(by Aman Basha)
As a beloved classic turns 25, a look at its lead, where he was, where he is and where I wish he would be
It was my original intention to put up the piece I’d written on DDLJ the film itself, it was on the blog too for a brief while till my greed for a signed copy from Anupama Chopra took it off and sent it elsewhere. As I looked with pride at what I’d written and fear at its sheer length, I’d noticed that nearly half was not even about the film, but solely about its lead star, Shah Rukh Khan. And so this is a little collection of thoughts spun off here.
The era of the Khans or the Khan triumvirate can be said to have started from the years of 1994, 1995 and 1996, when each Khan, Salman, Shah Rukh and Aamir (in that order) delivered an All Time Blockbuster in the forms of Hum Aapke Hai Koun, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and Raja Hindustani respectively. These three films are still the respective stars’ biggest hits in terms of footfalls. Yet two films are absolute surprises, no one today could possibly conceive that a family film with 14 songs and the most heroic character a dog (whether the best of HAHK is Madhuri or Tuffy is still debated) would be Bhai’s biggest hit and sacrilege, with no fights or shirtless scenes. Raja Hindustani is perhaps the biggest surprise then when it released and even today still is by the fact that the brand of quality, Mr. Perfectionist Aamir Khan’s biggest blockbuster is this banal remake of Jab Jab Phool Khile, seems to be a strong reason why even Aamir fans rarely mention it even in the star dick measuring fan fight contests online.
Yet that is not the case with DDLJ, even today the fandom was abuzz with celebration and even Shah Rukh changed his Twitter Id to Raj Malhotra. This could be said to be Yashraj’s hype, but it is also true among the three, none of these films have defined and become so strong a part of their stardom as DDLJ has for Shah Rukh Khan. On the domestic box office front, the 90s was pretty much a neck-to-neck contest between Salman and Shah Rukh for the prime position of Number 1, yet it’s to note that even Salman’s big hits were populated by comedy (Judwaa, Biwi No 1), action (Karan Arjun, Jeet), romance (Saajan, HDDCS), masala (Bandhan, Jeet, Karan Arjun), family drama (HAHK, HSSH), Shah Rukh’s biggest hits were in romance (DTPH, KKHH, DDLJ, Deewana, Pardes) and the two anti hero films Darr and Baazigar along with Karan Arjun. Although there was much love for his films with Aziz Mirza and Kundan Shah like Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman, Yes Boss, Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, they were never big hits except in Bombay. Yet overall, the 90s decade can safely be called SRK’s. Why? Yet again, the effect of DDLJ.
While the real time difference in overseas collections of DDLJ and HAHK don’t match the size of difference domestically, it is undeniable that DDLJ created a huge cult like following among NRIs. Perhaps it was a huge hit in Home Video and VCR, but post DDLJ and KKHH, he managed to cultivate a certain dedicated fan base among expatriate Indians and Pakistantis most significantly in the UK that managed to give good returns even to his unsuccessful ventures, like Dil Se (which flopped in India) becoming the first Indian film to crack the UK top 10 box office or Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustanti managing to edge out Hrithik’s smash blockbuster Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai. The overseas registers were a significant factor in SRK’s stardom and set him apart from the rest at the start of the new millennium.
It is important for us to realize no actor or star lasts forever, they all have their peaks and lows. During the period that a particular star dominates, the perception one has about him and the reality after that reign can be quite different. SRK’s strongest period is in my opinion, the 2000s. Although Mohabbatein was a big hit, it was surrounded by turkeys like One 2 Ka Four, PBDHH and Asoka. The real game changer was Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham in 2001, it was a big hit with 45 crore nett, which although paled in front of Gadar’s mammoth. Yet K3G managed to be a record breaking All Time Blockbuster overseas. In fact, in terms of worldwide gross, Gadar was actually next to K3G.
From then on, brand SRK ruled, this difference between domestic and worldwide had come up earlier as well in the cases of DTPH/Border and Mohabbatein/KNPH, and from 2000-2004, all the highest worldwide grosser were SRK films, though Kal Ho Na Ho was a hit in India, it was another blockbuster abroad and though Chalte Chalte was not a big hit, it was a low budget film that made enough returns for him to dissolve Dreamz Unlimited and start Red Chillies. One accusation that is common is that none of these films would have made as much money overseas had they not been Yashraj/NRI/Dharma films, then how does one explain the success of Devdas overseas? Devdas actually made more dollars and pounds than Kal Ho Na Ho which was the perfect NRI/Dharma starrer, it was incidentally the only other success that Madhuri Dixit had, post Raja, the other being DTPH, much bigger in every which way than Bhansali’s previous Hum Dil De Chuke.. starring both Salman and Ajay (back when he was Devgan). It may not have been a very big success considering its budget, but in a year which was absolute disaster in every way, the perception was what mattered. Perhaps, it was the success of Devdas and Raaz in 2002 that brought that famous quote from Neha Dhupia that in Bombay, only sex and SRK sell.
2004 was easily the best year, in terms of peak and success. Main Hoon Na was the big debut of Farah and Veer Zaara his reunion with Yash Chopra, both were successes and Veer Zaara the highest grosser both domestic and worldwide. Swades’ critical acclaim and gradual status of a cult classic on TV and DVD gave enough joy to the actor within. 2005 was a disappointment as his experiment with Amol Palekar didn’t work, but was still one of the highest grosser overseas that year (small mercies). The most glaring difference between SRK’s domestic and overseas was most evident in the case of KANK, a film which was an average but felt like a failure in perception, yet was a monster abroad and ended up another all time overseas blockbuster. Don clashed with an NRI/US based/ musical melodrama starring both Akshay/Bhai and became a hit, although not a biggie when compared to either Fanaa/RDB or the blockbuster that was Dhoom 2.
Another 2004 repeated in 2007, where finally critical acclaim matched commercial gain in Chak De India, but Shah Rukh’s eyes sparkled even more with joy as his Om Shanti Om with debutante Deepika became a blockbuster, destroying Saawariya and Sony as he famously promised to do so. In 2008, he reteamed with the man whose debut had made him a superstar in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, the debut of Anushka Sharma. Despite its relatively lower opening, it went on to become another Blockbuster, both domestic and abroad.
It’s important to note what his contemporaries were doing the same time around, Salman was bogged in controversy and cases, having only three hits MSK, No Entry (an extended appearance) and Partner, all of which were co-lead films. Akshay had a great 2007 with 5 hits or so, yet like Garam Dharam who had the biggest hit and several other hits in 1972 and didn’t get much notice courtesy Kaka Mania, was buried under the hoopla around the juggernaut of Chak De and OSO. Aamir started off with Lagaan and DCH, neither of which were big hits but had accumulated enough cultural capital to start off a big opening for Mangal Pandey. His later successes like Faana, RDB, TZP (clashing with Welcome), JTYJN firmly established him as brand of quality movies, the ISI stamp of Hindi cinema. It is perhaps a brand of stardom that never existed before and with Ghajini/3 Idiots, left even SRK behind commercially.
The biggest surprise that anyone and everyone must have had was Salman, a star who turned his career around and started his best phase at the age when others begin to decline. His star power is in fact very reminiscent of SRK, Wanted was surrounded by a bunch of turkeys till Dabangg became a huge domestic hit and soon after, every single movie turned into gold. Even SRK’s famed overseas touch was now not as strong when My Name Is Khan barely scraped past 3 Idiots despite its international subject.
Salman’s peak was in the 2010s, especially between Dabangg and Sultan, where with the exception of Jai Ho, all were blockbusters in India. He had exactly 10 of them, yet after Sultan and apart from Tiger Zinda Hai, not a single film can be called even a hit though I do hope Radhe hit its big, if not for Bhai, but at least to keep our exhibitors and theatres alive.
It is also worth stating SRK tried his best to run neck to neck with Salman, although the overseas advantage was nowhere as huge as it used to be, Shah Rukh still had a slight edge and with the occasional good film like Chennai Express, could break records as well. Yet the decline was clear, why it was here is not as easy to answer as it seems.
