Ek Ticket, Ek Black Coffee | To Shah Rukh Khan… With Love

The chirpy sound of the RJ made the traffic-snarled commute easier, and she was playing love songs. Then suddenly she said: ‘Send your favourite movie star a valentine's message’. Sitting in a cab, I texted on that number: A valentine message for Shah Rukh Khan: Thou wow!

Five minutes later I jumped up, forgetting that I was in a kaali peeli and hurt my head. I had won a meet and greet with none other than the man himself! Three winners were going to Mannat (technically, the annexe, but still!)!

How I met him is a tale reserved for my grandkids for when I have them, but I can tell you one thing: the man smells like moonlight and roses and stardust and basque cheesecake and pinot noir and fresh mountain air…

Before there was a Bangtan Army (I am a member of that too) there were us die-hard SRKians. Women. Hoards of women. A collective who sighed in the dark of the movie theatres watching him stand in the mustard field with his arms outstretched (no one in the whole wide world can do it. No one.) for the heroine on the screen. I sighed so much - my mates started calling me Sigh-Ra Bano. All the women, age no bar, had imagined that he had outstretched those arms for them only. Thank goodness for the darkness that offers you the privacy of your thoughts. Imagine the riot that could happen if there was no darkness and someone objected to you ogling at ‘her Shah Rukh Khan’ and hit you with a hold-all tote?

My family has a whole bunch of doctors who send me links about the bad things that could happen because of my hyperventilating at his ‘motion poster’. My friends have not understood why an otherwise rational person would want to go to Maratha Mandir and watch DDLJ again on my birthday. But they know I get bloodthirsty when people start calling him names. Sure I hated Happy New Year and the strange Dilwale. He was so gorgeous, even when ghastly costumes were given to him - the ghastly blue and gold bandmaster style uniform and even a green and red jacket (Happy New Year) and how he made that totally fake set of a home and neighbourhood in Dilwale feel real… 

That’s why no one has the right to laugh at me for watching that Instagram post - where he walks in a sherwani at some Eid iftar and raises his hand to do a salaam - again and again, and again and again and again and again… Until my phone got too hot and had to be switched off. Would I behave like a demented Fan like in his movie, in real life? No. I am sure I won’t. Because the fantasy is in my head. I know for sure I would die if he could access the thoughts in my head about his Raees in black shalwar kurta avatar. How much we girls scoured for that kurta for the men in our lives. But one of us said, ‘But we know that our men won’t look as good as HIM, right?’ We nodded. We had all become Rekha at that moment, referring to Shah Rukh as ‘Him’.

‘You’re a film critic, Manisha! How can you like Shah Rukh so much? Your review will be biased!’ Those who say that know my answer well: Lionel Messi has also failed to score a goal against Al-Sadd AC (1 game), Gramenet (1 game), Real Murcia (1 game), Udinese (1 game), Benfica (2 games), Xerez (2 games), Rubin Kazan (4 games) and Inter Milan (4 games), so why say Shah Rukh is awful because he wore a jacket without a shirt in a movie or sported gigantic flared nostrils in Darr? I did hate watching him fake it in Jab Harry Met Sejal, but I still love him when he flirts with the aunt telling her whether the sarees are good or not in DDLJ. 

When Kamala told Kamran she was Team DDLJ (in Ms Marvel), I was afraid that the Earth would lose its orbit because fans across the world were nodding vehemently. That is real fandom. Men will like Baazigar (more power to them!) but give the women Rahul. Who knows how to seduce us with that dimple, and the hesitant laugh… Dard-e-disco is how my heart beats. Farah Khan put Shah Rukh in a fireman’s costume because his abs would work more than Bruce Springsteen singing ‘I’m On Fire’... I step back to analyze and I become the Ranger in Jurassic Park, looking at Farah Khan directing Shah Rukh: Clever Girl! 

I know women who started wearing sarees and walking like Sushmita Sen because they saw the effect she had on him. I know women who fought with their families to travel to Greece not for the full moon over the Parthenon but because of Chalte Chalte (Mykonos and Athens). I know someone who hid their boyfriend’s clothing because no one should be allowed to wear that Suraj Hua Maddham transparent shirt… Don’t tell me some Miss Universe or World or something garlanded a statue in a historical film. Women of the world were nodding in unison when Kareena Kapoor danced to ‘Raat Ka Nasha Abhi Aankh Se Gaya Nahi’. It wasn’t just historical, it was a seduction, and we were all like the Kalinga war victims, but of his kohl-lined eyes (don’t ask me if Ashoka was better or Raees).

You think he’s older now and won’t affect us the way he did? Oh no. He’s now like an 18-year-old single malt… His Pathaan poster has just proven that, no? Like the elderly, incarcerated lover, he manages to make every woman feel that he’s singing the goosebump-inducing ‘Main Yahaan Hoon Yahaan Hoon’ for her. Perhaps that’s why so many of us didn’t hate Preity Zinta, because she was expressing on screen what I was feeling as I sat in the theatre, popcorn forgotten.

Call me crazy, but I did not mind his blubbering in Koyla and I hope that my DVDs of Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na, KKHH as well as Mohabbatein do not fade from overuse. I have fought anyone who said they hated KANK or thought he overdid it in My Name Is Khan. How I cried when he died in a New York hospital (KHNH). I felt awful to see him die in Dil Se (the best ARR album along with Delhi 6 and Rockstar). And yes, Madhuri Dixit kills him with a trident in Anjaam and he dies horrible deaths in Darr and Baazigar and Raam Jaane and yes, Duplicate too, but where one twin or lookalike is bad, then death is deserved, right?

It’s been thirty years of Shah Rukh Khan in Bollywood, and he’s clearly said that he won’t play Rahul in the movies anymore. But did I read the whole interview? Of course not! They put that shirtless picture of the man with a freshly acquired set of abs to distract us. 

Whoever said a picture is worth a thousand words did not know how Shah Rukh’s pictures affect women. My excuse? I lead a sedentary life, watching movies. These pictures are like Pranayam for the heart. Don’t believe me? Watch Swades, and the scene where the actress is pleating his dhoti and inadvertently puts her arms around him. That scene makes my heart perform somersaults that could get me into Cirque du Soleil! You just have to hear his mild avatar say, ‘Punjab Power, lighting up your life!’ and turn Surinder Sahni (from RNBDJ) into the hottest name on shaadi websites.

I sign off hoping the love of my life will one day turn into the twinkle toes called Raj who eats pani puris with me. Or look into the distance like Shah Rukh’s Mohan Bhargav does on the train. Or be Kabir Khan and inspire me to do better in life because we have only ‘Sattar minute’ to prove that I am not a nobody. I may not buy carpets when he sells them, but I don’t ‘skip ads’. Thank you for the movies, SRK. I’m so looking forward to Pathaan and more!

About the author:
Manisha Lakhe writes on films and TV shows, is a poet, teacher, traveller and mom (and not necessarily in that order). Could sell her soul for Pinot and a good cheesecake.

(Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article are those of the author and don't necessarily reflect those of OTTplay)