SRK with his fan Weda , who came to meet him from Amstardam .

 

 

 

Fan (SRK's next) will be released on 14th August 2015

Shah Rukh Khan’s much talked about film Fan, directed by Maneesh Sharma and produced by Aditya Chopra, finally has a release date. YRF has announced today that Fan will be releasing next year on 14th August.

As reported by us earlier, SRK will be getting a complete make-over for this film, for which Hollywood’s ace make-up artist Greg Cannom has been roped in. SRK has begun working on the film already.

Greg Cannom, who started work on developing Shah Rukh’s look for the film, spent considerable time at the Studio recently with the actor, director Maneesh Sharma and producer Aditya Chopra. Understandably, SRK’s look will be kept under wraps till the first look of the film is revealed.

Talking about his character in this film, Shah Rukh had tweeted last year, “Most of the characters I do are the ones I create… for the first time I am going to play what has created me… I will be in my next a FAN. FAN is a ‘family film’. It’s the family all of you have become for me…the one I didn’t have. I want to be as beautiful as you all. Thanx.”

Written by Habib Faisal, Fan is slated to go on floors in July this year. August month proved fruitful period for SRK what with Chennai Express being a massive hit last year. We hope Fan too receives the same boost and create success.

CLICK HERE to read more.

Shah Rukh Khan with his new Hollywood-style makeover for his next film FAN .

 

Shah Rukh Khan gets Hollywood-style makeover for his next

Shah Rukh Khan is getting help from international experts to get into the skin of his new character. The actor plays an ardent fan of a superstar in director Maneesh Sharma’s next f...ilm, and Oscar-winning Hollywood makeup artist Greg Cannom, best known for transforming Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), is sculpting his new look.
A source close to the ­production team says, “Greg has recently started working on developing Shah Rukh’s look. He spent a considerable amount of time at the studio last week. He also had a long meeting with SRK, Maneesh and Aditya Chopra (producer) to get a fair understanding of the script. He also shared his creative inputs with them.”

This is the first time that Cannom has associated with a Bollywood film. The source adds that Shah Rukh will sport a look that he has never attempted before.

“He will give SRK a complete makeover, and measures are being taken to keep the look under wraps,” the source says.

The official spokesperson of the film confirmed the development. In the past, Cannom has been nominated for nine Academy Awards and has won them for Dracula (1992), Mrs Doubtfire (1993), and the Brad Pitt-starrer. He also received a Technical Achievement Award from the Academy for developing a special modified ­silicone makeup material.
 

Click Here to read more.

 

SRK at Karim Morani Birthday (21.03.2014)

 

For Pisceans, laziness kills creativity, writes Shah Rukh Khan

[ Mar 2014] EDITION

▼Full Article▼

 