Which is why I was astonished to read comments about DDLJ being the worst thing that happened to SRK, that the film ruined his career as an actor and so on. We all seem to look at Shah Rukh purely as an actor, he is of course the protégé of Barry John’s theatre group, an NSD alumnus, the most well trained actor in his generation and so on. But he is also the same upstart who declared at the very beginning of his career that he’d destroy Aamir. He’s a true blue capitalist, the perfect symbol of a post liberalization middle class New India, like Raj Kapoor was for the socialist 50s or Amitabh for the turbulent 70s. Furthermore, unlike the earlier two, his off screen ascent matched his on screen persona and that is what wins a lot of fans. Which other fan group brings in estimated net worths, Mumbai mansions and Dubai villas into the fan dick measuring wars? He always wanted to be the biggest star.
And DDLJ made him so, though he may not enjoy romance, he is grateful that it has made him what he is and gave him many of the friends he has today. We may think he could do the work Aamir has done, but he truly doesn’t have the script sense Aamir does. There is literally no report ever of him listening to a full script and completely approving it, he’s drawn in straight away by the concept (he did Guddu, for God’s sake), which explains Ra.One, JHMS, Zero and so on. Without the popularity that DDLJ offered him, how could he have survived if the films he was working on with interesting directors like Mukul Anand, Ramesh Sippy, Ketan Mehta, and Mahesh Bhatt all flopped? Which actually did happen, in the same year as DDLJ’s release. In fact, between DDLJ and Rab Ne, he worked with directors from Mani Ratnam, Kamal Haasan, Santosh Sivan to Amol Palekar, Farhan Akhtar, Ashutosh Gowariker. Despite the failures of most of these films, he’s been able to carry on due to the success of his chick flick hits which gave the security for his more unconventional choices.
It is true that romantic superstars have a shorter shelf life in general, but then look at Salman’s period from 2010-2017, it’s just as long as SRK’s 2001-2008, so in fact Shah Rukh has made the romantic superstar last longer than anyone else. Yes it is a point, but there are others worth noting as well. But definitely his fall is no way similar to Rajesh Khanna, Khanna’s fall was as swift as his rise, it’s something we might never see again and more importantly, was there a movie in the 80s where Kaka was with a heroine and didn’t creep the hell out of you?
(SRK/Anushka=SRK/Juhi, great couple, friendly chemistry, not very successful movies)
Post 2008 was also the first season of IPL, where Khan came to be associated with the team KKR. He was the biggest face of the KKR brand and is even today, where RCB is referred to as Kohli’s team and CSK as Dhoni’s, KKR is still known as the team of Shah Rukh Khan. For a star who’d already spread himself thin, the continuous loss of his team hurt his brand equity significantly. But nothing hurt more than the year 2011, it had the hugely disappointing Ra.One, a film whose financing made him do Zor Ka Jhatka that made even his diehards cringe, a film whose hyper promotion led him to overexpose himself, a failure whose burden greatly weakened his star power and made him flare up and go for it against Shirish Kunder till he had to be dragged by Sanju Baba of all people. Don 2 didn’t really hurt, but didn’t help either. Yash Chopra’s ending to his film career turned out like the mess that most of his movie climaxes were. Apart from Chennai Express which genuinely worked, the back-to-back masalas like Happy New Year and Dilwale, which may actually have been the first time two movies of his coming back-to-back felt so much so the same and not so good either.
It seems after Dilwale, the audience literally lost all trust in Khan’s choices. It really hurt that his more unconventional choices suffered due to this, they may not have been good but were nowhere as bad as they were made out to be. I cannot claim to be privy to what exactly happens in someone’s head when they chose to do something, but this I would say, I wish that the original schedule of Happy New Year-Fan-Dilwale-Raees-Dear Zindagi had happened. It could have kept off the audience fatigue and might have even done a ’04 or ’07 again, albeit in a smaller scale. But it is what is, and to prove how audience trust had fallen, I’d quote an incident where a friend of mine had heard Phurr and went on a rant how SRK does this same shit since Lungi Dance, making a separate song with a famous singer and zero connection to the film, only for promotions, it’d happened with Sharabi, Tukur Tukur and Jabra Fan earlier. Yet he was wrong, the song was a crucial part of the film, but the timing was suspect. Shah Rukh seems to be in this phase where nothing seems right and everything goes wrong.
(Sentiments of many neutrals these days)
It’s a bit presumptuous for us to question and dissect our favorites’ choices, for what we merely observe from a distance, they live through every day. But a little outside perspective from someone who regularly parlays on the star dick measuring contests from the star’s side might be fresh.
So Shah Rukh, I make you my genie and want three big wishes from you: first about your film choices, I’ve managed to wade Aamir fans and their five consecutive all time grossers with the fact that only Raja Hindustani comes even close to DDLJ in footfalls. But then wading them away along with Bhai fans going on about Hum Aapke Hai Kaun and Bajrangi is getting harder, hope that rumored collaboration with Hirani, gives us SRKians a way to shut these fans up for once. But also, for the inner art lover, it would be lovely to see what he did with Dear Zindagi, do again for other good films, power a small film with stardom and earn goodwill in return. Although Mast with Mani Ratnam never happened, the cameo in Saathiya was still lovely to see and I hope Rocketry would be the beginning of such friendly cameos and scene stealer guest roles that Big B rocked in towards the latter part of his career. My second wish is that he’d give greater focus to his VFX division and technological ambitions, Zero and Fan were brilliant technical work and for a country where despite having the most of the VFX work outsourced here, the special effects of native films still suffer, so any step in improving the quality of VFX is appreciable and a worthy legacy. The third is not a wish, but a suggestion as the overseas record we fans so love to boast about is under challenge due to Dangal’s success in China. There is perhaps another new market that might be just as sweet as China was, and far less controversial too. Why not go after Indonesia, which is the sixth largest film market in the world? More importantly, one that luuuves Kuch Kuch Hota Hai? All this might be an insane overstatement, the fantasy of a fan tired of fighting, but when your star is the Raj who faced Baauji’s glare and made Simran’s dreams come true, all I can say is, Bas itna sa khwaab hai.
PS: Yashraj, enough celebrating DDLJ, announce the damn movie already!! Maybe that’s it, the season of romance is over and it’s better to shed all the baggage, go into a new direction and make DDLJ as surprising a blockbuster as HAHK and Raja Hindustanti are?
Baradwaj Rangan 
brangan
October 22, 2020
Adding this to the mix 🙂
The reinvention of a K-k-k-khan
https://baradwajrangan.wordpress.com/2017/02/04/12004/
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Madan
October 22, 2020
Well…that’s a lot to take in! A refreshing change to see an article written about a Bollywood actor from a fan-narrative perspective. As in, a fan who only watches the films would not be much invested in whether DDLJ helped provide SRK the security to pursue other projects. But you are participating in his journey as an actor, along the lines of how South fans relate to their favourite mass hero. There’s a lot I don’t agree with in the article but that doesn’t matter because what does is that it is very well written!
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An Jo
October 22, 2020
Thank you for this Aman! Very comprehensive and well-captured; I guess the competition doesn’t allow you to use phrases like ‘dick-measuring’, so you have used it liberally here!! In the case of the Khans, it is mainly the height-measuring contest I think; I don’t think we need to go down that side of the belt!!!
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Aman Basha
October 23, 2020
@Madan: Thank you but wonder what you disagreed with. I tried to be as neutral and unbiased as possible, might as well make for a fun argument.
@An Jo: Thanks but this wasn’t the post I meant for DDLJ, that one had digs on Aamir and Salman (probably why I didn’t get in), I think i’ll put up the DDLJ post on November 2, by when hopefully, we have an announcement on our hands.
