After Christmas comes Boxer’s Day. And after Diwali comes Shahrukh-Divas—November 2nd : the day King Khan was born in a manger somewhere in India precisely one month after the day Bapuji was born.
All desi online media is just full of it. Nothing else matters. The Badshah has turned 40.
From Rediff: On November 2, Bollywood’s badshah Shah Rukh Khan will turn 40. To celebrate the grand occasion, rediff.com asked readers to send in their SRK experiences, if they had ever met the star.
“Grand occasion” indeed.
Again from Rediff:
Have you ever met Shah Rukh Khan?
Ever been in a shopping mall and turned around to see none other than Bollywood’s badshah?
Ever sat next to him on a long flight?
Ever gone up to him for an autograph?
Ever shaken hands with SRK?
If you have then write in to Rediff.Have you ever stood in an urinal and looked to your side and seen Shahrukh Khan?
Have you ever picked Shahrukh’s pocket?
Have you ever breathed the same air as Shahrukh (like he left the room and you came in within like 5 minutes)?
Have you ever eaten Shahrukh Khan’s leftovers?
Have you ever been visited in your dreams by Shahrukh Khan?
Have you ever seen “Dil Aashna Hain” and “Yeh Lamhe Judai Ke” ?
If you have then comment on this post.
I cannot tell you how glad I feel to learn that Shahrukh Khan’s 40th birthday resolution is to give up smoking. That means we will get many more years of hamming, lip-curling, nostril-heaving and that goaty “eeeehhhhh” laugh. That means many more gems of wisdom :
If you can believe that an 80-year-old woman can continue to love the man she loved as a young girl (Titanic), then why not the love story between a ghost and a woman?” (Source)
People said Asoka was ahead of its time”. (Source) [Yeah sure—-maybe in 4022 when we have all been lobotomized by aliens…..Asoka will be appreciated]
Actually, the more liberal a society becomes, the more stringent the laws are bound to be. In the US, you can buy a gun off the shelf, and then someone starts shooting down kids in a school. So they need strict laws to make guns accessible to people. With air travel being so easy now — you can book tickets by e-mail — airport security is tougher. In a banana republic, nothing is allowed. In our society, everything is allowed. Therefore we need to check the flow of liberal ideas. It isn’t intolerance that triggers off laws against things like smoking or buying ammunition. More rights entail more obligations
.” [Source]More examples here.
And the thing is he’s not a dumb guy. He knows there is money in construction which is why he is trying to develop land which is officially designated as a “heritage site” violating a few laws in the process—-but after all for a person who violates all the laws of reason in his movies, that’s child’s play.
If further proof of his razor-sharp intelligence is needed, look at what he says in rediff , “Shahrukh Khan does not watch his own complete films“. Which means right there, he is going to outlive most of us who do. In an enlightening birthday interview (hopefully not in his birthday suit inside a tub filled with rose petals ) Shahrukh Khan tells us that the Parsi theatre was the oldest in the country (a fact that may not go down well with people like Kalidasa) and also tells us that he has received only because he has given. How true. Of course some may contend he has given us a series of headaches but it cannot be denied that there are a lot of people who love the man.
Sucheta Dalal from the “main stream media” (MSM) says , in a different context: “Let me clarify that I have ignored most of the “noise” on the blogosphere and stuck to serious views in this column“. Does packaging Shahrukh Khan’s 40th birthday as “front-page-worthy” news make the MSM look “serious” ? Has pandering to the lowest common denominator reached such an absurd level that editors can put such junk on their front pages (and even make it the main headline) without even cringing?
Very recently, our Foreign Minister, Natwarlal sorry Natwar Singh, has been named by an independent probe at the UN for massive corruption with regards to the Food for Oil program in Iraq. Is this not more of a headline grabber than Shahrukh Khan’s plans to stop smoking?
Seriously, are we the ones who need to be ignored, Ms Dalal ? Or should I say Da-da-da-lal ?
The Greatbong Blog & Podcast 
he’s 40! sigh! all the cute men are either too young or too old or taken or gay … amaar ki hobe 😦
just kidding. really he’s become such a craze in india! u like him?
i thought his birthday was on the 15th?
last year they came up with something called club scorpio. all the great names who were also scorps … sushmita, shah rukh, bipasha, aishwaria, juhi chawla
my birthday is on the 10th 😀
40 and going on …. won’t even say the number! and I guess the earthquake has disappeared from the news, King Khan is definitely more important! Now if only he could give something other than the headache on his birthday, it would be a good start!
Bidisha.
It is indeed sick to see the “SRK turning 40” all over the MSM as was Aamir turning 41, or Amithab turning 64.
Maybe I should write a post to negate all SRK bashing:)
I liked him in Swades. And….
You should talk about the Batman-Robin-Catwoman combination taking over Bollywood in recent years.
he is a desi superhero all right.
Batman – ShahRukh
Robin – Has to be lil bro Karan Johar
Catwomen – Rani Mukherjee(ever heard cats wail?), Farah Khan, cuzn Kajol, Pretty Zinta and Kareena Kapoor.
