Sun, Sep 21 12:20 AM
For quite some time now, Shah Rukh Khan has been keeping quiet. Be it the brawl with Salman Khan, or the talk of Akshay Kumar as the new box-office king, SRK has not reacted.
We ask why, and he pours his heart out. "Honestly, none of this troubles me. I give so much of myself to my work and the five or six people who are close to me that I am emotionally unavailable to most of the others," he says, sipping coffee in his van. "Maybe that disturbs everyone."
His prime concern is that his children should see him as a good father and a good man. "I don't want to deny media reports, because I simply think and with my kids around, am I going to be known as a father who is trying to deny reports? At 42, I don't want my kids to come to me and ask, 'Dad were you in a fight?' I'd prefer that they see their father as a hardworking person, someone who has received a Padmashree and will still be remembered for years after he retires.
"It did happen." The star accepts that the incident with Salman Khan was unfortunate. "It's sad when one gets into a tiff with a colleague, whom one has known for many years, almost a friend. But it happened." He has, however, learnt to move on.
"I don't think anyone hates me," he says. "I have 20 years of success doing things right. I must be on the right side of God and the world. I don't want to hurt anyone."
Not saying anything, he seems to have decided, is the best policy: "I don't want to say good things about X or bad things about Y." Why? "I don't think about X and Y, because they don't matter to me. I believe the way people think about me is actually what I believe about them."
The rat race. As a man who is confident of his place, Shah Rukh has no hesitation saying "Yeah, most certainly", when asked if he thinks Akshay has, indeed, dethroned King Khan. He adds, though, "Between Akshay and me, we know how this is played up. We are no kings. These are just journalism phrases: 'Bollywood ka badshah, king' and all. I am happy they call me a king, not a pauper. Sounds good."
Another reason for his silence is that he is too busy to talk, running as he is in between Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and his home production Billoo Barber. About Rab Ne, he says, "Adi [Aditya Chopra] told me my character is a simple, honest guy. He thinks I am like that. He said, "I want to make a film on you. People who are close to you love you to death. It's a story of an ordinary couple and their extraordinary love."
Once all this work is out of the way, he plans a three-month break before starting on Karan Johar's My Name is Khan. Not that a break means a vacation for Shah Rukh Khan: he will use the time to plan the future of his cricket team, Kolkata Knight Riders.
The action never ends.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20080920/1070/ten-srk-unplugged.html
comment:
p_commentcount