“height-measuring”: LOL, I see what you mean but I like the dog story better 🙂
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abishekspeare
October 23, 2020
I too think SRK’s fall is very related to Aamir’s rise. Also, wasn’t JTHJ and Ra.One hits? They didn’t receive positive reviews, but they made money right? Aamir made a really smart choice in a way that he can’t be boxed as a romantic or action star but rather as a star who makes good movies. It didn’t happen overnight, as far as 1947 earth I feel he took more risks than SRK. Nowadays the only true star seems to be Akshay Kumar, even the shit he touches are turning into golden public toilets.
No one cares for Salman these days in the urban areas. That’s why bharat and race 3 weren’t blockbusters. But SRK has a great chance to come back, everyone still associates him with superstardom and something mythical and grand.
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Madan
October 23, 2020
Aman: Basically the assertion that 2000-2007 was SRK’s most successful phase. I think OTOH that is the epitome of a forgot-buster phase. Most of those movies – Mohabbatein, K3G, Kal Ho Na Ho, Main Hoon Na – receive scant attention today and have not aged well. Not that it was HIS fault, but to a man all of these movies were rather bloated too. It cemented the further depletion of SRK’s brand, if anything. So much so that when CDI came along, my college friends regarded it (as well as OSO, to some extent) as a comeback for SRK. On similar lines, Don 2 got good numbers at the box office but didn’t really enthuse the public much. All the way until Dilwale, the box office fate of his films camouflaged the fact that they weren’t really seen as memorable. They ran more because they were ‘good enough’ as entertainment. From Dilwale onwards, the downfall was swift. Once box office began to match audience perception, suddenly the next films seemed to simply careen off a cliff.
It is a little unfair because Salman’s entire comeback and success juggernaut has been built on the back of rather forgettable films. But unlike SRK, Salman got launched with a forgettable film that turned out to be a bumper hit (Maine Pyar Kiya). SRK’s very brand got established in films that deeply endeared him to fans. There was a certain everyman quality about him especially in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa or Yes Boss (Aziz Mirza broadly following the Kundan Shah tune). DDLJ was the start of that quality being diluted but the full scale erosion began in the noughties.
So the dick-measuring thing you mention and the relevance of Mannat etc, these are things that a certain section of SRK fans who are invested in the narrative look at favourably. For others like me, his increasing obsession with acquisitions marked the drifting away of his work from the zeitgeist and the loss of his relatability which was second to none at his peak. I really cannot say how relatable people did find Rajesh Khanna in the 70s but certainly from 90s to date, I can’t think of any other star who was relatable to the extent Shah Rukh was. Ayushmann attempts it but only by way of being a little bland or non descript. SRK at his prime was very colourful and dazzling and yet didn’t seem out of reach, as if occupying some other stratospheric world. I don’t think a lot of us have felt that way about him for a long time now. The more he moved from Bombay to Switzerland, the greater the gulf became.
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Aman Basha
October 23, 2020
@abhishekspeare: The Indian box office is a highly confusing affair by any account. But for superstars or a star who proclaimed himself the King, the low collections of JTHJ and Ra One compared to Salman or Aamir really hurt in terms of perception. Plus, the promotion of Ra One needed it to outdo Endhiran at least which it failed to do.
I think Aamir is what he is because of his script sense, it’s something that no other Indian star has ever had. This keen and clear understanding of everything, it’s a risk doing one film at a time with long intervals. Hrithik ruined himself with this approach and even Aamir is really vulnerable after Thugs, which might prove he’s not a traditional star, there are no diehards who can keep the film afloat like for Salman or SRK, if not the way it crashed was stunning.
Aside: More stunning is what we might be witnessing, I don’t think in any other film market, these stars are having their strongest periods at such late age. Salman had Dabangg at 45, Akshay’s best year was when he was 52 last year, Ajay’s coming on back-to-back and a first blockbuster, Hrithik finally came back to form, Bobby Deol of all people is winning praise in Ashram and Class of 83, wonder how close we are to the resurgence of Jr.B, Govinda and God bless, Sunny paaji 🙂
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Anu Warrier
October 23, 2020
I would say – from the perspective of someone who didn’t really like Shahrukh Khan (before he became Shah Rukh Khan and SRK) even when my cousins were going ape over him in Fauji, but grew to like him very much indeed in the films he did for Aziz Mirza, that DDLJ was – as far as I’m concerned – the beginning of the end of the actor in him. It was outside the YRF and Dharma stable that I occasionally saw glimpses of the real actor – Swades, Chak De India, Paheli,, parts of Chalte Chalte, Asoka, Dil Se, Hey Ram, etc.
In fact, right after DDLJ, he had a slew of bad films – Ram Jaane, Trimurti, English Babu Desi Mem, Gudgudee, Koyla, One Two Ka Four, etc. I mean, what the hell was he thinking?
And stepping into AB’s shoes for Don? Sacrilege! That one film showed the difference between boy and man.
Love SRK, the man, though – I will always watch his interviews and speeches. He’s intelligent, witty, and has a self-deprecating charm that makes it hard not to like him. Besides, industry friends say he treats everyone – from spot boy to director – with grace and politeness. That’s a good quality in a human being.
(And… what Madan said. 🙂 )
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Aman Basha
October 23, 2020
@Madan: What I meant by his peak was the commercial success he had, and compared to Salman’s hit phase, they are definitely better remembered. I’m surprised by how you classified Main Hoon Na with all the Dharma/Yashraj films, it was pure fun masala, easily Farah’s best. Actually you’d be stunned to see the IMDB ratings of Dharma/Yashraj films and SRK Aziz Mirza films, except for KANK none of the former films of the noughties have below 7 while none of the latter have above 7. I know at least one woman who saw Kal Ho Na Ho and liked it enough to name her newborn after its lead character so.. I think you or your friends are clearly not part of that audience but the females/NRIs are a big part of SRK’s following and he cannot ignore them, they are the ones who made him a star. For your group of fans, CDI and OSO might have been a comeback, but he had a similar one with Veer Zaara, Main Hoon Na and Swades in ’04. Don 2 was a disappointment because it didn’t outdo Bodyguard. The box office fate never camouflaged anything, the box office results from Ra.One to Dilwale, with the exception of CE have shown diminishing returns. He had a good chance after Chennai since he now had a blockbuster, had he followed HNY-Fan-Dilwale-Raees schedule in release, it might have kept off the audience fatigue from the comedies and the general SRK fatigue, he did a good choice by taking a break.
Audience is willing to take anything in the name of masala, especially around 09-10 when Salman’s south remakes were fresh entertainment especially for single screens. It’s a far more sustainable genre for age but even Bhai has been stumbling since 2017, so even he’s struggling like SRK was during Ra.One-Happy New Year phase. Time changes audience taste, yesterday’s flavor becomes stale today.
I’m a little confused about your ‘zeitgeist’ statement, I meant to state that his success as a star cemented his status as “the-boy-next-door-who-went-big” and that is a selling factor to fans. That everyman who became a superstar is what a lot of aspiring actors coming to Mumbai take as their inspiration, including Ayushmann, Rajkummar, SSR. In fact, there was a lot of talk about how Ranveer’s PR seem to be incessant in their attempt to paint him as the next SRK and some PR email came up which stated the attempt of some interaction was to draw parallels to SRK’s journey. It’s his success story that can be exemplified by his acquisitions that some fans aspire for, which is why those acquisitions are brought in the dick measuring contest unlike a certain Khiladi whose hill in Toronto is tried to be kept as low profile as possible 🙂 Also one cannot channel the zeitgeist forever, that iconic representation of an era is something only Raj Kapoor and Amitabh earlier achieved and next SRK, but you need hits to sustain too.
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Enigma
October 24, 2020
A very well written piece Aman, thanks, enjoyed reading it. I used to really like Shahrukh Khan before DDLJ – Darr, Baazigar and Anjaam, though I didn’t particularly like these movies, I thought that it was extremely bold of him to do outright villain roles (like Hollywood stars). Probably the first Indian movie star to do so. But I think things went downhill after DDLJ. Sometime around 1999 there were rumours that Mani Ratnam and SRK were getting together again with the latter playing a negative role in the movie. Sadly they remained just rumours.