The symbol for Pisces originated in Babylonian times during which the constellation was associated with the two great rivers: Euphrates and Tigris. Apparently, Pisces is one of the oldest signs of the zodiac.
SOMETHING FISHY
I always assumed that the two fish facing each other’s tails stood for a duality of nature. Good and bad. Or perhaps, just a general lack of direction. At a more juvenile level it also made me think ‘maybe it’s a fishy version of the 69 position’. But now that I have done some research, I have found that it symbolises the dual nature of the Piscean in an entirely different context. I Googled away to discover that the fish swimming in opposite directions are indicative of an intuitive and idealistic nature (fish swimming upwards) coupled with a sense of practicality and grounded-ness (fish swimming downwards). They’re idealist realists! Pretty impressive, eh! I wish I was an idealist-realist too, that way my ‘I will make the best Indian superhero movie ever’ idea could have shot into the box-office stratosphere as well as being my favourite dream.
BEING NEGATIVE
(By the way, I noticed on one of the websites I trawled that idealism was listed under ‘negative’ Pisces traits! I found that even more interesting than having stumbled upon the meaning of the confused fish. Why would anyone think idealism was a negative a thing?)
Nevertheless, the Piscean seems to possess a number of wonderful traits: Intuitiveness, instinctiveness, imaginativeness, kindness were all listed under positives. On the list of negatives (right under idealism) was ‘laziness’. Now laziness has always intrigued me. Being a semi-evil Scorpio I figured that there was no harm writing about a so-called negative trait for a change. So laziness it is this month. And let me start by saying that if there is one thing I have always aspired to be, (and never quite managed) it’s LAZY!
THE SOUND IN MY MIND
I’ve tried my level best to wind my mind down to indolence with no luck whatsoever. Just the other morning I awoke, looked at my watch and resolved to stay in bed as long as I could. Within minutes my mind was buzzing with things to do. I listed 54. I was up checking mail, which mainly consists of strange property deals in stranger places and smartly disguised messages which invariably lead you to cheaper deals for Cialis and Viagra. I called for inconsequential meetings, and was refused everywhere. Then I spent time dialing numbers from my phonebook, which I did not recognise in a bid to figure out important strangers who might have inhabited my life when I was in kindergarten. In general, I ended up making a nuisance of myself. I admire people who are able to do nothing. I admire their languid pace and their easy distance from achievement. I admire that they can lie about without feeling like they’re committing murder because I can’t. The only time I don’t work is when I am asleep. In fact, I have a feeling that if someone were to record my brain waves even then, they would be switched onto something suspiciously connected to my profession. I’d probably be helping girls onto moving trains and arguing with goondas double my size in my dreams or working out different ways to extend my arms out wide. I have what my mother diagnosed as ‘ants in my pants... and pyjamas.’
LAZE IN LUXURY
Laziness, they say, is an absence of the sense of responsibility. Kids can be enviously lazy. Like my son. I have mentioned this before but due to lack of memory and this being an article on laziness, I will recount the same story. My son who studies away from home is sorely missed by me. So at times overcome with fatherly emotions I will type out a long message of love or teaching to him. Like the following that I read somewhere, ‘a son is truth with dirt on its face, beauty with a cut on its finger, wisdom with smell in its hair and hope of the future with a frog in its pocket... I miss you my beautiful son... blah... blah... blah... weep... weep... weep...’And he replies to my long message with a single letter… ‘K’! What does ‘K’ mean for God’s sake? How lazy can one be, not to even type an ‘O’ before it? It’s a matter of one extra itsy bitsy teeny weeny gentle tap of a key, that’s all. Kids can be so effortlessly lazy and heartless, if I may add. (Thought I must add that my friend Karan Johar is quite happy with replies of ‘K’ to his messages.)
THE MERCEDES CHILDREN
I have a feeling it’s as much a question of training as circumstance. It’s true that those who do not need to provide or have not built the vehicles of their own sustenance can afford to be less hardworking and driven than those who carry the burden of necessity. Yet there is an element of rigour in the enthusiasm to work and to build that is essentially a product of training. Unlike me, my children have been born into wealth and they have all that kids their age would wish for. I have never refused them anything or tried to impress upon them, the material value of the things they are surrounded by. I am averse to this habit many parents have when they say something like, ‘beta yeh shirt expensive hai, ispe kuch giraana mat’, and the kid ends up telling his friends how his shirt costs too much to dirty. Then there are those poor kids who aren’t allowed to mess up their dad’s fancy cars and go around telling everyone they came to school in a Mercedes (with plastic covers still on the seats for two years). It feels cheap to me to be honest!
MY ROLE AS A FATHER
To be able to provide for my children is a matter of deep pride within my heart so I have always felt the irrelevance of making them aware of the material worth of things in their lives. However, what is relevant is that they understand the value of hard work and perseverance. I have tried to ensure this understanding and help them transform it into a spiritedness reflected in the way they do things whether it is sports or academics or their performances at school. I have tried to teach them the essence of hard work and not giving up. To try and try again like the internationally acclaimed ant until you succeed.
I am proud that they have learnt this lesson well. Though I must warn you there is a downside to this. Especially when you are playing Scrabble and beating them at it. Then you have to play all night long till you lose to them or you end up making non-existent words like ‘zigges’, ‘roulter’ or ‘akhrot’ so that they catch you on an illegal word and you can go to sleep. laziness isn’t merely a physical phenomenon,  about being a couch potato, stuffing your face with fries and watching cricket all day. It’s a mental thing too and that’s the part I have never aspired for. I see evidence for this sort of laziness all around me. In the world of creativity, laziness translates into an inability to be rigorous enough to create fearlessly. It makes us plagiarise or water our creativity down to make it more acceptable to the public.
THE FILMI MAD
There is a famous story in Bollywood about this renowned and respected actress who is extremely passionate about her work. She went to the director and gave him many a variations of a mentally-challenged character that she was essaying. She had done deep research into the various maladies of the mind and how a particular affliction will affect her portrayal. It seems after performing the different variations for the director she asked him, ‘Sir, how would you like me to portray it, schizophrenic ‘mad’ or manic depressive ‘mad’?’ The director who, of course, wasn’t as conscientious as the actress and had no idea what she was referring to, looked at her and said, ‘Madam, I only want you to play it filmy ‘mad’.’ Then he went onto give her references of how roles in the past in Hindi films had been played by various artists. (Apologies for the usage of the term ‘mad’ in a politically incorrect way.)
LAZY LAMHE
While a little of this is fine (we all do it to some extent — and label it inspiration) a lot of it done habitually makes for very lousy art indeed. An artist belongs to his art, not his artistry. The essence of creativity is to be able to hold your own truth to your art as diligently as possible. This takes courage. It’s much easier to compromise. Sometimes, what holds truest to you just won’t resonate with the world outside you, and the ability to weather that separation of your ideas from that of your audience is impossible if you have allowed yourself to be lazy about your creativity.
MASTER MINDS