Yup I saw them all on bootlegged copies of Koffee with Karan.
LOL!!! I was waiting to see who would be the first to bash this “Sharukh Utsav” all over the net. LOL!
As much as I enjoyed this post; I fail to understand the Sucheta Dalal reference.
@Prerona: Totally understand…look at me..a cute man and taken.
No I dont like him…I used to though when he first came into Bollywood because he was quite different then…but hes become a slave to his own image.
My wifes bday is on 15th…shes a Scorpio too.
@Bidisha: Of course he is the most important thing in the universe…read the TOI interview for more Shahrukhisms…
@Dreamweaver: Please please do.
@Traveller: Do you know that there is a gay angle between Batman and Robin? Wonder why I mentioned that in this context.
@Oz: Taking the lead here.
@Anya: Sucheta Dalal does not consider bloggers’s views to be “serious enough”. Now if the MSM decides that Shahrukh’s bday is headline news—should we be taking the MSM as “serious” in any sense of the term? Before being flip about bloggers, Sucheta Dalal, as a representative of the MSM, should put her house in order.
Hence the connection.
TOI and Rediff are mainstream media alright. They are mainstream media for the soft headed ! Please please do not categorize TOI and its clones as main stream media…
Shahrukh Khan has the same nerve wracking “ehehehe laugh” for everything…whether he is a obssessed psycho in Darr or a NRI rediscovering his roots in Swades or King Ashoka or even a sex starved ghost in that horrendous Paheli…he also has no more than 2-3 facial expressions to bring to any role…and he is STILL called an actor..King Khan at that!!!!!!
If you were looking for Natwargate in the TOI then you would have found it deep inside in a small column calling the whole report a farce. However hindu and express carried it on their front page. I guess something is wrong with your choice of the paper you read.
Shahrukh plays shahrukh khan in all his films, so if you limit yourself to maybe two srk movies, you’ll appreciate them. I liked Dil Se and Asoka.
I have seen Dil Aashna Hai and also half hour of Yeh Lamhe Judai ke (after that I started feeling nauseous and started to vomit)… guess that makes me eligible for commenting 😀
lol poor u. married to a scorp 🙂
tor chhobi dekhechhi – kono ‘cute’ fute na – not a big miss – chalega
anyway u are part of the bachha-party.
i loved some of his movies – like yes boss & the movie that had the nice song (katthai akhon walli something something).
he has a certain charm and he is definitely has charisma. i just dislike him when he does those weepy scenes with his voice quavering – u know what i mean?
and i hate him in kkkiran type roles
i never saw him in fauji – so cant comment on his pre bollywood days
but i loved him in main hoon na – i fell for it – hook line and slinker 🙂
like you i really dont find srk someone to idolize. frankly far from idolize. i wouldnt l even look up to the guy in a million years.
i dont understand how a man whose livlehood depends on deception and deceptive appearances can overshadow the far murkier reality of life. the press will go the way the reader tells it to go. who wants to read about serious stuff when you live in a fairy land of licorice and chocolate milk?
btw it think i was friends in my previous life, with a man who tripped in front of the nursing home in which srk was born…what a freaky coincidence
i’m not even a fan. and i’ve still watched dil aashna hain. and chamatkar, too. sometimes i scare myself.
And I did!
Great Bong,
I am aware of the gay undertones to the Batman-Robin relationship. Now that you mentioned it, even I wonder why ‘Batman-Robin’ rolled off my keyboard.
@Bald Monkey: I would be too happy too categorize them as tabloids—but the world does not run on my categorizations—TOI on paper is as mainstream as mainstream gets.
@Ron: He is highly overrated…he started out well but now is a slave to his image.
@Anon: Hindu incidentally carried the SRK story too albeit not on the front page. That’s still a big fall for such a newspaper—stars having birthdays is not news…bdays are inevitable; not achievements.
@Srin: Oh dear. I found his horrible in Asoka. Asoka is top of my list of horrible movies….I am sorry to say.
@Nirav: You are ahead of your times 🙂
@Prerona: Dubbing myself cute was sarcasm on my part. Calling me “baccha” I presume is sarcasm on yours !
“Main Hoon Na” ooh please…what pakao
@Krishanu: Yes a coincidence indeed.
@Teleute: You sure scared me.
@Dreamweaver: Read it.
@ Traveller: Yes rather strange coincidences here.
all 20 something’s are bachha’s. I, on the other hand, am (soon to be, THIRTY. I am SERIOUSLY and EXTREMELY grown up, mature and sensible (and very excited abt it) ;@)
*I’ve seen Dil Aashna Hai and I enjoyed that song where he wears a dhoti and turban and prances around with Anupam Kher to a garba-rap version of “daddy cool”. Can’t recall the movie, though.*
@Prerona: Okay I accept–I am neither mature not sensible.