With respect to Salman, I think that his HAHK was the first Bollywood movie to break the language barrier and become a smash hit in Chennai. I remember even our domestic help getting caught in the hype. I don’t know about the 70s and 80s but I think that Tamils started watching Hindi movies in a big way after HAHK.
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kaizokukeshav
October 24, 2020
SRK is at his best when he does matured roles like Swades, Chak De and Dear Zindagi… he is tailor-made for such kind of roles. Given his current businessman stint with KKR and Red-Chills.. he seems not interested in pursuing earthy stories with same fervor has he did with say.. ‘Dil Se’. I wish he removes these socio-economic equations in mind in order to woo the audience, and then we will be able to see better movies from SRK.
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An Jo
October 24, 2020
Firstly, Aman, a great comprehensive piece on, not an actor, but an umbilical cord that’s built between an actor and a fan. [I have the same thing with Amit but that’s for a different day.] I am now, commenting here from the perspective of a non-SRK fan; and the first thing that comes to my mind is, I never thought of him as a fine actor; and by that, I mean, in relative comparison to Bachchan. It is just that it is difficult to be vegetarian once someone has tasted the lion’s blood. [And ironically, I am a vegetarian by the way!]
When I first saw SRK in the tele-serials by Lekh Tandon or others in Doosra Keval or Circus, I got the impression of a guy trying to break into the idiot-box or the cinema later on, with gusto, with effervescence, and a mouth that speaks faster than the co-ordination between one’s heart and the cerebellum. I didn’t quite like that, but I quite enjoyed it. [Not that I was smart enough to understand how Bachchan had the unique talent of oscillating between so-called non-sensical item number like ‘Ke Pagh Ghungaroo’ or the poetic semblance of a ‘Mein aur meri tanhayee’; but somewhere, even at that dumb age, I could recognize something unique amongst actors; for instance, if the bombastic Shatrughan were to put in the cast of Silsila; it would have been a disaster, inspite of the fact that Mr. Sinha worked with Hrishida and Moushmi Chatterjee in ‘Kotwal Saab’. It seems I am digressing, but all I want to lay a foundation stone is to what I saw in the initial SRK, and the later super-star called SHAH RUKH KHAN.
Everyone here is lamenting that DDLJ destroyed the actor in him. I am being harsh, but also ‘practical’ in here. Neither in CIRCUS nor in DOOSRA KEVAL nor in the Aziz Mirza films, SRK showed a promise of ‘great’ talent, a great acting talent that needed a project waiting to be harnessed, unlike Amit in ‘Saudagar’, ‘Zanjeer’, or even ‘Anand.’ Of course, ‘Zanjeer’ was the boiling point. I have never thought of SRK as a great actor, but as someone who can be a terrific star first, then an actor second, and most important of all, an entertainer of the highest kind where the worlds of SRK the actor and SRK the person have a melting bowl..as again, shown in ‘FAN.’
SRK is capable, oh god how he is capable, of surprising us. From what I saw, SRK as the actor was terrific in ‘FAN’; as a follower, with miserable prosthetics, he was pathetic. In all the Yash Raj films, including the ‘super-hits’ like KHNH, KKHN, MOHABATEIN, MHN, and CHALTE, he was a ‘serviceable’ actor. It was like a clerk going through the profit-and-loss account statements [not the Manoj Kumar ‘Clerk; that’s a different debate altogether] and signing off at the end of the day.
He can be extremely effective in quieter roles like in ‘Swades’ and get away with it. Even in movies like ‘Dil Se’, he was splendid; in the sense, all the SWOT analysis that I am putting forth, was in favor of him, and he was simply irreplaceable in that film. And by that, I mean, he hasn’t risen above the script, but he has terrifically understood the crests and troughs of the script. I loved him in ‘Swades’, even though Ashu was manipulating you throughout. But I especially loved him in ‘Rab Ne Bane Di Jodi’. He reprised the same ‘crap’, but he brought a flesh flavor to it; even if there is something like this sentence that I could use in the English language. He was, of course, over-taken by Aamir in ‘Ghajani’ on all the fronts- acting; collections; and hairstyle.
The point where I find most annoying with SRK is, why isn’t he honest like he is in most of his off-beat films like he was in ‘Swades’ or even in Mahesh Bhatt’s ‘Chahat.’ This song breaks my heart every-time I listen to it. I understand, he is youthful, he has beautiful potholes on his chin to attract women and men, but we don’t get to listen to or enjoy such stuff any longer. The other problem with him was once he walked into the YRF arena, the great Aditya Chopra, he dissed ‘masala’ and resorted to selling the 5$ ‘Gap’ and ‘Aeropostale’ shirts that were the ‘pride’ of India in the noughties.
Coming to SRK’s films regarding his so-called experimentations with folks like Gauri Shinde, ‘DEAR ZINDAGI’ was one of his worst performances; It was so clear that he was struggling to be the ‘fountain-of-youth’ and a ‘star’ and that impulse of trying to work in a so-called ‘off-beat’ film, that it was horrible to watch him. I watched this phenomenon with two great stars, Rajnikanth in ‘Kabaali’, and SRK in ‘Dear Zindagi.’ SRK put in all of his trade-pleasing mannerisms here, and I am shocked Gauri didn’t raise any voice.
I wouldn’t even consider our ‘Ek Tha Driver’ as contestant in the Khan triumvirate. The contest was always only between Aamir and Shahrukh. Bhai was always wanted before, but only after ‘WANTED’ the film, did he become a mega-star.
P.S.: No proof-reading; no grammatical revisions – apologize for that…don’t have the patience…
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Madan
October 24, 2020
“Females/NRIs are a big part of SRK’s following and he cannot ignore them, they are the ones who made him a star.” – Oh dear, I wasn’t gonna go there. But since you brought it up, here goes…
Yes, I am aware that SRK has a special following among girls and women. It was there long before MHN or KHNH by the way. In my 10th standard coaching class batch, the girls celebrated it when a professor said Hrithik hadn’t acted well in Mission Kashmir and didn’t think it would run well. He was surprised to see them celebrate and they said they were all either SRK or Salman fans.
Here’s the thing. Women aren’t the ONLY group who made him fans. When Baazigar established him as a major force to reckon with, it didn’t work only with women but had a pan-audience appeal. NRIs weren’t even a factor at that time (or before Pardes). SRK in the noughties made the same mistake that Rajni has in the last decade – consistently ignoring the ‘swing vote’ and only getting the base out. There are some similarities between getting the vote out in politics and getting people to come see a movie, especially a mass movie. SRK like Rajni was only speaking to the faithful again and again.
So when the edifice collapsed, it surprised hardcore SRK fans but not the rest of us because we had lost interest in his films for a long time. Just as Darbar underwhelming was a surprise to the Rajni camp but not to others. I could find people who would recall scenes or dialogues from 3 Idiots or DCH but not MHN or KHNH lines (except perhaps as parody/to lampoon).
Regarding audience being willing to take anything in the name of masala, that’s only in the case of Salman. The others can’t rely so confidently on just an ad blitz and hoping to make so much over the first two weekends that it’s enough. SRK tried to cross Chennai Express with DDLJ in Dilwale and the audience yawned. But it had been coming for a while. So this is a good point to segue into the question about MHN. What Farah did with MHN-OSO-HNY was just a brand of silly humour that was slightly more sophisticated than Sajid with a lot of meta references thrown in but which usually amounted to nothing. I was not a huge fan of OSO either but at least the before-after set up worked reasonably well, the underrated Rampal played the eternal Rahul Dravid of Bollywood par excellence yet again and DP was simply astounding in her debut. We had not seen a debutante exude that combination of confidence and poise in a long time and I don’t think we have since.
Speaking of my college friends, they are not Hollywood buffs like me. The only Hollywood film we have watched together was Rise of the Planet of the Apes (which, by accident, turned out to be better than I had expected it to be). My friends took me to see the dreadful Agneepath on the day of the 2012 Australian Open Final and I still curse my luck over it to this day. 😀 In short, they are very square people with ‘normal’, staid tastes. Even they could see through the hollowness of the self referencing jokes of OSO, that there wasn’t much movie underneath the glamour and style.
