Why so mellow, Shah Rukh Khan?

Was it the season — with Thanksgiving just over and Christmas around the corner — we wouldn’t known, but superstar Shah Rukh Khan seemed to be in a mood to spread cheer at an event  recently.

The actor, thanking his fans for showering him with love for two decades, said, “There is an emotional side to me which I perhaps don’t talk about often. I have been given so much love, that more often that not, I am always made out to be a better person than I am.”

He adds that the latest book on him  (a biography with Opus) will be able to tell his kids what he could not tell them in person.

“When I talk to my kids, I never really explain to them the job that I do, the amount of hard work I put in... But I have reached a stage in life, where I would want my kids to know what I am doing. I have also reached a stage in my life when I am not able to tell them what I want to,” said the actor.

Reminiscing about his initial days in Mumbai, Shah Rukh said, “When I came to Mumbai for the first time with three friends, we didn’t have any money. I would sleep outside the Oberoi at Nariman Point. We used to go in the morning to the washroom to freshen up, and pretended like we lived in the hotel.” The actor also recalls the time he sold his Pentax camera for Rs1500 to buy a ticket back home. “I used to love taking pictures and I keep talking pictures even now. Some day I plan to go back to the shop to get back that Pentax camera...”

The quintessential SRK humour, however, returned when he was asked about the actor who should play him in a film made on his life. “We do not make too many biopics in Bollywood. I really don’t know by then which actor will be as handsome as me, as hard working as me, as cool, as I am and as sexy as I am. If they do manage to get someone like that, I will be shocked. But my own production team says that with digital imaging they can make me look like a 17-year-old. So Inshallah if they make a film on me, 30 years down the line, then you will be subjected to some more acting by me,” he quipped.

Getting emotional again, Shah Rukh says, “I’ve had such good people around me, a lovely wife, great kids and the title of King Khan. All I want to do is wake up in the morning, apply make-up and head to the sets. I pray  that I breathe my last on the sets after I give a fantastic shot.”