Most masters were only recognised way past the age in which they lived. It took centuries for the rest of the world to arrive at a place where it could identify its own truth with that the artist had expressed of himself. I don’t know of a single master who was lazy about his art. This is because when the things you create are a part of you, it is impossible to feel that they are chores. It is when your creativity functions at a superficial level and does not resonate within you, that it becomes hard to give it all you’ve got.
STUDENT AND STUDIES
In the same way as laziness can translate into a lack of creative rigour, there is also a form of intellectual laziness that prevents us from probing deep enough or being curious enough to find our own answers to questions. I’m often amazed at the intellectual laziness encouraged by some of our schools or teachers, for instance. Children copy notes, learn for exams from books compiled out of previous year’s question papers, teachers shut them up when they ask too many questions and so on. A teacher was suspended from  a school in Atlanta, for giving all the answers to the students during an exam and on being questioned, said, ‘I had to give the answers because they are dumb as hell.’ This may seem like an ideal teacher to ill prepared students, but the point I am making is that teachers sometimes take away the confidence of the kids in their pursuit of getting good marks for the school or even the kids themselves. We have to instill confidence in kids so that they do not ever feel stupid accepting the fact that there are things they do not know and there is no harm in that or telling your teacher the same, so that they can help you with it.
TABLOIDISATION!
The magic of learning becomes stunted by an intellectual superficiality that reflects in our society as a whole. The level of discourse dumbs down. Switch the TV on and anchors are more interested in making the point that they are smart than any relevant point at all. It’s all very lazy actually. Facts aren’t checked, figures are churned out without any basis and judgements are pronounced with no need for evidence at all. So often I find out what film I am doing and with who, post who I have replaced and thrown out of the film. Also, I do calculate my salary as quoted in some of the stuff I read and watch, whenever I want to feel like Carlos Slim. My issue is not with the tabloidisation of news, my issue is with the laziness behind not getting some sort of factual basis for a comment. Just that! Otherwise I enjoy the gupshup as everybody else does. I can’t say I like it, but I do enjoy it at times.And that leads me to the basest of all laziness’s in my lazy list: Moral laziness or the lack of moral rigour.
MORALS AND VALUES
I am no moralist and I have my own very particular idea of what values ought to be (I won’t get into that right now). I don’t pretend to be a Mahatma or even aspire for nirvana as some might. My moralities are probably the idealistic-realistic part of me, but they’re well thought out and clear. I remain constantly perplexed at the moral laziness that surrounds us for the most part. It’s not so much that people live their lives on the edge of an accepted social morality. I’m not judgemental of those things, I actually believe that each one must have his or her own compass and define his or her own limits provided that they do not cause harm to others. I get taken aback when people make a big deal about others’ sexuality or what they do in their private space. If someone wants to express love in the manner they wish to and it’s all consensual and happy for their respective partner or partners, I guess we should just let that be. It’s love! It may not be your idea of love, but that doesn’t make it incorrect or immoral.
THE SIMPLE THINGS
It is the lack of depth with which people view their own behaviour and the ease with which they excuse themselves that I find intriguing. I’m not referring to big things (fodder scams, coal scams, cricket scandals etc). I’m talking about the simplest things. The way people treat their friends, how letting one another down becomes ‘professional’ or using one another becomes ‘friendship’ out of expedience. I’m talking about the everyday things that actually make our lives livable. I believe the essence of friendship is grace, not love. Love without grace is incomplete. Grace can only come about if one applies some moral rigour to oneself. It is the product of understanding your own shortcomings, of watching the places where you have erred and stretched the boundaries of your own values. By doing so, you open your heart towards the failures and weaknesses of other people. You understand that they too, are caught up in their own compulsions, in complexes and insecurities. You don’t expect perfection in relationships if you have learnt to be gracious. You accept the beauty of their imperfections and you become able to love regardless of them.
RIGHT AND WRONG
I read somewhere that each human being’s life experience creates a unique moral universe around individuals that becomes a kind of biography of their life and determines how they live it. I found this thought interesting and true. Some of these universes are very simplistic and linear while others are extremely complex. Sometimes simple frameworks are easier to inhabit because their rigidity is more comfortable than the fluidity of more complex ones. The laziness comes about when you remain in a particular frame without ever challenging it. It’s not a question of whether you are right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse. It’s a question of whether you ever challenge your better-ness or your worse-ness or your goodness or your ability to be bad. It’s also a question of what you accept as good and how and why you choose to define it that way.
LIFE IN A FISH BOWL
If you allow yourself too many excuses and too few challenges, the odds are you’ll end up unhappy and unable to make others around you happy. Imagining that the entire universe is conspiring against your joy might be easier than looking inwards to reflect on how you are contributing to your own suffering, but it doesn’t make you any happier. We actors are adept conspiracy theorists. Living in the fish-bowls that we do, makes it easy for us to feel very important and it follows that we tend towards feeling as victimised as well. Like I had this stupid big door fell on me recently and injure me quite seriously. Lesson for youngsters: Sometimes big doors or people falling for you can hurt you quite badly (but that’s another article). Back to actors feeling victimised. I was made to understand that some people thought this accident was a planned move to outdo my so called competition. Really! What next? Get kidnapped and send my body parts to theatres to be distributed if audiences buy bulk tickets? Just to put the record straight, all I try and do is make films to the best of my capabilities and with passion. It’s that simple, that’s all! Any other conspiracy theories that are built around my accidents or public behaviour are a false notion. I remind myself also of not falling trap to this malady of victimisation.
RAHUL VS HAMLET
Playing Hamlet permanently is no fun after all. With due apologies to Shakespeare, Hamlet was a soppy bore. ‘Rahul’, on the other hand, is a much more interesting chap. He forces the world around him into happiness, sings songs whenever he is sad or craving female attention and has a sense of humour about himself. Besides, he takes a good look at himself in the mirror, gets his act together and works hard at whatever it is he’s decided to do (even if its making Anjali fall in love with him).
So my profound advice to all of you this month is: Get off your asses and get with the programme. Be brave enough not to be lazy about who you can be and ought to be. Don’t be sorry for the beautiful human beings you actually are. The universe is a conspiracy of beauty with happiness hidden in the natural simplicity of its infinite complications. Don’t be daunted by life (or the sentence before this one, it’s designed to rid you of some intellectual laziness), just make sure you refuse to be lazy about living it well.
Now my work for this month is over. I need to get into my blanket, get some munchies and stare at the TV blankly. like a caveman staring at a fire after a hard day of hunting. Just so that I don’t feel lazy, this whole set up has been put in my gym, amidst the dumbbells and the smell of sweat. Till the next zodiac sign….zzzzzzzzzzz…..zzzzzzzz.