And THAT is where I say he lost the zeitgeist. In the very period that Hindi cinema became more and more about content, about a concept even sometimes at the expense of great filmmaking (exhibit: the Ayushmann as social reformer films as opposed to Andhadhun), SRK doubled down on the most hollow and vacant films of his career. And the audience saw through it. They were hits more because, as I said, they were ‘good enough’, one time watch timepass etc. He was not building anything memorable for his brand, anything worthy of a cult phenomenon. This was the biggest difference between the noughties SRK and what he was in the 90s. I don’t doubt that the Aziz Mirza films don’t get rated highly on imdb though imdb is hardly a sound yardstick. You can see early reviews of Dhadkan there that are extremely favourable and today it is remembered mostly for Idli Anna’s so bad it’s awesome acting in the climax and for lampooning the terrible, terrible title track. Regardless, as for Mirza, One Two Ka Four was terrible and even Yes Boss and PBDH were flawed but they all had a core. Those films were about something. So even if the films were flawed then and haven’t aged well, the audience appreciated the effort to make something soulful. That is what went missing for the most part with SRK in the noughties. Except CDI where he unleashed it in spades…and then OSO ran so well he got tempted to take that shortcut and keep making stupid, nonsense films which he ‘knew’ would run well. And so they did until they no longer did and suddenly the one time powerhouse SRK has become a hot potato, a curse that producers and directors would want to run away from.
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Madan
October 24, 2020
“Bhai was always wanted before, but only after ‘WANTED’ the film, did he become a mega-star.” – Hahahahaha. Deadly, deadly. He will always be wanted to me. 😉
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Aman Basha
October 25, 2020
@Anu Warrier: Mr. Perfectionist had Aatank Hi Aatank, Baazi and produced Mela despite his one-film-at-a-time policy. Do I need to go into the filmographies of his contemporaries at that time? No one was doing any better back then. Plus some of the films you mentioned were directed by the likes of Rakesh Roshan, Basu Chaterjee, Mukul Anand etc.,
The films that had glimpses of the actor include, as per your own definition, were 2 for every 3 films you probably hated. But, how many of these films were hits?
Since you seem to have industry friends, do try to find out from them what his next film might be announced for me please 🙂 Would love to go up in the fan group hierarchy.
Totally agree about his charm and personality in interviews, there’s no one better than him in public relations and appearances in Bombay film today.
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Madan
October 25, 2020
“Mr.Perfectionist had Aatank Hi Aatank, Baazi and produced Mela”- and add Mann. Another turkey. In the middle of all of which the only hit in this pre Lagaan phase was Sarfarosh and it wasn’t exactly Silver/Golden Jubilee type hit either. The difference is Aamir learnt a lesson and learnt the right lesson from that disastrous phase. It says something that the only hardcore, unredeemable flop he had from Lagaan onwards was ToH, the first film he signed on in a long time without reading the script. Aamir understood that in the noughties, it was important what your films stood for, what was their ‘brand’. The old girls/boys drooling over a star to come watch him even in terrible films model was getting over. Hrithik tided over flops elsewhere by associating deeply with a sci-fi franchise. The franchise itself may have been mediocre but because nobody else in Hindi was doing anything like it, he succeeded. Akshay Kumar doubled down on comedy through the mid noughties and after Chandni Chowk flopped, quickly pivoted to ‘message movies’. In a way, you could say even Salman’s brand is consistent for better or worse. There is no such consistency in SRK’s case. It’s all over the place and that is why there is no clarity today over where he fits in the scheme of things.
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Aman Basha
October 25, 2020
I am a very simple fan who judges a film by any star by two criteria: either make the best or the biggest (in terms of art and commerce respectively). Salman has done the biggest, Aamir has found the perfect mean between the two, Akshay has found the perfect formula (sarkar scheme nikalegi, hum pikchar nikalenge), even Ajay has had a good run since Gomaal 3 roughly at the same levels as Akki. It’s only SRK who hasn’t even had a film announcement from the last 2 years. His recent performances in the last few days have raised questions about his stardom, popularity and relevance, this article was solely to draw his journey from the perspective of a fan and look at it from a fan’s perspective.
It seems that some of the most important films of the SRK filmography for the hardcores like DDLJ, KKHH, K3G, KHNH etc seem to attract quite some dislike from people like @Madan who feel they were forgotbusters and diminished his standing or @Enigma who misses the wild SRK from Darr, Baazigar, Anjaam. In some respects, both are correct but not entirely.
This “forgotbuster” phase for both Rajini and SRK may have started in the 00s but was nowhere as prominent in the 10s, where all their films were derivatives of their on screen mythologies and were not very entertaining either. Of course it may be true for some that the earlier phases had nothing such memorable but the fans were happy, here the films were disappointing and given both leading men’s age, not very easy to make as earlier. Even Rajni and SRK roughly started releasing films with very different directors nearly around the midway point of the ’10s. In SRK’s defense, these films were planned from before and it was only coincidental that he had such a spate of releases at once. Why it hurt so much more for SRK was that all his contemporaries who were trailing behind him seemed to have caught up and are having their best phases at such a late age (Salman, Akshay, Ajay etc). But this is only in recent times, if one looks at the 90s and 00s, SRK was ahead of quite a few of them with his closest competition being Salman, Hrithik and Aamir.
Again I simply don’t expect SRK to have as good a script sense as Aamir does. It’d take a miracle for that to happen. His relatively offbeat efforts such as Paheli, Swades, Dil Se or even something like Baadshah never succeeded, neither did Fan or Raees (at least not to a huge extent). Fan and Zero were films I loved but perhaps it is more due to the subtextual narrative that mandate certain turns in the plot that fly in the face of logic, continuity or plot progression that these two flopped big, especially since SRK himself had high hopes on both. He has taken far more risks than the SRK before DDLJ with Fan, DZ and Raees, even in terms of concept with JHMS and 0 but these films, like all the other unconventional films underperformed or flopped, exception being DZ, which in performance was what An Jo said, but one I and lots of people liked for its clever riffs on his onscreen and offscreen personas. It is also true that these films were not too good either.
In terms of overall careers, the three Khans are even now with Aamir slightly ahead courtesy his consecutive ATBBs and China. Salman is struggling since Tubelight, far worse than SRK was from 2010-2014. Hrithik was in the pits from Krrish 3 till War, even SRK’s current state is much better than Hrithik’s predicament during those times plus Krrish 3 must have the most disputed collections ever.
SRK’s brand was always romance, I would dare to call him India’s biggest romantic superstar despite Rajesh Khanna simply on account of how long he lasted. It’s confusing today since he’s outgrown that niche and while the aftereffects of that will last, he cannot go back to romance for a hit and that’s the bigger problem. For that brand of romance, the films he did in the 00s are very popular.
He’s very popular even now however. During this break, everyone from Atlee to Hirani to Gurinder Chadda to Raj & DK have pitched scripts. Yashraj is coming with an announcement anytime now. Hopefully he’s learnt to stay away from making changes to scripts and surrenders himself to a director’s vision. I want some really big hits that cover the gap between him and the other Khans, make occasional appearances in films like DZ or Bhootnath that help earn goodwill (for him) and spotlight (for them), develop his VFX ambitions and try to go after Indonesia to match China or anything such.
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Madan
October 25, 2020
Aman: I wouldn’t say DDLJ or KKHH are forgotbusters though I don’t like them very much either. DDLJ was a groundbreaking film even if for not very great reasons. So was KKHH. It is the films from Mohabbatein onwards that simply achieved variations on this template that I class as forgotbusters. And again, that’s not based off my taste but the fact that the buzzfeed article about these films has become the most memorable thing about many of them. So, yes, it’s true that these films may have satisfied the fans but that’s kind of the point. Outside the fan or rather hardcore fan bubble, fewer and fewer people saw these films as anything more than one time watch entertainment. And as the industry got more and more crowded and more and more stars built up juggernauts, satisfying the fans by themselves was no longer enough. This is also because SRK doesn’t have such a loyal fanbase as Rajni.
