That he was the wholesaler of filmi fantasy was something lost on Kochiites on Thursday, as the Peter Pan of Bollywood walked right into their midst, rustling up a dreamy potboiler before vanishing in a blink.
Shah Rukh Khan, the sprightly Badshah of Hindi cinema, showed why he’s every bit the scorcher that he’s been on screen. He was for real, as he tugged at their faint heart strings with his boyish charm, instantaneous sense of humour, gift of the gab and unblemished honesty.
Girls swooned over their effervescent heartthrob; boys yearned to chat up their icon; professionals urged him to lift the lid off the secret to his vocational longevity; young men seeking reflected glory hankered after his ‘lady-killing’ skills.
Truth to tell, SRK, the chief guest, did not disappoint anyone among the thousands gathered at the inaugural of the silver jubilee summit of the India chapter of International Advertising Association.
The ‘Badshah of brands’, as he was introduced by summit chairman and pal Pradeep Guha, lived up to his fame.
Taking to the stage after an illuminating presentation by senior bureaucrat Amitabh Kant on the India tourism growth story, SRK broke into crooning ‘Phir phi dil hai Hindustani….’
An imaginary day in his life placed in a spatiotemporal jumble — pooling together the products he’s endorsed — was summoned up in an old speech of his ostensibly penned by Mr. Guha for an old Ad Asia conference. “However, I’m here to thank you for what I learnt from you, not what I earned from you,” he said, as the delirious crowd cheered on.
SRK spoke of himself, of his rise from an upstart’s foolhardy indiscretion in selection of projects to extreme self-consciousness stemming from ‘scary stature’.
He’s now come to learn that today’s is a horizontal world, and that he needs to ‘do things disruptively’ to be more equal in an equal world.
“I’m not the right role model, I don’t even get to sleep for more than four hours a day; but I have never done anything that I did not believe in,” was how he responded to a young man.
Karunya, a Delhi girl, was swept off her feet when SRK obliged her, brought her on stage and rattled off an old dialogue: Teri aankhon ki namkeen mastiyan….
“Women should not aspire to be equal to men. They are already more equal,” he said, bequeathing his success to the women in his life — mother, wife and actresses he worked with.
“We should tell our boys how to respect, love and care for women.”
How does he have his way with women?
“There’s no conquering a woman, it’s only by being partners that you hit the right note…. You should be gentle, extremely respectful and courteous to a lady,” he disclosed the way to a woman’s heart. The dream was short-lived. It was back into the morass of daily grind for the audience, as SRK left, quickly wrapping up an impromptu ‘lungi dance’ with IAA global president Faris Abouhamad, entrepreneur Cindy Gallop and others.