SOURCE : Click Here !!

 

 

SRK's photo-shoot for ONN (2014)

SHAH RUKH KHAN recently did a photo-shoot for ONN Premium Inners. King Khan tweets, "Lux cozy ONN. Hectic fun with boys who learnt from me & now can teach me. Thanx Deven & Buffy. Dabboo 2 much fun "

Here is a pic posted by SRK himself. Stay tuned for more pics .

LUX ONN is facing some issue about the latest photoshoot with SRK.

Therefore we have deleted the recent posted pictures of Shah Rukh Khan's ONN Ad shoot.

As soon as we get new pictures we will share them with you all soon !!


Finally LUX ONN releases the original picture of SRK from the photo shoot.

 

Yet another exclusive picture of Shah Rukh Khan posing for ONN (2014) .

Here's another one ..

[29/04/2014] Brand NEW pic from ONN :

[24/05/2014] Another NEW pic from ONN :

Stay tuned for more exclusive pics !!!!!

 

SRK For NDTV Prime

SRK at the launch of the documentary "Living with KKR " in Mumbai

 

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan launched Discovery Channel's series "Living with KKR" in Mumbai on 21 February.
"Living with KKR" is a four-part TV series that traces the journey of Shah Rukh's IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders, from their start, struggles in the past years to their triumph in IPL 5 (2012).

The series will feature Shah Rukh and some of the KKR players sharing their experiences.

Speaking at the event Shah Rukh said: "We will never sell the team; it goes up and down with us.
The players are like our children and now that we have won, we are all the more happy... I don't scold any player. I speak to everyone politely. They haven't lost the match purposely; even they are upset. You can't scold a sportsman, you have to believe them," according to apunkachoice.com.

The four-part series has been produced for Discovery Channel by Engage Sports media. "Living with KKR" will be aired from 24 to 27 February.

 

 

Aquarius is the humanitarian of the zodiac, writes Shah Rukh Khan

[Feb 2014] EDITION

▼Full Article▼

 

 