@rainbeau_peep: The movie you refer to is “Chaahat”
(SRK, Pooja Bhatt, Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher)
Daddy cool cool cool
Mera beta fool fool fool
Oh daddy cool it….
ahem! yes.
besh gorgoriye mukhostho mone achhe dekhchhi jaali gaan gulo! 🙂
ok boss. i’m off for the weekend. i have 2 days leave.
have a good one.
arre, shob celebsrai overrated. but they’re prettier than embezelling old politicains and disaster-wrecked starving bag of bones and dead bodies. that’s the ticket, don’t you know…
my mum says SRK is very charming. he is, at times. i usually leave it at that, being lynched by crazy fans is not high on my wishlist 😀
tobe he makes a complete, pretentious fool of himself at international award functions in the bits he hosts — then you can see the similarity between him and aishwarya rai. fake accents and all that jazz. yuck!
Shah Rukh, oh don’t I love discussing him….coz a very important person in my life happens to be an ardent fan of his.
I won’t criticize him, he has his own place or space in Bollywood’s annals (who are the collators of history anyway), but all this and especially Arnab’s orginal post brings a Paresh Rawal quip (refer Hungama) to mind:
“Shah Rukh…kiska Bhukh?”
and one more from the same source,
“Tumhe to aloo aur bhaloo mein farq hi nahin pata hain…”
Arnab, what’s wrong with your senses? How can you bring down the King Khan from the pedestal and desecrate his regal aura?
Well, where the hell was that boy-next-door after Fauji, Circus and Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa?
Things change, Arnab, but one thing doesn’t – and in Bollywood this will always rule:
In the Land of the Blind, the one eyed man is the king.
Write about worthwhile stuff (like introduction of public toilets in Delhi Metro stations, for instance)….
Ekhono aache shomoy, aar bilombo noy….
Cheers,
Self-proclaimed President,
Anjan Babu’s Wasted Efforts Club
🙂
i am sorry, but i HAVE to ask — Anjan Babu’s wasted efforts club??? ki byapar eta? elucidation e moja achhe, i can tell!
@Rimi: Anytime one can see any similarities with Ash…DANGER DANGER….
@ Anjan Babu’s wasted effort: It’s all part of a sinister plot to overthrow SRK as the Badshah of Bollywood and crown the REAL king—Tapas Paul.(Jai Baba Football Nath)
@Rimi: Anjan Babu was a very interesting Physics teacher in SPHS
whose pet peeves were : coaching (ie tutorials) and girls. You were either in his good books or not. He had a tendency of foretelling people’s futures—some were wasted efforts and some “had potential” (one of my class friends was told to his face that his only career would be that of a pickpocket)—-one of my readers here was classified as the former…..
Good stuff as usual.
A superstar he may think he is, but he’s nothing compared to our Prabhu-ji. Even mentioning his name in the same line as Prabhu-ji’s is sacrilege. Which is why I haven’t.
What I HAVE done though can be viewed at http://www.geocities.com/tapan_gh/temple_of_the_king.html
I have taken the liberty of putting up a link to your treatise from that humble page of mine. Would be honoured if you would even considered visiting, O first priest of Mithunism 🙂
no doubt about it…he is good sometimes…most of the times he is hamming. Liked him in Yes Boss and Main Hoon Na…at other times just slept through…survival instincts taking over I guess.
TOI is a tabloid with a capital T…thats why I switched to TT…couldnt take it any more. can anybody tell me where to get Hindu in Jamshedpur? New here, so clueless.It is anyday better than TOI and its like. Sometime I suspect they have been taken over clandestinely by StarDust.Can somebody please check up and report back?;)
It (TOI and Ms. Dalal) used to be real newsworthy aeons ago…think I am going to weep for Old Lady of Boribunder…
Can anybody tell me how to get MSM interested in MY BIRTHDAY???:))
Im commenting on a blog that is about a year old.
I used to love Shahrukh.
After watching Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna i realised how much i hate him, and the way he pauses after every 5 or 6 words.
and what is with his eyebrows? he always looks discontent.
I am only commenting because i have seen Yeh Lamhe Judai Ke.
I didnt watch all of it, I was wondering if there would be a Raveena Tandon and Shahrukh Khan sex scene, but, nope the movie dissapointed me.
And the dubbing just added to the whole mess.
I m a diehard srk fan n i wish him all the very best in life.if u guys are not srk fans wht the hell r u doing in his site?N TO REMIND U GUYS AND GALS HIS LAST 2 FILMS DON N CHAK DE R SUPER HITS.before commenting on others look at ur self 1st.his popularity is not only in india but all over the world.mind u.
Surpreet is absolutely right. I’m a blue-eyed all American female and I’m a BIG fan of Mr. Khan. Can’t get enough of him. 🙂
I am the great fan of king Khan and i always love to meet him and his every films. I thimkk there is no one in the world like srk. Many star can’t pull him down because he was one and only badshah of bollwood but rule over the world
GreatBong, kutte ke bachche, how dare u diss SRK! lol.
Well, u cant be at the position he is w/o having serious intelligence and if he gives us a few crap stories, then really we are telling him we want more.