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Aman Basha
October 25, 2020
@Madan: Guess we will have to strongly disagree about this, I’d happily buy this ‘forgetbuster’ contention for the ’10s but perhaps I just can’t dismiss these films that were such a big part of my childhood. Making films on templates is a basic star thing, how many films has Akshay made in the last 4 years without a dose of patriotism or in 00s without comedy? I think you’re comparing SRK to Aamir in terms of quality out of the expectation you had from the early ’90s Shah Rukh, but for an early noughties born, I simply have no such expectation since I’m sure he doesn’t have that script sense. In the same ’00s, no one apart from Aamir and Hrithik were competition of any sort to Shah Rukh. Akshay would have a hit and then a flop, he followed 2007 where he had 5 hits with 2008 where he had 3 disasters, The Most Wanted Bhai didn’t have a single solo hit from 2001 till Wanted, Hrithik was just hyper inconsistent and couldn’t build on Dhoom 2/Krrish, Aamir as I said got ahead of Shah Rukh post Ghajini. It’s a somewhat similar situation in the ’90s. SRK was a big star in India and had Amitabh level dominance overseas.
If one is looking at today, I’d agree that SRK is in the worst place when compared to his peers, but in terms of all these actors’ overall careers. or on an all time ranking, it’s Aamir slightly ahead of Shah Rukh and Salman in a tie. I just want him to break that tie and match Aamir, which is still a possibility with the right choices. You seem to endorse what my ideas for those right choices are? Since you haven’t disagreed with it.
PS: How good are the early DD TV shows he acted in, like Circus, Fauji, Doosra Keval? I want to watch but the poor quality seems like an eyesore. They were popular and may be classics compared to the TV trash today, but are they really that good? If so, I can happily bring it in the next fan war.
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Anu Warrier
October 26, 2020
Mr. Perfectionist had Aatank Hi Aatank, Baazi and produced Mela despite his one-film-at-a-time policy.
He had a helluva lot of lousy films post QSQT and Raakh. Anyone remember an excrescence called Love Love Love? Or Tum Mere Ho?
But excuse me, none of those were in his one-film-a-year phase. Aamir has often talked about the time he was just signing films left right and centre because that’s what one did then. It was when his films began tanking that he sat back and took stock of his life and career. He’s talked about breaking down. But the fact remains – he learnt his lesson. He stepped back and changed his entire strategy.
Which SRK, for all his intelligence and smarts (and make no mistake about it, he’s both intelligent and smart), doesn’t seem to have learnt.
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Anu Warrier
October 26, 2020
I thought that it was extremely bold of him to do outright villain roles (like Hollywood stars). Probably the first Indian movie star to do so.
I disagree. a) That he was the first Indian movie star to do so b) that he did ‘outright villain’ roles.
Let me clarify – if you want Indian movie stars doing villain-ish roles – don’t forget Kamalahasan played a serial killer in Sigappu Rojakkal. If you’re talking Hindi film industry – then Ashok Kumar played a villain in Kismat; Dev Anand played a villain in Jaal (and without a sympathetic backstory or excuses for his behaviour), Dilip Kumar played a rapist in Amar, Sunil Dutt in Mother India, and Amitabh played a villain in Parwana.
Coming to SRK, Baazigar, Anjaam and Darr were all before DDLJ when he was more open to experimenting. But while all these roles were ‘negative’ in that the characters’ actions were not what the usual hero did, SRK played ‘hero’ in all these films. He was not positioned as the villain, nor was he condemned for his actions in the film. All his characters were positioned as worthy of sympathy.
Darr was positioned as a love story, for heavens’ sake. And the audience sympathy was for him, not for Sunny Deol – in the theatre where I saw the film, the audience clapped for SRK when he comes back to beat Sunny Deol. This was the first and last film that Deol would do for YRF – he blasted Yash Chopra for the way the film turned out.
(Incidentally, a bit of trivia – the film was to have done by Aamir Khan; he refused the film when Yash Chopra refused to have a two-hero narration.)
Baazigar – they glorified the revenge saga – the fact that he kills a young woman in his bid to take revenge doesn’t seem to matter much. There was a crucial casting choice – Sridevi was supposed to play both sisters. But the producers correctly assumed that anyone killing Sridevi wouldn’t get the audience sympathy, so they killed off poor Shilpa. And SRK dies in the end – I assume that’s what the makers thought was a ‘consequence’ – but he dies with the audience totally sympathetic towards him. (Trivia: In the original, the character is a mercenary.)
In Anjaam, he stalks Madhuri, has her husband killed, frames her for the murder, then kills her sister and daughter, etc., etc. When she decides to avenge their deaths and her destroyed life, she nurses him back to health and then pushes him over a cliff, falling to her death alongside. A reversal of Baazigar, right? But guess who got the sympathy?? Yup – SRK.
Outright villain, my foot! 🙂
If you want a died-in-the-wool villain without a backstory, and no sympathetic reasons to be villainous, check out Aamir Khan’s turn as Dilnavaaz, the ice candy man, in Deepa Mehta’s 1947 Earth. The look on his face as he deliberately hands Nandita Das to the mob, and later as he pretends to offer her solace – it’s chilling.
Or Saif Ali Khan in Ek Haseena Thi and Omkara*; Ajay Devgan in Deewangee; Akshay Kumar in Ajnabee… I’m talking mainstream actors here. Otherwise, there was Naseer in Mirch Masala way before.
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Madan
October 26, 2020
“I think you are comparing SRK to Aamir” – No, I am comparing SRK of noughties to the young SRK that broke out. It has nothing to do with expecting him to emulate Aamir but with him slipping into a far more boring trajectory than what he seemed likely to follow in the 90s.
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Madan
October 26, 2020
About Fauji, Circus etc, I don’t really have an opinion as I was too young when they aired to remember much about them. I have vague memories of liking them then but haven’t seen them since. Anu Warrier may have a better recollection of those TV shows. I am not even a big sitcom guy anyway. My favourite formats remain – comedy shows like Yes Minister where there is no continuity between episodes, detective shows where again each episode stands alone (or is at the most 3 part like Shetland) and single season five-six episode shows like Chernobyl or Feud.
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Aman Basha
October 26, 2020
@Anu Warrier: No, I didn’t even go into the “Awwal Number-Love Love-Love” phase, he signed those films to clear family debts IIRC. Mann, Mela were after Rangeela when he had started to work on one film-at-a-time, let me remind his biggest hit was and is Raja Hindustani 🙂 His first production was Mela right in between Sarfarosh and Lagaan. But I agree that he learnt from his mistakes and quickly improved thanks to his script sense. Yet script sense is something none of his contemporaries have, except Akshay these days in some ways
BTW, whoever thinks Aamir signed Thugs without reading the script has fallen prey to Aamir’s clever strategy. Thugs was first Hrithik’s movie, only that after Hrithik suggested changes, Aamir got a narration and agreed to join. After he had his usual pre release screening, apparently the test audience criticized him for doing a Salman Khan type movie and he re-edited the film. He started talking about how he did the film without reading the script because he loved the character, even the post he put out before the release screamed failure. Even the disastrous China release was under his close supervision.
About negative roles, agreed about Kamal, but Ashok Kumar, Dev Anand and Sunil Dutt are in no way villains, they are anti heroes at best, not necessarily since they are bad, but they do illegal things. Under this definition, every Raj Kapoor hero is a psychopathic villain or Ganga from Ganga Jumna is a goon and what about Amitabh’s angry young men? I haven’t seen Amar, but the character is shown as a very good honest guy from the start who does a mistake and tries to redeem it in the end (as per Wiki) not evil, but gray. Parwana seems an exception.
Most importantly, the kill count of all these characters is probably not even half of Darr. If Baazigar and Darr had sympathetic backstories, so did Sigappu Rojakkal. Who knows how audience in Madras theatres felt about Kamal’s character? Darr did have a hero in Sunny Deol who was in anyway then, a much bigger star. That audience cheered for Shah Rukh when he stabbed Sunny is testament to the former’s charisma. You are right about Baazigar and Sridevi, but the makers themselves have said that they were highly surprised to see the audience rooting for the lead even after the terrace scene and were then sure the film would work.
If his character from Anjaam gets audience sympathy, it’s more on the audience. The film was clearly in the Khoon Bhari Maang mould and the character is absolutely horrifying, far more scarier than anything any mainstream star (including Ranveer as Khilji) have done. Madhuri was clearly the positive character and hero here. You seem to have a problem that audience sympathized with these immoral characters and didn’t do so with Aamir in Earth, so the latter scores higher. But then if Aamir has done Earth, Shah Rukh has done Mani Kaul’s Idiot.
Anyhow, the first mainstream actor to try out murderous immoral anti heroes and become popular whilst doing so is Shah Rukh Khan. All the other films are after Baazigar-Darr-Anjaam and more importantly didn’t have as much effect anywhere as these three did.
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Enigma
October 26, 2020
@ Anu Warrier, “if you want Indian movie stars doing villain-ish roles – don’t forget Kamalahasan played a serial killer in Sigappu Rojakkal.” Yes, you are right, completely forgot about that.
“If you’re talking Hindi film industry hen Ashok Kumar played a villain in Kismat; Dev Anand played a villain in Jaal (and without a sympathetic backstory or excuses for his behaviour), Dilip Kumar played a rapist in Amar, Sunil Dutt in Mother India, and Amitabh played a villain in Parwana” I had no exposure to Hindi films prior to the mid-80s. I was not aware of these films, thanks.
Growing up in Chennai in the late 80s/90s, where movie stars were extremely image conscious and an actor doing anything remotely interesting / different on screen would immediately balance it off by playing the regular good guy too in the same movie (think Sathyaraj in ‘Amaidhipadai’), I was a sucker for movie stars portraying negative roles on screen. Probably the effect of watching Robert De Niro play Al Capone in ‘Untouchables’ and Jack Nicholson as Joker in ‘Batman’ couple of years later. So when I first saw ‘Darr’, I was gobsmacked on seeing SRK do stuff that you would normally not associate with what Indian ‘heroes’ do on screen. He goes after a married woman, gets thrashed by her husband, the ‘hero’ of the movie (that was a strict no-no for any self-respecting Indian movie star back then) and gets killed off in the end. He came like a breath of fresh air then, India’s very own Jack Nicholson, and seemed to be re-writing the rules of what is acceptable for the audience. This was followed by ‘Baazigar’, ‘Anjaam’, where he made the diabolical look super cool (‘Anjaam’ was awful but I liked him in that movie), and even ‘Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa’ (where he played the loser). So he was sort of a pathbreaker in the 90s. As you mentioned, Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Ajay Devgan (I would also add ‘Khaki’ to the list of movies that you mentioned) and Akshay Khanna (in ‘Humraaz’) did take up negative roles in the noughties, but Shahrukh Khan was first person (among the current stars) to start this trend and sort of open up this path for the others to follow.
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Santa
October 26, 2020
Apologies for going off-topic, but just responding to Madan’s comment.
@Madan: I’m a huge fan of Yes Minister and Yes PM and own the entire series on DVD. It is one series that never seems to age. But after multiple viewings, I have realized that it is not a comedy show at all. The language and delivery are comedic. But these hide the fact that this is actually a very serious show about politics and government and the tension and struggle of power between politicians and bureaucrats. Strip away the veneer of comedy and there are episodes that can make one’s blood boil.
As an example, I remember watching in 2009, right in the middle of the global financial crisis – precipitated by investment banks that are about to go bust because of risky investments – an episode involving a financial crisis in England, precipitated by a big bank about to go bust because of risky investments. And government officials (Sir Humphrey to be precise) glibly talking about bailing out said bank at the taxpayer’s expense, purportedly to stave off greater financial catastrophe. Couldn’t have been more on the nose.
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Madan
October 26, 2020
Santa: Yes Minister even predicted the Brexit, sort of. I am sure you have seen this clip.
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An Jo
October 26, 2020
@Anu, you have terrifically encapsulated whatever I wanted to say; Aman Sir would like to understand SRK in ‘Anjaaam’ or ‘Baazigar’ as some braggadocio avatar: It just wasn’t he was just fulfilling rigmarole stuff. And I again, wish to re-iterate, that there was NO challenge at all taken by SRK; all the Anu mentions, is recorded in pinkvilla or red-walla [that is the stage of our documentation.]
You want to watch CIRCUS or DOOSRA KEVAL; I have provided you links in my earlier comment. Now now, be respectful of ‘Doordarshan’; I hope, you are not one of those arseholes like Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, and Zoya that made fun of the Doordarshan theme in the so-called, ‘ coming-of-life-with-snorting’, or sorry ”snorkelling’ to achieve nirvana..
I do get what you are saying Aman; so inspite of flops, inspite of so-much of delays regarding his films or his announcements, how is he still popular? Because he is an extremely adept person at staying in the public limelight! IPL; bat for the Pakistanis in IPL; put out an article in ‘Outlook’ about his-so called-persecution; and then, have the temerity to produce and act in a horrendous production called ‘My Name is Khan’, is something else!
I can understand your pain-point as a fan; and only within that square. But in all-else as a public-figure, he has milked the cow-tits of capitalism at the highest; so neither you, nor I, have any rights to shove philosophy into that…
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Anu Warrier
October 26, 2020
Anu Warrier may have a better recollection of those TV shows.
Ouch! 🙂
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Anu Warrier
October 26, 2020
Aman, Mann was a film that was delayed. And Mela was made purely to launch Faisal Khan. His really horrible films were pre-Rangeela.
BTW, whoever thinks Aamir signed Thugs without reading the script has fallen prey to Aamir’s clever strategy.
I don’t think Aamir said that he hadn’t listened to the script at all. There were two things at play here – one, he loved the character; two, he wanted to work with Amitabh.
Yes, he did try to salvage the film at the editing table, but by then it was too late.
every Raj Kapoor hero is a psychopathic villain
Huh?
If Baazigar and Darr had sympathetic backstories, so did Sigappu Rojakkal.
Yeah, so where did I say otherwise? I was addressing Enigma’s comment that SRK was the first Indian hero to play such a villain – no, Kamal did it already.
That audience cheered for Shah Rukh when he stabbed Sunny is testament to the former’s charisma.
No arguments about SRK’s charisma. None at all. The man makes the screen come alive.
But the audience cheered as much for the character as they did for SRK – because ‘true luvvv’. And that was problematic even then, long before Arjun Reddy.
The film was clearly in the Khoon Bhari Maang mould and the character is absolutely horrifying, far more scarier than anything any mainstream star (including Ranveer as Khilji) have done.
But it wasn’t, no? In the Khoon Bhari Maang mould? Because in that film, it was very clear that Kabir Bedi was a villain. There was a collective catharsis when Rekha gets her revenge on him. And she didn’t have to die to do it.
In Anjaam, he is psychopathic – but ‘luvvvv’ – but Madhuri doesn’t get to live. The feeling is “oh, they are together at least in death’. Again, I’m talking about the characterisation, not SRK himself. Because, in the larger scheme of things, it took guts to go against the cute image he had until then.
My problem was not that people sympathise with amoral characters; it was that all three of these films glorified violence against women; using a charismatic hero to play those characters made it seem worthy of emulation – this was romance.
and didn’t do so with Aamir in Earth, so the latter scores higher. But then if Aamir has done Earth, Shah Rukh has done Mani Kaul’s Idiot.
Idiot was SRK’s first film – well, technically, it was a four-part tele series. It was never commercially released as a film, by the way. Earth came at a time Aamir was riding high post-Rangeela and Raja Hindustani.
Again, the reason Aamir scores high is not because his character doesn’t get the audience sympathy; but because he was playing an outright villain with no excuses/reasons. Something like Saif’s Iago/Langda Tyagi in Omkara.
And my point also, is that SRK has enough accomplishments to his name; he has achieved a great deal and hopefully will achieve a lot more. I was just setting the record straight where the ‘first’ or ‘outright villain’ tags were concerned. But I agree with you that Baazigar, Darr, and Anjaam coming almost back-to-back was a game changer.
I do wish SRK would go back to being Shahrukh Khan; that he would step out of his comfort zone (and not change stories to reflect his SRK-ness) and give us a film worthy of his talent. If I see one more Rahul. Naam to suna hoga film, I will shoot myself!
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Madan
October 26, 2020
“I hope, you are not one of those arseholes like Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, and Zoya that made fun of the Doordarshan theme in the so-called, ‘ coming-of-life-with-snorting’, or sorry ”snorkelling’ to achieve nirvana…”
I will be kinder to him (as opposed to Hrithink/Farhan or Zoya). He didn’t grow up on DD unlike them. For him, it would be like alien world. I think with that DD mocking trope, they were acting out a sentiment that was quite popular unfortunately in the middle class then. In general, the trio (Farhan/Hrithik/Abhay’s characters) combined with the terrible dialogue writing remind me of the superficial people (not all of them) I knew at the consulting firm I mentioned in my SSR write up. Oh dear, if you really want to get over your fears, go trekking in the Sahyadri peaks and if that doesn’t satiate you, try the Himalayas. By all means go see Spain, I am sure it’s really beautiful, but not like you HAVE to go there to achieve spirituality or whatever they think they’re smoking.
People seem to have become a little more favourably disposed to DD these days, tired of switching between Arnab and Kapil Sharma.
I am re-posting this here. Had once plugged this on the blog. But I thought it would be an interesting read for someone of Aman’s age group. How much things have changed just since the 90s….
https://rothrocks.wordpress.com/2020/08/17/nostalgic-reminiscences-what-life-used-to-be-like/#comment-1279
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Anu Warrier
October 26, 2020
Enigma, I can totally understand. Those films did seem trailblazing for the 90s, since chocolate heroes and love stories were the fashion. But as Madan pointed out, to people of my advanced age (I’m still ‘ouching’ by the way 🙂 ), we had watched ‘men’ play dark characters – you should read up about Sohrab Modi’s Jailor by the way – he touches on the subject of incest – grey characters, anti-heroes, villains…
And then, I am a Mallu – our films touched on dark themes way before; our heroes played characters, instead of ‘heroes’ and white, black, or grey, we had already seen these play out on screen. The reason I didn’t mention any Malayalam film actor, for instance, was because those films aren’t as well-known. Forget people like Sathyan and Prem Nazir, both Mohanlal and Mammotty have played outright villains at the heights of their careers as heroes.
SRK is not a trail blazer by any standards, unless by the ‘Indian’ film industry, you only mean ‘Bollywood’. 🙂
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Aman Basha
October 26, 2020
@An Jo sir: Firstly, I’m far too young for you or anyone on this blog (I think) to call me ‘sir’. I think I’ve given a satisfactory reply to all that Anu said, and since I haven’t lived through those times, I’d have to rely on you and others to know what happened (Note: You didn’t let us on about Kader-Amitabh).
I’d never mock Doordarshan, but it is true that their archives have not been well maintained, watching Rudaali on DD was extremely painful and so I was hesitant. I’ve seen parts of Circus and thought it was a nice simple serial much like Aziz Mirza’s films, particularly surprised to see HAHK ki bhabi who had this nice “friends with underlying attraction” chemistry (should have made a film together), the other serials I haven’t been enticed by, mostly since they all seem very technically minimal.
You’re talking about the 2010-15 phase where one had regular controversies from MNIK to Wankhede to the misquoted ‘Intolerance’, from then the only controversy as such was that hyper weird ‘Jacketgate’ stunt. While the films have been underperforming from then, it was post Dilwale that it was really alarming, and even after this, there have been good offers from Vikram Vedha to Gurinder Chadha. I’d actually want him to take the best offer possible and not meddle too much into it, the announcement is definitely coming though.
Regarding IPL, while it does keep him visible, KKR as a team is definitely more dependent on brand SRK than the other way around, despite being the only team making consistent profits (mostly because the owners don’t use it too much for advertising). In fact, I’d argue that the team’s early losses hurt his brand image too. There’s higher TRP when he comes on the crease and this is an IPL fun fact.
He’s an unabashed capitalist, a madaari’s monkey (IIRC) and also smart at PR. There’s no one better in Bollywood in presenting themselves to public as SRK is, through that TED talk and other such appearances. At this stage, the farther he is from controversy, the better.
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Santa
October 26, 2020
Madan: Indeed I have 🙂 The phrase “pigs-breakfast” has been a part of my lexicon ever since.
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Tambi Dude
October 27, 2020
@santa: Yes Prime Minister is timeless. One of my favorite:
Humphery: PM, do you know the difference between Islam and West.
PM: No
Humphery: In Islam you get stoned for committing adultery. In the west you commit adultery after getting stoned.
Can you believe this passed BBC editing room? But then the world was different and useless wokes were not sitting there jobless.
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brangan
October 27, 2020
MANK: Your favouritest Amitabh Bachchan movie turns 20 😛
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Srinivas R
October 27, 2020
@Aman – Don’t have much insight to SRK’s career or bollywood star wars, but you make an interesting pointabout KKR. While SRK’s brand image did help KKR, I think for the first three years, SRK was a bit of a detriment to KKr’s cricket. For a franchise with high profile names like Ponting, Ganguly and not to mention a man of crazy ideas like Buchanan, a high profiles star owner didn’t help at all. It only addedto the pressure. A more hands off approach from team owner may have helped. It’s no coincidence that the team performance improved after the star wattage reduced and SRK also seemed to take a deliberate stance not to shower too much attention to the team.
KKR is now more a Baz, Russ and Morgan team than SRK’s team and that’s a good thing from a cricketing perspective.
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KayKay
October 28, 2020
Late to the comments. As someone who only dips the infrequent toe into Indian films and even more infrequent ones into Hindi movies, I nevertheless enjoyed the heck out of your write-up Aman.
It straddles a neat line between an impartial analysis and fanboy appreciation, which is no mean feat, so kudos, brother!
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Odiyan Hater
November 1, 2020
As someone (MANK ji iirc) had mentioned in the ‘Reasons for Mohanlal’s longevity as a star’ thread, the real reason behind the continuing popularity of these 80s-90s stars is the arrival of television and repeat telecast of their popular movies (and some movies which became popular only after being telecast). This is the reason why a Manju Warrier/Jyothika can be missing from action for years and yet can continue from where they left off. The same is true of SRK too. One hit is all it would take for him to bounce back. He had done enough popular re-telecast worthy movies by even as early as 2000. At the same time, many actors who were massively popular back in the day haven’t been able to bounce back from setbacks because their movies though big hits back then haven’t aged well (or never became beloved enough to the audience during telecasts that the audience today is willing to look past the problematic aspects – Kuch Kuch Hota hain, DDLJ etc); Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Babu Antony etc come under this category of star actors. The lesson to be learnt here is that any new actor who wants to be a star shouldn’t go after only commercial successes or groundbreaking creative efforts but should also try and do a few movies which assure repeat viewing once they are off the theatres (or after the initial OTT buzz dies down as the case may be).
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Aman Basha
November 2, 2020
@Odiyan Hater: I’m going at a different point, even Lal and Mammootty’s glory days AFAIK are behind them, either in terms of content or collection. But in Hindi, we have Salman who at 45 kickstarts with Dabangg and has the best phase of his career, when during the 00s, he barely survived. Akshay, who once gave 17 flops in a row and would alternate a flop with a Priyadarshan comedy, is now set to beat his father in law’s record, Ajay Devgn had his first blockbuster and DJ Deol, of all people, has made a comeback as a serious actor with Ashram and Class of 83!! Even Aamir’s BO juggernaut started when he was 44 with Ghajni. There is no other precedent to this. If SRK makes a comeback next year, it will be truly historic.
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