‘Why did it all come to me? Why has it sustained for so long?’

6 hours ago 4

ARTICLE AD BOX

"If somebody were to ask me what I did to become successful in this distance – people do ask me that – and I swear I don’t know. I think about fathers telling their kids what they should try and be. I never knew what I will be. I just studied, went from one place to another, went to Mumbai and acted a little – and before I have realised it, I have a son who is 12 years old, a daughter who is 10 years old, I am sort of famous, I am respected a lot,I am loved a lot.”

This was SRK, in Gurgaon, September 2010, a day after the anniversary of his father’s passing away, reflecting on the journey. He looked outside the window and said, “And I just remember roaming about the streets here,as a nobody… I’ve come here (Gurgaon) when this was a desolated space.

” And he spoke about why he thinks life happened the way it did. One part was about his parents.

“I just don’t know how all this happened. And I don’t know – absolutely from the bottom of my heart, I don’t know how I became successful. There are better-looking people than me, more talented than me, as hard working as me – or maybe more. But why did it all come to me? Why has it sustained for so long?”

He paused, and then shared his answer.

“I’ve thought about this. And I came to the conclusion that it has happened because I never doubted what I am doing. I never doubted whether the work that I do would be a failure. And in fact, I feel that as we have it all, we begin doubting – so I need to go back to that basic.
The heart that I have – the heart of an entertainer – a part of it has always been sensible enough to do the business part of it. But a large part of it, a large part of my heart, still believes in magic. Because I believe in magic, magic happens to me.
Also it happens, I believe, because my parents have given me that prayer – that listen, don’t worry, you’re magic. I don’t have any other reason to believe in my success. I can’t duplicate it. I can’t tell my kids to become the same. There’s no way – and I know it. But I think
I am surrounded by the magic of my parents’ souls. I believe that. I truly believe that.”

The other part, that has stayed constant in the years before that, and the years that followed, is the self-belief, to use the simplest word possible.

Dear SRK, What a Zindagi!

SRK is 60 today. For India, 60 was – is – a number you associate with retirement, with old age. You can associate neither sentiment with SRK. Throwback to 2006. Amitabh Bachchan was 62 and going strong in the quantity of work he was delivering.

SRK was 41. We asked him, would he want to be that involved in work even in his sixties? “Honestly, I don’t think even Mr Bachchan thought he would be working at this stage, as a grandfather. But he loves it!”, SRK joked, and then actually thought for a moment about it.

“I don’t know what I’ll do tomorrow, I don’t plan for tomorrow. I get up every day thinking about that day, that moment. This is the most important moment for me as of now, this is the most important day of my life. But if given an opportunity, and if I have the talent and the resilience, the hunger, the drive – and if hopefully I am not driven by the need for money, I can choose what I want to do – I would like to continue as far as it goes. Otherwise, it is on the audience, if they don’t want to see me, they can change me just like a mobile phone, can’t they?”

Now, SRK himself is entering his sixties. He is not a grandfather. And in 2006, when he spoke of the audience changing their choice just like a mobile phone, Nokia had a 60% market share in India.

The audience, clearly, changed their mobile phone, many times over, in these years, iconic brands of that period have faded away, but the SRK brand has barely budged – if anything, it may have got bigger. He has been written off, every once in a while, has had his share – perhaps more than his share – of drama and stress, but that swagger has stayed unaffected. The outspoken (though he speaks less, and less, in public now), defiant, almost-cocky persona has often been thought of as something that came to him with stardom, but he has often clarified that the reverse is true.

“I think I became a public figure because I am like this. I didn’t become this way because I was a big star. Of course, as a big star, you do have that extra edge in confidence, but otherwise, I think I was always like this. I was always inherently a public person, which is why I became a public figure.”
In 2009, at 43, he was wanting to experiment, but also had this endearing vision of the future: “When I’m 80, I’ll still like to do Tujhe Dekha Toh Yeh Jaana Sanam and when I’m 80, I’ll still have a six-pack.”
The way he has sustained that trajectory from 40 to 60, who’s to say he won’t be doing Tujhe Dekha at 80?
And 80 won’t really be old, perhaps, for the man who said, in 2011, that he doesn’t watch his own films, and has kept that for his old age. When asked when that old age would commence, his response: “Old age, for me? The way I am going, about a 140.That’s what my friends say.”

As his kids enter the industry he has dominated for so long, it is perhaps time to also recall another conversation from over a decade ago. The Q was, are you still an outsider, do you draw more flak, more criticism, more controversy, than is justified? The response was:

“Well, if you look at it, I am an outsider, which my son won’t be, so maybe he’ll have it easier… but it’s not that. I am told that I may be coming across as rude. I am not really very social.
Maybe it’s because I don’t bend. Maybe because even in the face of bad things, I’m smiling. It irks people sometimes. They are like, saala, akele yeh sab kaise kar leta hai?
I do that because I sleep less, I work harder. Everyone finds a different reason for my success except the fact that I act. ‘Yeh marketing guru hai yaar’. ‘You know what, saale ki luck chal rahi hai’.”

Luck chal rahi hai? Even at that time, it had been many years of stardom.

“Haan, saala, bees saal se luck hi chal rahi hai! It’s ‘Arre wohi kare jaa raha hai, love stories karta rehta hai’. ‘Gaane nikal jaate hain iske; gaane achche mil jaate hain saale ko’. ‘You know what, Muslim audience bohot pyaar karti hai isko.’ ‘Overseas! Overseas ki wajah se itna chalta hai’. They find strange reasons for my success. But the real reason is – early to bed, early to rise, work my a** off, and advertise. It’s as simple as that. I am my one-man walking talking team. And I’m everywhere.”

SRK continues to be everywhere. Yes, he has had to face some spectacularly difficult situation in recent years. But he told us, didn’t he, long back, that he doesn’t bend? And keeps smiling in the face of not-so-great things. And if you want a sense of what he thinks of the aggression he sometimes draws, this may be a good reference point: