‘I am the BEST!' STATES SHAH…AND HE WAS…HE IS…WILL ALWAYS BE~ (2008)

This was from before in 2008 I posted it somewhere else during the last IPL season, but we’re getting back soon to more Kolkata Knight Riders and I love memories. Now that I have a blog I think it fits perfectly well here. I get chills every time I read it, there’s nothing I love more than when SRK says it like it is…It’s a complete turn on for me that’s why I decided to add it on my new blog…
After all If you think you know enough about Shah Rukh Khan, you have no idea just how little you know because he’s constantly evolving!!!

‘I am the BEST!' STATES SHAH…AND HE WAS…HE IS…WILL ALWAYS BE~ (2008)
This is the season for blogs. Every Bollywood star worth his white shoes has started a blog ~ except one. Shah Rukh Khan says blogging falls within the realm of journalism. And he cannot be a journalist. Derek Bose spoofs the blog that wasn’t

The name is Khan ~ King Khan. They call me Shah Rukh Khan also. That’s cool. But I liked it more when they called me Shah Rukh-da. That was during the IPL season with my Kolkata Knight Riders. It made me feel very Bong ~ all brainy and bluster. I told them, “Korbo-Lorbo-Jeetbo Re”! I sang, shouted, danced for them... How was I to know that no amount of motivation would ever work with a team whose captain belongs to a city that understands only one slogan, “Cholbe Na!” We were sent packing with the lowest score in the tournament ~ 67 all out. Now I am left with 17,000 golden helmets. I had bought them for my fans, had my team reached the final.
But that’s all right. One learns as one moves on in life. I have always taken my chances, unlike my friends who have nothing better to do than take digs at me in their blogs. The guys who are confused about naming dogs and praying that Paanchvi Pass fails probably do not know that SRK rarely loses. I hate losing. Even in the IPL, mine was the only team to make money. That’s not the point though. In my heart and mind, I know that as you sow, so you reap. I have worked hard to be where I am today. I do television, dance at weddings, endorse soft drinks, watches, soap, cars, refrigerators... I am an entertainer; the medium does not matter. If I am wealthy, it is because I work fast and earn fast. I don’t sit back like others.

I get up every morning telling myself that there is no one better than me. It makes me work hard because I love the adulation. I love it when people leave their houses early morning and stand outside mine. They whistle, cheer, and chant my name. I love it when people write to me in blood ~normally very short letters like ‘I love you’. I get people who fall sick and think I can cure them. I see joy in their eyes when they see me. I’d die if people wouldn’t recognize me. I wouldn’t walk on the road if people don’t mob me. That’s what I work for.
I don’t understand stars who work half their lives to be recognized and then spend half their lives wearing dark glasses so that people don’t recognize them. I don’t like wearing dark glasses. I am happy with the fact that people know me. I want people to scream and shout at me. I want them to trouble me when I am having lunch. I like six bodyguards around me. I love being a star. I know I am the best. There are stars in Hollywood who may look better than me, speak better than me, act better than me... maybe even dance as well as I do. But only 2.5 billion people watch their films. Bollywood has a global audience of 3.6 billion. That makes me the biggest star on this planet!
But at the end of the day, I am just an actor who happens to be at the right place at the right time. After 15 years and 65 films, it still feels like living a dream ~ the way I felt when I stood in front of the camera for the first time in Pradip Kishen’s In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones. Yes, that was my first film, not Darr or Baazigar. Actually, by then I had done almost a dozen films, some really sidey, like Deewana, King Uncle, Maya Memsaab, Dil Aashna Hai, Chamatkar… Darr got me noticed big time. And to imagine, the role of the guy going ‘Ka-Ka-Ka-Kiran’ was offered to Ajay Devgan first and then to Aamir (Khan). After they refused, Yash Uncle came to me. Similarly, Baazigar came to me, only after Akshay Kumar and Arbaaz Khan refused to do it. It was on rejected parts that I have built my career on.
This is the point I’m driving at. In my job, you can never say when opportunity knocks. The fear of losing on a good thing makes you do a lot of crappy stuff ~like playing small town crooks, a rickshawallah, the joker who gets battered for no reason... (I mustn’t say too much, else those directors would kick my ass.) I was portrayed as an obsessed lover, a nice lover, an angry lover, a romantic lover. For someone who doesn’t even like love stories, I’ve played an awful lot of lovers. Many of those films I had done for old time’s sake, for the guys who helped me when I was still trying to get my bearings in Bombay. This is a risk everyone takes. You want to return a favour. But you cannot help it if the guy has lost his creative edge and takes you down with him.

