Dear Shah Rukh, We Don’t Have Much Time, You and I...

Dear Shah Rukh, We Don’t Have Much Time, You and I...

Shah Rukh, we don’t have much time, you and I. Five years, at best. You would have become an honorary star and my days of swooning over stars would be over too. What we began years ago will vanish, just like that. Do you want it to end like this?

You came into my life just at the right time. I was stepping into my teens and you were cute and likeable, perhaps the most likeable on TV in those days. Then films happened and your likeability became a force to reckon with.

For eg, my favourite film of yours is Baadshah (after Chamatkar), as much for the film (it is hilarious) but more so because of the other you in it, the goofy, silly, self-deprecating you, which is where your charm comes from, and your charm, as you know very well, is the main ingredient of your star power. That is also why you are the only Bollywood star who is widely loved across all sections of ages, genders, classes and countries; that charm speaks to everyone equally.

No, I don’t have cancer nor am I dying soon. Maybe, it will make sense if I say here that the film that made me fall in love with you was Om Shanti Om, quite late in life. For full twelve years, since DDLJ, I rejected you, maybe because I was rejecting love and you were such a huge, eye-popping symbol of it. My best friend was a huge fan of yours and DDLJ and the only thing we’d draw a blank to talk about was when it came to you. I couldn’t understand the brouhaha about you. I liked you best in all your flops (Dil Se..., for eg) and hated you in most of your hits (Mohabattein tops the list) and I couldn’t understand what the hell was wrong and where, with me, you, or the world. Then, 12 years later OSO happened.