The day which led to the day when the world was subjected to ' K3G'- Happy Birthday SRK

     My relationship with Shahrukh Khan goes back a long way, and like most relationships I have endured, it has not been an easy one. Today is 40-odd birthday of King Khan and I cant say I am not impressed by the sway the King Khan has over the Indian minds these days. He has definitely changed the face of the planet forever.

     But then so did Hitler, a few decades ago....

     With SRK, it has always been a classic hate-hate relationship, extremely easy to sustain, thanks to the continuing endeavors of the KK himself. In my early childhood, my only image of the King Khan, has been that of a messy haired short guy with a speech impediment, who runs around trying to kill beautiful actresses in the movie. I dare say he crossed the line when he tried to mess with the ever-fantastic and never-hated Madhuri Dixit in 'Anjaam'. I would have forgiven him for trying to stalk and menace Juhi Chawla, and completely ignoring the fact that Sunny could have restructured his face ( and may be, just may be, fixing his speech as well). But, I agree, that was a quite younger Khan who probably was still trying to find his own ground in this maze of Bollywood.

   If there a lesson taught to me, imprinted on my mind, by KK, is that popularity never translates to talent. Popularity is, and always is, just popularity. And KK understood this and realized he had to take a decision now - decide between improving talent or improving his popularity. As a spew of Switzerland based movies wit h him raising his hands towards the heaven, Rahul found his ground in this Bollywood maze- and the masses love him for it. Movie after movie, in each one of them, he spent trying to woo girls and earn the respect of his parents ( which part was harder is quite obvious) and slowly his movies created a niche for themselves.

    Another lesson I learnt from KK- make a niche for yourself, as repugnant as it may be, but make your niche.

     Some of his less niche- centric films were watchable, to a certain extent, if my eye lids were glued to my forehead. And it would have to be a pretty strong industrial glue for that matter. My Name is Khan- its a sentence in itself, and describes the movie in itself. The first scene where KK stands in the line, his acting suggesting he has a yet to be diagnosed mental illness, which makes him shiver and shake and takes a minute to finish any sentence he wants to speak out. Swades was probably his only sincere attempt at movies, but again it might be extreme bias for Gayatri Joshi which is making me say this. Nonetheless, after Swades I believes KK could pick up his act.

     A special mention to Om Shanti Om - thank you for introducing Deepika Padukone to us, SRK. For that, we adore you. This movie highlighted SRK's friendship for Arjun Rampal - he served two purposes. 1- He is pretty much the best looking actor in the Industry and 2. His Oak tree bark expression face can make SRK's 'acting capabilities' look oscar winning and heart -warming.

     Don came and went, and I hoped against hope, that Don ko pakadna wont be that impossible. But I very distinctly remember the popcorn in the movie theatre being really good. So, thank you SRK for the wonderful cinema experience. Also, the samosa's weren't all that great. But, I managed.

     And last but in no way the least - RA. one

     Here, I stop, I cannot bring myself to talk about this 'movie'. And thats why, I cant go on.

      But one thing is for sure, love him or hate him, he is truly the King Khan, and had it not been for most of his movies, I would have never appreciated the 'better' films of Bollywood just a little bit more....

Happy Birthday SRK