I could see myself slipping, till Adi (Aditya Chopra) came to my rescue with Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge in 1995. Again, I was not supposed to do the film initially. Saif (Ali Khan) was approached first for the lead part of Raj Malhotra and only after he turned it down, did I get to be in DDLJ. And see what a difference that one film has made to so many of us ~ the Chopras, Kajol, Farah (choreographer), Abhijeet (playback singer), Karan (Johar)... the entire industry. It ran for more than 600 weeks (11 years) at a stretch at one theatre, Maratha Mandir ~ a record in Indian film history. I got work in films like Dil To Pagal Hai, Dil Se, Devdas, Veer Zaara and Don. Some wise guys said I was repeating myself. But I do not sit around complaining about the lack of good roles. I will play Raj 85 times and still make him different.
And look at Karan! He apprenticed as Adi’s assistant in DDLJ ~ even played a cameo as Rocky ~ then found his confidence and three years later, launched his career as a hotshot filmmaker with a string of blockbusters: Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Kal Ho Na Ho, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna… Now he is making My Name Is Khan with me.

Today, when Karan says that he cannot think of a film without me, it is not out of any obligation or a sense of gratitude. We bond better than brothers. We speak the same language, think the same, share the same aspirations, sensibility, fear and hopes. Farah is another sweetheart. She is supremely talented and has possibly the best sense of humour in the entire film fraternity. She has the ability to laugh at her herself and others. I have been in both her films ~ Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om. She too knows that I’d be there for her always. So do Kajol, Rani (Mukherji), Adi, Arjun (Rampal), Mehr (Jessia), Juhi (Chawla)... We share a closeness that goes beyond work and films. I lost my parents before moving into Bombay. These friends are now family to me. I feel very close to them. You come across lots of people all the time but you only make very few friends and you have to be true to them. Otherwise what’s the point in life?

In 2000, when I started my production house, Dreamz Unlimited, these were the guys who stood by me. Everybody else said we were an incestuous group out to make money, we were polarizing the industry, creating a new power centre... They were right. What’s wrong with making money? It’s just that Dreamz Unlimited did not make enough money. The public rejected our films ~ Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, Asoka and Chalte Chalte. But those very films remain closest to my heart ~ particularly, Phir Bhi Dil... in which Juhi and I played rival reporters against a background of terrorism. It was a neat film, very contemporary with its share of laughter and suspense, but the audience did not like it.
The experience taught me one lesson, which I have since applied to all business decisions: You cannot let your heart rule the head where it concerns money. You’ve got have a little of Hitler and Napoleon to succeed. It may be out of character, but when I launched Red Chillies Entertainment, my second production house in 2004, I deliberately became hard-nosed and tough and see the results: Main Hoon Na, Paheli, Om Shahti Om... and now Billoo Barber. Paheli did not do so well in the Indian box-office, but elsewhere, it has made good money. Today, even if I try, I cannot be as selfless as Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa. It of course, helps to have good friends and understanding colleagues to put up with my madness and not allow personal relations to overlap the personal.

To return to my original premise: the opportunities life presents and how one makes the most of them. Had Akshay or Arbaaz accepted Baazigar, would I be where I am? If Darr did not come to me, what could I be doing? Had Saif not turned down DDLJ, what would life be? These are of course, questions in the realm of speculation. One could always laugh them away by saying that their loss is my gain. But life is not that simple. It is full of surprises. I wanted to be a sportsman and imagined myself to be the next Pele. I played football at school, also hockey, till I gave it all up on doctors’ advice. I could get only as far as playing a discredited coach of a woman’s hockey team and today, I find myself as an actor owning a cricket team.
At no point can you say what life has in store for you. I set out 15 years ago with a prayer on my lips and hope in my heart. The dreams I chased, took me on a journey ~ a journey more rewarding then the goals, the achievements. Today I am past 40. When I look back it’s like facing a million mirrors. Each reflection opens a window. A window to the world I’ve just discovered. The world I want to share with all of you.