He has begun to sport spectacles and his beard is growing a bit grey. But, the body, biceps and all remain supple. And, the dimpled cheeks continue to wow fans across the world.
Although there were celebrations last November as Datuk Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) completed 25 years in Bollywood, it is just a number for one whose career continues to zoom. The roller-coaster “reign” of the “Badshah of Bollywood” continues with not a pause.
The 51-year-old actor admits that commerce is something that stars cannot remain untouched from.
“It is a good excuse to make. If not excuse, then a good reason because people say stardom takes things out of you as an actor. Howsoever, even if we remain untouched from this; it does come to our mind. You are in a business and hence, business remains in your head.”
People prefer making an out-and-out commercial film with him and he does not blame them.
“But I would still like to believe that whenever I have got an opportunity, (movies) like Fan or Chak De! India, I have never questioned it,” he says.
There is another type of “business” SRK has been engaged in. Being an Indian Muslim with roots in present-day Pakistan does not help. Being outspoken doesn’t help either. He is trolled at home even as Pakistan’s militant leader, Hafeez Saeed, throws him an unsolicited invitation to migrate.
“Dhanda mera dharm hai, par main dharm ka dhanda nahi karta” (Trade is my religion, but I don’t trade in religion). This is Khan’s punch line in Raees, an action-crime thriller. It could show the mirror to any society.
In Chak De! India, which was reviewed in this column when it was released in 2007, SRK plays a Muslim hockey player whose gesture to the winning Pakistani team is misunderstood. Condemned and ostracised, he redeems his honour by coaching the Indian women’s hockey team to victory.
But Raees is way ahead and apart in sending out the trade-and-faith message. The explosive part is that it is delivered by SRK, who plays a bootlegger and an underworld don.
It is supposedly based on Abdul Latif, a real-life don in Gujarat state. The protagonist is killed in a police encounter. The movie received mixed reviews in India. Many panned it on perceived goof-ups. Some called it “inspired by the 1970s Amitabh Bachchan blockbusters portraying the rough-romantic risk-taker”.
Raees is loved by the poor and is also a bit of a Robin Hood. SRK is trolled for playing the don, both in India and Pakistan, although for different reasons. That his lady love is played by Pakistani actor Mahira Khan made things worse.
A chauvinist Hindu party demanded, and secured, a ban on all Pakistani actors getting work in Bollywood.
Raees shows making a good film in Bollywood can be prickly as it seeks to get contemporary and, hopefully, less escapist when dealing with sensitive issues. It has also become risky, given the touchiness of various groups that lodge, at times violent, protests.
Given the India-Pakistan relationship, despite being immensely popular in Pakistan, Bollywood films, unlike those from Hollywood, become controversial. Unsurprisingly, Raees has been refused Pakistan censors’ certificate.
Interestingly, the censors in Pakistan’s Punjab and Sindh provinces had no issues with the film and publicly disagreed with their federal government bosses. This is rare, considering many films from India have raised the heckles of both, Pakistan’s ultra-conservatives and ultra-nationalists.
The federal government censors ruled that Raees “demeans” Islam and is “anti-Pakistan”. This had many in Pakistan, particularly those on the social media, protesting. Pakistan does not figure at all in the film. It is considered “anti-Islam” because, as per Pakistani media reports, the protagonist, who is playing a “negative” role of a Muslim don in cahoots with politicians, wins an election.
Over the years, the Pakistan film industry has reflected the swings witnessed in the India-Pakistan foreign relations.
Successive Pakistani governments and film businesses face a dilemma that some of the best of filmfare from India are also the products made by Muslim artistes of the mainstream cinema who command a fan following in Pakistan like no one else.
The Guardian (London) reported: “Indian films, with their pot-boiling scripts and spectacular dance routines, have been a key driver of a renaissance in Pakistani cinemas after decades of decline.
“The return of audiences, attracted by modern multiplex cinemas and a liberalisation on the rules around Bollywood movies, has been credited with helping revive interest in Pakistani-produced films as well.”
Unsurprisingly, every word of what Mahira said (or did not or was supposed to have said) was reported with relish. Sections of Pakistani media went to town expressing sorrow that she could not join the film’s promotion in India, but could do so only in Dubai.
Mahira is now Pakistan’s first superstar, courtesy of SRK and Raees.
She was in the same hotel as SRK, but on different floors, and the two did not meet to avoid, along with media glare and resultant speculation, any trouble with their respective people — the hate-mongers, politicos and, possibly, the governments.
Such was the clamour in Pakistan for Raees that a reputed newspaper like Dawn got it reviewed by three different writers in Dubai and elsewhere in anticipation of its Pakistan release.
Mahendra Ved, NST’s New Delhi correspondent, is the president of the Commonwealth Journalists Association 2016-2018 and a consultant with ‘Power Politics’ monthly magazine