mad and so did the other footpath dwellers. But was that some kind of a premonition?

He was having breakfast at the Lucky Restaurant in Bandra when a young man called Viveck Vaswani walked up to him and asked him if he was interested in acting in films. He said he was the production executive of GP Sippy, the maker of “Sholay”. Vaswani met him several times and convinced him to meet Sippy at least once. SRK asked him for time. Soon SRK was approached by some other filmmakers and he was more than surprised when he signed five good films in just one day, “Dil Aashna Hai” for Hema Malini, “Chamatkaar” for Rajiv Mehra, “King Uncle” for Rakesh Roshan, “Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman” for GP Sippy and “Deewana” for Guddu Dhanoa who was distantly related to Dharmendra and Hema Malini. He was still not interested in making a career as an actor and told himself and some friends that he would do these five films and go back to Delhi and never come back, but that was never to be...
SRK told Anupam that he was always a very shy boy when he was in Delhi and his friends and neighbours called him all kinds of names. He was especially shy about girls and rarely spoke to them. He had never asked a girl for a dance at a party. At one such party he took a great liking for a beautiful girl and asked one of his friends to ask her if she would dance with him. She agreed. They became friends and then good friends. That girl was a Punjabi girl called Gauri and he was a Pathaani Muslim. They fell in love and Shah Rukh remembers how he had to face tough opposition from her family till they finally agreed and they got married on the sets of “Dil Aashna Hai” on which they also had their honeymoon...

Shah Rukh was very emotional when he talked about the love affair between his father and his mother and especially when he spoke about his mother dying in the ICU and his struggle after the death of his parents...
When asked about his favourite actress he did not think twice before mentioning just one name and that was Mumtaz, the superstar of the sixties and seventies. He did not mention any other actress. Talking about actors, he said his all-time favourite was Balraj Sahni and Dilip Kumar his favourite because he was the favourite of his parents was and Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri were because of their being serious and good actors. He also mentioned Anupam as one of his favourites because of his trying out a wide variety of roles...

He said he had a passion for good poetry and good Urdu because they were imbibed in him by his father and he hoped to be able to do the same with his own children Suhana, Aryan and Abram Khan.

There is so much more to be told about this unusual man who has achieved the most unexpected things in his unusual life that a book is not enough.

NOT EVERY BOY WHO COMES FROM DELHI BECOMES A SHAH RUKH KHAN

Some twenty-six years ago Doordarshan in black and white was the only major source of enlightenment and entertainment to a limited extent for the entire country which sat glued to it because they had no other source of passing their time without buying a ticket. Doordarshan then had its own popular shows which were mostly subjects which were dry and dreary but people who had just discovered the pleasure of watching Doordarshan watched whatever was shown to them. The quality of shows gradually improved with better known writers, directors and actors taking active part in it.

Sometime in the early nineties, a young man who did Hindi theatre in different parts of Delhi made his strong and effective debut on the idiot box. His name was Shah Rukh Khan. He first played the hero of a serial called “Fauji” which was directed by the very successful maker of Hindi films, Lekh Tandon for Col.Raj Bharti who was a follower of Bhagwan Rajneesh and a friend of actor Vinod Khanna. This young actor soon became the face every Indian who watched television waited to see every evening. He was a much better and much more popular actor when he did a serial based on life in a Circus. He played the son of the owner of the Circus who was no longer interested in following the business of Circus like his father and his forefathers. In between these two serials, he did another serial which was not so known and also did a video film based on the Christian festival of Easter directed by Dinesh Lakhanpal.

It was his spirited performance in “Circus” that caught the attention of the “Dream Girl” Hema Malini who wanted to make her debut as a director. She sent for the boy from Delhi and signed him to play the romantic lead in her film with a new actress called Divya Bharti. But before Hema Malini could complete her film the new actor Shah Rukh who seemed to be in a hurry to make an impression in Bombay signed Raj Kanwar’s “Deewana” in which he had to play a completely black and negative character and stole the thunder from even a veteran romantic actor like Rishi Kapoor. He was almost branded as a villain when he did two other major negative roles in films like “Darr” with Sunny Deol and Juhi Chawla and “Anjaam” with Madhuri Dixit and Deepak Tijori.

He did some other films like his friend and first mentor in Bombay Viveck Vaswani’s “Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman” and the success of the film marked the beginning of a new romantic hero who had brought in a class and a style all his own.It was only success and more success for this new Khan on the block and he kept springing new and unusual surprises with every new release.

He had his own team which took care of all he needed to keep growing as a hero in his own class. He had the make-up man of Hema Malini, he hired Kabir, the chauffeur who was known as a lucky mascot after he had driven unknown actors like Rajesh Khanna and Mithun Chakraborty to super stardom. He also had an efficient secretary in Anwar Khan who guided him along all the right ways but who unfortunately fell a victim to alcohol and died when his hero was almost on the way to superstardom. His place was taken by a very efficient woman, Karuna, daughter of Madan Arora who was the secretary of Danny Denzongpa ever since he started his career in the late sixties.

Shah Rukh Khan was now the star who was wanted by all the best filmmakers and shot to genuine superstardom after films like Yash Chopra’s “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge” and Karan Johar’s “Kuch Kuch Hota Hain”. He kept doing a wide variety of roles but unlike most heroes of his time he also realised the importance of security and built his own company, Red Chillies Entertainment. And with the success of films like “Asoka”, “Paheli”, “Om Shanti Om” and “Happy New Year” he not only established himself as the Khan among Khans and Kumars but also as a filmmaker in the league of Yash Chopra, Karan Johar and Subhash Meghna Ghai Puri

The boy from Delhi who is said to have been homeless when he first reached Bombay and is said to have spent nights outside the Lucky Restaurant outside Bandra Station and who is once said to have woken up in the middle of the night, looked at the sky full of stars and screamed, “I will conquer the sky one day and be a star in the sky competing with the best of stars of all time, now had a palace-like house facing the sea called “Mannat”, the kind of office no other star or filmmaker ever had and had the kind of following which had to be seen to be believed when they gathered outside “Mannat” on November 2 to celebrate his birthday with him.

This amazing Khan has only reached half the destination his dreams have marked out for him. He has his hands in several other money making projects and ideas like having shows on an international level and being a major owner of one of the big teams playing in the IPL. Stories about his magnanimity and benevolence have not made headlines or got him any kind of publicity because he believes in not letting the left hand know what his right hand does.

He has a very satisfied family life with his wife Gauri, their daughter Suhana who has now expressed her desire to be an actress, his son Aryan who is studying abroad and Abram who is all set to face the world on his own terms and according to the challenges he has to face in the times to come.

The boy from Delhi has conquered the hearts of millions in the first fifty years of his life. He is a king who has his admirers and followers all over the world and this world which now is in the palms of the king waits with excitement to see what their king has under his hat which he will bring out only at a time when he feels the time is right.

 ABDUL REHMAN WANTED TO PLAY FOOTBALL, BUT DESTINY MADE HIM A KING

The young man who once challenged the sky that he would conquer it one day, has met the challenge and is the unquestionable king today
The man who once slept outside the Lucky Restaurant outside Bandra Station, now has a palace called "Mannat" and two multi-storeyed building has his offices which look after his Production company Red Chillies Entertainment and other businesses he has now branched out into.

He has achieved what other men of his age can only dream of and forget, but this man has not only seen dreams but has worked hard to make his dreams come true with the kind of passion that makes his dreams come true, all because of the passion with which he perceives his dreams

There have been times when he has staggered and there have been threats to his kingdom , but he is the kind of King who has never respected defeat or failure

To think of it ,SRK has never faced difficult times ,like he has during the last two years, the king who refused to give up had to his failure ,not once ,but three times in a row ,the man who had a roaring affair with successes had to see three of his big films fall to the ground, "Raees" when Harry met Sejal and the biggest flop of his career which was symbolically tittles ZERO. His rivals and critics have tried to celebrate his downfall, but they don't know what stuck this king his madeoff.

Anything can happen tomorrow, November 2 when he has promised to open up a new pack of cards, at his birthday party at “Mannat”, he is expected to announce some new films for which his plans have been waiting for more than a year.

He now has other priorities and the most important plan he will have to work on are his three children, Suhana who is well on the way to make her debut and with her own beauty and talent ,together with her great father blessing, she will certainly be a big name to shine in the coming year and then many more years to come , his elder son Aryan, sometimes look much more handsome than his father ,but he has still not made up his mind about what he wants to do in future and then there is the already adorable Abram who is already the toast of the media and all those who love his father, SRK and his wife, Gauri are more interested in having a happy family, but they know that SRK has expanded his empire to such an extent that he cannot look back but only go forward

And that is what will happen in the time to come and the birthdays to come because whatever happens ,looking has still not forgotten that night outside Lucky Restaurant wen the sky shuddered wen a jobless and homeless and hopeless young man dared to challenge it.

And on this birthday of the king, I can see millions of his admirer loving him ,caring for him and praying for his greater success and I don't think any God can let their prayer go waste or unanswered .

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