All of 13, when Shakrukh spread his arms and said, “Come fall in love”, I did.
Then I kinda forgot about him in the years that followed. Life and love, sometimes filmy but always real, took precedence.
Of late, there has been a resurgence in the popularity of SRK, or that is how it seems to me. I am not entirely sure why, but whether it is intelligent PR, a genuine nostalgia for the 90s, or because the man himself is making a comeback of sorts, I am not complaining.
Maybe it’s because we are realizing that apart from being the quintessential hero, he is a lot more. In his interviews, the recent ones and even the ones that have stood the test of time, he comes across as smart, witty, sometimes sassy and perennially charismatic.
And watching some of these interviews, pushed at me by an algorithm that arguably knows my likes and dislikes better than my family, I catch myself thinking, at moments of reflection and perhaps even in moments of strife, what would Shahrukh do?
As an entrepreneur, I find myself thinking, what would Shahrukh do?
There are specific aspects of his persona that speak strongly to me, as a human being and as an entrepreneur. His life has been nothing short of magical, also rare - a one in a billion occurring - with serendipity playing a central role. But there is no doubt that he must have done more than a few things right, and must certainly have imbibed some wisdom from the vicissitudes that are part and parcel of the lives of the incredibly famous.
In short, I feel justified in saying that we can all learn a thing or two from him :)
And so I decided to put down, for myself as much as for others, things that SRK can teach us all about life, about belief, about hard work.
Shahrukh would believe in himself
In a recent interview, the journalist Faye D’Souza asked him whether a release still made him nervous. And he said, in that trademark combination of confidence and vulnerability,
“I am going to be honest. I don't think I need to be nervous. I think they all are going to be superhit films. I would like to explain the lack of arrogance in this statement -- that's the belief I sleep with and the belief I wake up with. That is the belief that makes me, at the age of 57, go do stunts, jump, work 18 hours a day. Because if I did not have the belief, at the end of it all, that I am going to make a great product that lots of people are going to like, I would not be able to do it.”
Let that sink in.
When I watched this clip for the first time, I got goosebumps.
Isn’t this the very spirit of entrepreneurship? A belief in your offering and the power of it, an irrational belief in its success?
And irrational or not, it’s a necessary belief, one that makes it possible to give more than you ever have before, to stretch yourself, to eschew niceties like one's peace of mind and the security of a bank balance. It’s a self-fulfilling belief.
Watching him articulate it thus validates it for the rest of us on similar paths, and we hold our convictions, and indeed our delusions, closer.
Shahrukh would try and keep trying
Between the massive Mannat, the IPL team and his production company, one gets the sense that he lives his life large-sized. He dreams big, and he works to make them come true. And that philosophy, though by no means for everyone, resonates at a primal level with me.
Nothing explains it better than this 30 second clip, another interview, another stunning response.
To the question of how he would like to be remembered, SRK says, “I’d like to be remembered for the fact that I tried. I tried very hard, in whatever I did.”
He speaks for me, as much as he speaks for every entrepreneur. We take on sisyphean missions of shifting entrenched mindsets, we have lofty goals of changing the world, we leave our jobs and start our little ventures in the hope of making a difference. We try and we try.
And sometimes trying it all we can do, all that is in our control.
Shahrukh would choose charm
Now this is difficult to explain. We have heard unendingly about how “charming” he is, but really, what is charm? And does it help us in any way?
After thinking about it for some time, I have come to the conclusion that charm is an amalgamation of many different qualities, it’s kindness, it’s generosity, it’s humor.
And there are some things charm is not. Charm is not consumed with being right. Charm doesn’t care about schooling people or holding grudges.
It’s tremendously difficult to achieve, even if one wants to. Because it believes in the world-view that we are loved. That we have enough. That we are enough.
I don’t aspire to be as charming as Shahrukh, even if that goal was within reach. I like myself the way I am, my fiery, indefatigable self. My feminist self.
But I do think that we could all do with a tiny bit of charm, it would make us kinder, most of all to our own selves.
**
So here we are at the end of my homage to the phenomena that is SRK.
It needs to be said that this article is by no means a comprehensive biography of the man, I am not a scholar and certainly not one on Shahrukh Khan. It’s entirely possible that he has displayed occasional behavior that is antithetical to the traits I have listed. He is human after all.
He is human but he is also beyond human, a myth. The legend of SRK as it has taken shape in popular culture today will always be a little fantastical, a little unreal.
With that balancing factor in mind, there are moments in life where we could all do with a little more SRK in us, moments where we need a little more confidence, a little more optimism, a little more self-love.
