Shahrukh! MY GOD! You cannot contain it in words. Those eyes of love, loneliness, longing, desire, fear, hatred and jealousy; that face with a thousand honest expressions, like possessed, conveys exactly what it wants; that intensity of movements, that would make any melody sound good; that baritone of his voice, which groped, stopped and rose in exact sync with his majestic face; the fluffy mane of her past, which you would otherwise scoff at, but as noble, pure and honest as her smile. You cannot describe the Colosseum to someone who is blind, you cannot describe an orgasm to someone who is a virgin, and you cannot describe the Shahrukh to someone who does not belong to Shahrukhism. Shahrukh is not just a cinema; It’s much more than that. As Sachin is not just a cricketer and Beatles is not just a band. Better actors may come, but no one will be able to replicate Shahrukh. As if no one could replicate Sachin and the Beatles. You can die with your legs up and it will look good. You can make a cow fall in love on the screen and it will look good. It can be knocked to the ground and it will look good. He can wear the most heinous clothes and perform the most heinous acts, but with his alchemist touch, all that he is will be gold. He can be a loser and a failure, and you will love him.
You don’t need to write good parts for him, you don’t need to write good dialogue for him, you don’t need to design good clothes for him, you don’t need to create good songs for him; At the end of the day, it will be Shahrukh who will enact them, it will be Shahrukh who will speak those lines, it will be Shahrukh who will wear those clothes, and it will be Shahrukh who will be dancing with them. You will be the center of attention of everything, in perfect control of everything that surrounds you. It’s easy to be a good actor. Really is. But it is impossible to be a Shahrukh. Try to replace anyone in a single shot of Shahrukh and you’ll know what I’m talking about (Hell, you can’t chase baddies in a rickshaw or haggle to buy a watermelon for the female lead and still manage to look so cool!). Shahrukh can achieve anything and make it happen; make it credible. Sharukh always plays the correct strings. When you see it, it belongs to you; you think it’s all yours; He is someone who you would like your father to be, he is someone you would like your brother to be, and he is someone you would like your child to be. Shahrukh is credible. Shahrukh is great. Representing the fallacies and weakness of a common man can only be the strength of Shahrukh. And it’s magical at that.
Shahrukh off screen is an equal treat. While the rest of his fraternity can take on nothing more than a laugh or giggle while looking goofy and annoyed, Shahrukh knows each and every time what he’s talking about. Superintelligent will be an understatement. He has genuine wit and words that make others seem illiterate. Your brain and its reactions work at the speed of light, and yet everything you will say will be meaningful and will have a suitable combination of philosophy, humor and sarcasm. He has what all his peers lack: presence of mind. He is the real showman off the screen. You may hate his performances, but you will be over the top if you hate him as a person.
Shahrukh is not perfect, and I would not have liked it if it had been. Her imperfections are her charm, like Sachin’s vulnerability in her nineties. It adds to their amazement. It’s like wondering, for example, how beautiful Michelangelo’s Pieta would have been without those broken pieces, and then thinking that the broken pieces actually add to the beauty of the sculpture. Shahrukh never did his best; he always gasps at you for more. I doubt he’s excited to give it his all, even in his swan song performance. Shahrukh is not about details, you have to appreciate the whole picture. It is a painting that cannot be absorbed in a single view. You want to see it again and again.
An actor should be judged solely on the basics of his performances on the big screen. Not on the basis of awards, accolades, fan following, and box office. Your personal life and background should not be anyone’s business. But if you still want to use those parameters for Shahrukh, do your own math.
Shahrukh’s success is a common man’s success. And it’s the only reason you can hate it. It is a success that we all dream of, but that we hardly achieve. Yes, people wonder how a mediocre looking guy who comes out of nowhere can storm the whole world. ALL THE WORLD! This observation fuels jealousy and hatred. You wonder what he has in him that took him so high. It makes you feel restless. Shahrukh is a winner any day. He is not a loser. People love it when the underdog perform. And unfortunately, all of his underdog companions have been shockingly incompetent and that again is Shahrukh’s fault. When their peers are short-lived successes, they are acclaimed and no one remembers their great serial failures of the past. Shahrukh’s success is taken for granted, but his failures are shelved and mocked more intensely. Even in your success, points of failure will be sought. When their peers promote their projects by cutting people’s hair and riding rickshaws across the country dressed as pranksters, they are praised and called innovative; when Shahrukh beats them, it’s just shameless marketing. When movies without a story are successful and shirts rip on their own, they are cult classics; but each of Shahrukh’s films is sharply analyzed in the balance of logic. A bald actor in his sixties with his clown acts is a demigod on the screen, but they never stop counting the wrinkles on Shahrukh’s forehead who, unlike his peers, thanks to his injuries, cannot take the help of Botox to look young.
They have tried everything they can to match your success. Some have tried to pretend to be “different” and act as the “art house” of Hindi cinema (it certainly works, because people also need to fake their elitism by pretending they like that “art”). Others are desperately finding solace in redoing shot-by-shot Southern punches. May all be successful. They need all those tactics because they are all mechanical and deadpan. They are all insecure and you can see how difficult it must be for them to stand firm. But it was Shahrukh who first changed the laws of cinema when he started. It made the audience believe that heroes can be bad, heroes can cry, and heroes don’t need to flex their muscles all the time. No matter what others say, Shahrukh changed all conventions, truly like the first iconoclast of Hindi cinema. Shahrukh is the landmark of everything. All achievements in Hindi cinema are and will always be compared to Shahrukh’s! Is it necessary to say more?
Shahrukh is called superficial because he wants to have all the money in this world. Unfortunately, it does not accept the morality that we impose on it. But thank goodness it’s not pretentious. Thank goodness you don’t sit down for Medha Patkar’s causes without really understanding what they’re about (only to run away later when movie screenings are vandalized and stopped). Thank goodness you don’t endorse Anna’s campaign just for his liking. We didn’t see it when the Olympic torch came to the country. It doesn’t belong there. But he is always in the places he belongs, and he challenged the so-called tiger in his “own lair” while reiterating his statement of support for Paki’s cricketers. Shahrukh is superficial because he doesn’t care what people think of him. He works day and night so that he can have enough money when he is old and weak. He is an artist who now seeks commerce over aestheticism, who now prefers glamor and indulgence to abstinence. He is the Indian god of hedonism. All hedonists hate it for the same reason. Because he’s excelling at it.
Millions of people around the world cannot be wrong. Respect their judgments. And no one can argue that his name has transcended the barriers of nations, languages, and religion like no one else. It is, it is difficult and beyond the imagination of most of us fans who enjoy abroad. He is indisputably the most recognized living Indian in the world. The world knows only his face. But even if he hadn’t accomplished all of this, he would have been just that charismatic.
For me, cinema is nothing more than Shahrukh. I have always cried and laughed with him. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs when he was next to Mannat. Unfortunately, I don’t understand any other actor. I tried, really, over and over again, but failed. But I’m sure they are all good. But I just don’t understand them. And it’s okay if you don’t get Shahrukh. Yes, everyone has their own taste for cinema. You may hate it to the core. He can make fun of everything that is him. You may think you are ugly and not a hero in the Hindi cinema sense. I would understand all that, but I still feel sorry for you that you never experience the variety of emotions that we followers of Shahrukhism experience every time we see it. Shahrujism is not an elite cult, but it is a pity that you do not belong to it. And more pity that you cannot convert to Shahrukhism because if you are not in it, you cannot be in it. And those who belong to it will know what I’m talking about. For the rest, this publication will mean nothing more than, a corny hymn, a drama, a joke? To rest, all in the name of Shahrukh Khan, he has promised to entertain us as long as he lives. The milestone may say forty-six, but imagine abhi baki hai mere dost … (The show is not over yet …)