Quite straight forwardly, Aquarius is the humanitarian of the zodiac. Now let’s be clear, I like people who do things for other people, I also like people who do things for animals, global warming, world peace, underwater creatures, feathered beings, amphibians and pretty much anything and anyone out there who needs a helping hand. I even like the lofty sound of the word ‘humanitarian’, in fact after the word ‘legend’ it could possibly be my aspiration to have it carved into my epitaph: ‘Here lies a ‘legend’ of cinema, gentle and ‘humanitarian’, who smoked his way to paradise and never turned vegetarian’.
I get a lot of flak for not championing social causes and I’ll explain why later, in the meantime I looked up some ‘causes’ on the Internet with a view to co-opting one or other and saving my ‘Celebrity without a Cause’ reputation. Here’s what I came up with:
“David Gracer is on a one-man crusade with a modest goal: To save the world. While some would-be heroes hope to yank mankind from the jaws of extinction by eliminating greenhouse gasses or launching kickass covert military operations, David Gracer has another plan in mind. He wants to save the world through entomophagy, which means the key to our very salvation is to shun delicious hot wings and eat bugs instead.”
I’ve never been big on food, it’s just not one of my things. I guess I could try chewing on some cockroaches and crickets but I’m not sure it would save much more than my ever-growing eccentricities. Instead I could do my own version of ‘saving the world through my stomach’ by getting myself an eight pack.
My daughter and I were watching Two Broke Girls the other day. We watched the French guy take his shirt off; with all the smugness of a hero-worshipped father I asked her eagerly, “Is he hotter than I am?” “Of course he is, Papa” she replied giggling. I swore I would out-ab that French fellow, out-build his body, out-strip his 20-year-old chest and get him out of my beautiful daughter’s dreams. I threw myself into the gym as if I was Schwarzernegger preparing for his Mr Universe contest (20 years ago!!). The song in the background was of course Eye Of The Tiger and I kept mouthing the words: I’ll be back!
Reps never got repped as much as they did that evening. No man can afford to be ousted from his daughter’s, ‘hottest guy in the world’ count.
It’s just not on. I was counting on being her Mr Universe for the rest of my days.
Two days later, a door bigger than my wounded ego unhinged and fell on top of me. I now have a fractured shoulder, a disheveled kneecap, a scar on my noodle and a broken Mr Universe dream. I’m lying in bed watching TV with my daughter again and guess what? It’s Two Broke Girls and A Half Broken Man!!!
Clearly my ‘save the world through your stomach’ cause didn’t fly.
Here’s another worthwhile crusade I found: The ‘No one gets to do my dance but me’ crusade.
“Ric Silver owns the electric slide. Thanks to Ric Silver and his one-man crusade to stop people from performing the Electric Slide in public, anyone caught doing the Electric Slide will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. On what grounds does Ric Silver think he can stop everyone else from line dancing the night away? Because he owns the copyright to the Electric Slide.”
Now this one really got me thinking. If you’re going to own a cause, why not start by owning your own slick moves on the dance floor. ‘I’m going to copyright the Lungi Dance,’ I thought to myself in a surge of brilliance. I could patent the lungi and merchandise the moves. I started seeing images in my head: Animations, Lungi Dance figurines, top trump cards for different moves, tiffin boxes with Lungi Dance logos smattered across them, the works. I could even have a Lungi Dance police like the moral police that chases hapless loving couples out of parks and surreptitious corners.  
My fan clubs could volunteer their services to this great cause, we could print signs saying ‘The Lungi Dance is SRK’s’, ‘Don’t dance the Lungi Dance, dude’ or ‘Anyone dancing the Lungi Dance will be prosecuted in a court of law” and have demonstrations at the Jantar Mantar. We could even register as a political party and give some of our compatriots a ‘dance’ for their money.
Who knows, we might just catch the public imagination. I could change my look, wear a lungi and become a national hero. My political motto could be, “Jab politics ho jaaye Gungi, tab kholo unki Lungi.” If not my daughter’s hero, the nation’s will do. But I startled myself out of this fantasy within seconds. The thought of wearing the Lungi without a statuesque heroine accompanying me, is unwelcome and as I have said a trifle too airy for the Delhi cold. Brrrr. This dream will have to be frozen in time, right away! I might as well hang this cause up in the Hall of Fame for lost causes too.
The next cause I researched in my Encyclopedia Causica was this:
“Ed Lake investigator of fake porn: Anyone who says chivalry is dead has obviously never heard of Ed Lake. Since 1996 he’s been patrolling the internet protecting damsels in distress from the evils of photo editing software. Ever since seeing a fake nude photo of Gillian Anderson, Ed has dedicated his free time to “investigating” other celebrity nipple shots to determine if they’re the real deal. Because he’s a gentleman.”
Here was a truly wicked idea. I could hire someone to take up the cause for me. No image change, no sweaty public protests, no insanity workouts, this one was simple. Hire a guy to trawl the net day in and day out, all he has to do is find morphed pictures of me and have them vanish into thin air (I’m not sure how the vanishing part would work though). Better still, I could have a guy morph my head onto the French guy’s body and make this appear on my daughter’s screen every time she googled him. “Hotter than me” my last left ab!!
But as I was busy imagining myself materializing on my daughter’s Mac looking like a stud half my age, I happened upon this guy:
“Pennsylvanian man Jesse Rothacker covered himself in snakes, to protest the inaccurate portrayal of snakes in movies  Mr. Rothacker runs the “Forgotten Friends Reptile Sanctuary,” so maybe the frustration of spending eight hours a day trying to convince people that what their home really needs is a few more snakes drove him to these extremes. Oh, and he’s on record protesting that he should be allowed to carry concealed firearms in public parks. “
I’d just have to take this one up over the internet trawler. Snakes aren’t done any justice in the Indian film industry. Every time they’ve appeared on screen for the last 50 years, they’ve had the same sapera tune piped out in the background. They’re always made to look evil and vengeful, appearing suspiciously out of nooks and cranny’s or obsessively following those who accidentally ran over their spouses in another lifetime. They haven’t even been VFX’ed yet (please contact Red Chillies VFX, we have some amazing snake models) and worst of all, women dressed up like bad excuses for apsaras slither about doing snake dances, with scary contact lenses, while the real snakes in the movies come off looking like heroes. Also I have grown up with this confusion, that did Mr.Nicephore Niepce get the idea of a camera from a she snake’s eyes? Bollywood has made us believe that the Nagin takes pictures of anyone who disturbs the sanctity of her copulation with a naag, who incidentally always wears a skirt. I think more than me, the Snakes should form a crusade against this cross dressing, silver chloride kohl in the eyes, portrayal of their kin in the movies. I think I will have to drop this cause too. Sometimes it is better to leave the world problems to snakes, as they say.
Maybe I should just accept that causes are no more my thing than consuming cockroaches is. I doubt the idea of ingratiating myself in the public mind by exploiting other people’s misery will ever appeal to me. I have had enough misery in my own life to understand what it feels like to be a Tragedy Trophy. And I’ve heard enough conversations about people living in challenging circumstances while sipping champagne at charity balls too. This is not to say that I am cynical about all those people out there doing excellent work for the good of humanity. It’s just that, “humanitarian”, to me is just, being a little considerate, that’s all. It’s not a lofty thing at all. It’s the smallest way of doing the biggest things in life. “Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.” Albert Schweitzer. That’s all.
Its not a public thing either, it’s a private sustenance of goodness within the confines of the world I live in. I try.
Humanitarianism is an ethic of compassion founded on the age old idea of equality. Equality is the acceptance that all beings are born with an inherent dignity of their own for which they are owed respect in equal measure regardless of any notional or circumstantial contextualization.
In plain English (now that I’ve impressed you with my brilliance!): Each one of us is due a fundamental respect just for the fact that we exist, regardless of how anyone (or any circumstance) chooses to define us. All definitions are limited after all, because definitions and their connotations are based solely on our perceptions of the world around us.
I saw a lovely interview recently, of the president of Uruguay, Mr Jose Mujica in which he was asked what he felt about being labeled ‘the poorest president in the world’. “Those who describe me so are the poor ones,” he replied. “My definition of poor are those who need too much. Because those who need too much are never satisfied.” It was an interesting take from a self-effacing man who donates most of his earnings to charity and runs his country from a modest farm where he drives his own tractor. He was turning an idea everyone took for granted on its head. In fact, he was questioning the way the world chose to define both him and his so called poverty.
It is really quite beautiful to upturn accepted notions and go about my life renewing ideas constantly. I like to do it with my kids. Their relationship with me is not fixed in the classical sense that children relate to their fathers. I see them as companions on a journey, I learn from them and they learn from me. There is no assumed supremacy between us. I look at relationships through the prism of freedom and growth rather than confinement and control. This may be confusing for other people at times, but more than that, it is comforting. I genuinely believe, for example, that my beautiful starry car, belongs as much to my driver Mohan as it does to me. In fact, Mohan is even more emphatic about feeling this way than I am. This is a comfort to both him and me (and possibly to the car too!). I urge you to try this upside down living for yourself and see how it feels to look at people in a new light (PS: please exercise caution when applying these clever thoughts to your marriages!). I would like to think that humanitarianism is the ability to remove barriers created by the limits of our thinking and feel compassion for all living beings (including ourselves).  As Mother Jones put it, “My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I bide where there is a fight against wrong.” So fight the smallest of fights for the smallest of wrongs. Start this fight with yourself. Your inabilities sometimes to see the little wrongs that may stem from you. Let your “humanitarianism” travel with you all the time, every place not necessarily only in designated causes and organisations. If all of us do that, then we will have the biggest boldest humanitarian organization…the world itself. A little Utopian but as I said try the upside down living for a change. And you can try this at home, its absolutely safe and requires no big stunts.
I read that Aquarians are also the most futuristic thinkers of the zodiac. They’re supposed to be visionaries unable to remain caught up in pettiness or the past. Compassion is a product of seeing the largeness of the world and understanding our own insignificance in it. Both go hand-in-hand. No one would have to take up great causes if each of us made a little effort to open our minds towards each other and be kind every day. No one would feel the need to “save the world” if we all understood the immensity of our universe, its sheer beauty and the wonderful gift of life that it has given us.
In the words of Bob Marley, a famous Aquarian, “Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!”
I try this in a small way. Everyday. I also believe that celebrities should attach themselves to associations and causes to take forth their messages. The benefits of celebrities being attached to causes are not fabled but real and produce great results in awareness. The combined appeal of their creativity, and public persona brings about a transformation. But everybody is not a celebrity. As a matter of fact being associated with many such organisations, I feel my role is more important as an individual and how I would be if I did not have the celebrity tag attached to me. Therein lies my belief. We all need to develop a sense of not just seeing the cause but the need. And make it our ‘need’ to do something about it.
P.S. By the time you read this article, I just want to inform you, I am back to doing abdominal crunches. I needed to. Crutches or no crutches…I’ll be back. French guy take cover!

SOURCE :  Click Here !!

 

 

 

When KKR won, it was like the song 'I believe I can fly' I could have flown that night: Shah Rukh Khan

[ Jan 2014] EDITION

▼Full Article▼

The sign Capricorn is one of the most stable and (mostly) serious of the zodiacal types. These independent, rock-like characters have many sterling qualities. They are normally confident, strong willed and calm.

They are hardworking, shrewd, practical, responsible, persevering, and are capable of persisting for as long as is necessary to accomplish a goal they have set for themselves. They are tenacious and have a firm stick-to-it ness for any job they take on. Their loyalty to their goals and people they submit to are of the highest order.
Aah, I like that. Two words that stare back at me through these traits. Tenacity and Loyalty. One word that sounds to me like a boxer, like Tenacious Tyson or Smoking Joe Tenacious. The other could form the fourth in the siblings of Faith, Hope and Charity, or at least a cousin. ‘Hey, meet our cousin from the country, down here to visit us, Loyalty’. “Loyalty, this is our friendly grocer Mr. Greenfingers, say hello to him.” Kinda sounds okay to me. If it doesn’t to you in either case, then it must be some repressive debris from the recesses of my childhood. Either way, I am going with Tenacity and Loyalty for this months stargazing episode.
The Capricorn is a goat. It is diminutive, surefooted and strong. It climbs tenaciously and carefully but in case you’re already giving it too much survival credit, don’t forget it also gets fattened up and halal-ed on Eid (and tastes fairly good in a Hyderabadi biryani). Oops sorry PETA.
Al Capone was a Capricorn. What a legend he was; never mind that he ended up at Alcatraz where he continued to make enemies!
Apparently, he cut the line while waiting for a haircut from the prison barber. A Texas bank robber called James Lucas serving 30 years told him to get back to the end of the line. “Do you know who I am?” asked Capone, Lucas grabbed the barber’s scissors, brandished them on Capone’s neck and replied “Yeah, I know who you are, grease-ball. And if you don’t get back to the end of that fu@#*%g line, I’m gonna know who you were too.” Clearly, social skills aren’t a Capricorn forte or maybe it was just that Al Capone could afford to do without them.
A guy like Capone would have made much of loyalty though (after all, his life depended on it). He was accustomed to commanding the kind of loyalty that has become rare in the new world of expedience we inhabit. I hear the word used often. Loyalty. Being a Pathan I have my own semi-Capone style interpretation of it. Note: Over eager internet writers and misspelling high moral ground holding Twitter activists, do not make a controversy of me comparing Caponism to Pathanism or any such, idiotic comparison, that may pop up in your over fertile yearning for discussion. Please.  
I have come to believe that loyalty is not an intellectual quality at all. It is a rare kind of intuitive tenacity. The physical or moral object of loyalty is irrelevant because most professed loyalty is actually to none other than the self. When we say we are loyal to someone, it is generally to the idea of that person we have created in our minds that we are referring. Most often this idea has to do with what feeds us and satiates our own needs. It has little to do with the truth about the other guy or girl.
I remember watching the news years ago, when Michael Jackson cancelled one of his concerts because he fell quite ill. There were features showing ‘die-hard fans’ ripping up their tickets, raving and ranting about their sense of betrayal. Poor Michael was down with high fever or lack of oxygen, we will never know. It seemed an odd sort of loyalty that could turn so quickly into fury just because for that single moment, it’s object hadn’t lived up to the entertainment he had come to embody. I think, true loyalty bears allegiance to emotion, not to the self. It is the ability to remain true to what you feel without allowing your Self (and it’s silliness) to interfere with it.
Loyalty to a spouse, a lover, a friend, a company, a soccer team, even to the motherland or to certain values; all of these are actually reflections of ourselves.
Confession time. When our team suffered a string of losses I fell straight into the ‘loyalty’ to idea category. There was no consoling me, I cried like a baby. I blamed myself for being a star and putting extra pressure on the team. I grumbled at the staff. I blamed the players, growling away at them in my head. I suspected the colour of their jerseys. In fact, at some point I even did my own little Wankhade at home and banned the children from the room while watching matches... you name it, I had thought it up as a good reason for a bad performance. Then suddenly, one sweltering night in Chennai, we won! I remember standing atop the railing at the stadium, I remember the feeling: like the song ‘I believe I can fly’ I could have flown that night.
Then the victory settled quietly into us, I watched Gautam raise the trophy, I was carried by euphoric crowds in Kolkata. It occurred to me that I had been so attached to the idea of owning a winning team that I had allowed my loyalty to be defined by it. The idea of victory had overridden the sheer beauty of working with the team I had built with such passion and love. I realised I had missed the point a bit, missed noticing the boys who were trying their best against all odds, missed all the fun, the learning and the teaching that had made us so much worth being loyal to than just another trophy. Ummm, I’m not sure how to explain the semi take off stance on the railing that night though!
In the same way, let’s say you love someone, and you are loyal to that feeling, why should the other person’s behaviour, however, distasteful to you, change your ability to love him or her?
I faced this a lot in the initial years of my becoming a star. Friends and even family started to ignore me at get-togethers and some even gave me dirty looks. I was at loss at this sudden change. Sometimes my insecurity made me feel that perhaps they are unhappy with my choice of films or roles! Later, I got to know the reason. Their explanation was always the same. You have changed a lot. Of course, I had. From being a non-entity penniless, orphan I had become a household name. I had become rich and famous and above all extremely busy. I thought it should have made those who loved me proud, instead they were upset with me because they felt I had changed my ways with them. I was trying to harness the madness that had catapulted me into the stratosphere and make some meaning out of it. But most people didn’t understand that. Some thought I ‘ditched’ them and still believe so. As if I had calculated the entire episode and known all my life that I would become a big star and throw them by the way side.
I have never said this before, but I loved those people and still do. Maybe too much water has flown under the bridge to have the same times that we shared earlier together, but the fact is that I am the same person. It’s just the circumstances that have changed. The loyalty to our love for each other should not have changed. Even if I had somehow disappointed them or become a lesser person than the one they knew, why should their love have been conditioned by my failings alone.
The whole point of love is to be able to accept failings and feel compassion for the one you love. It becomes easy to feel betrayed when you imagine that your loyalty is to a person or an idea.
People change, ideas move, nothing remains constant or stagnant.
There is something disturbing about the kind of loyalty people tend to respect these days. It is disturbing because of its emphasis is on vacant exhibitionism. Take the way we are expected to show/(exhibit?) our patriotism, or express solidarity for causes that everyone feels riled up over (tweet instantaneously about them or be damned).
If we don’t shout out from the rooftops, we aren’t loyal enough and God forbid we have a sense of humour or a point of view we want to keep to ourselves! It just won’t do. The feeling we hold in our hearts seems to have applied for redundancy.
Everything needs external proof, especially emotions.
Anyone who has been blackballed by his wife for not producing an anniversary card knows what I am saying. But this goes for more serious issues too.
Friendships must be black and white, ownership driven or in constant need for allegiance and approval. I often read about Bollywood cliques for instance, how people supposedly switch ‘sides’ and exchange friendships for commerce. I find it all very amusing. A friend of mine was seen at the gym of a dietician, learning the belly dance to lose weight. The dietician happened to be the trainer of a supposed rival star of mine. The tabloids screamed, “Bhagirath loses weight and SRK loses a friend!!”  (Names of people have been changed to protect their identity and to basically send some other tabloids on a wild goose chase, to figure out who I am speaking about.. ha ha). 
Now how can a farcical fat burning attempt make me love a friend of mine any less? It’s an infantile and mean spirited thought. On the other hand, I really did consider disowning him for trying that ridiculous belly dance. He’s a burly hairy graceless man for God’s sake! I mean if it wasn’t so damn funny, him in his tracks tucked inside his socks, he deserved to be disowned just for that but hell, I decided to keep him around for comic relief. No that’s not true. I love him, belly dance and facile fat regardless. That’s the only way to love our friends, no matter what they do and who they decide to be or not be with.
I’ve never felt let down because someone dumped me for another actor, but I won’t lie, I’ve felt let down a thousand times when someone professed a hollow friendship to be true. I have never measured a friendship in what I could exact from someone or what was exacted from me. I don’t measure relationships at all in fact, to me they are not quantifiable (no wonder I have no friends!!).
But I do notice. I notice the lack of loyalty to a professed emotion and how easily it is abandoned for expedience. My father taught me to stand by the people I cared for, no matter what. Not because they were better than any others, but because I chose to care for them. In my heart this choice was like a life-long pact I made with myself. To stand for them meant to be true to the feeling in my heart. It required a certain tenacity of emotion. 

Pathans are historically renowned to die for their word. They will drive a battle into the ground for their honour. They are tenacious fighters (ask anyone who has ever tried to conquer the Frontier...!).
Tenacity is a sterling trait. Every great fighter knows this. Every time he is knocked down, he stands back up. In the end, it is not his ability to hit back that delivers victory. It is his ability to stand up again and again that tires the challenger out. I admire the tenacious. Mohammed Ali, my favourite of all fighters is also the notorious proclaimer of one of the coolest quotes ever: “If you dream of beating me, you’d better wake up and apologise,” he had declared.
In his first fight against Sonny Liston, he was the underdog with 7-1 odds against him. The fight went on to be one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. It lasted six rounds, at the end of round four, Ali felt a blinding pain in his eyes and asked his trainer to cut his gloves off as the ointment for cuts on his hands had rubbed into his eyes. His trainer refused. Ali was virtually blinded in the next round but he fought through it like a warrior. As it happened, his sweat and tears rinsed the irritation from his eyes. In the sixth round he mustered all his will and battered Liston in a rain of blows so that he could not even respond to the bell of the seventh round.
I am often called to different forums to talk about my life, invariably the topic is related to success. I never really know what prescription to give my audience (so I usually end up dancing the Lungi Dance). I tell them tall stories about the fear of failure and the fleeting nature of victory but if I had to name a single trait to cultivate in the quest for success, it would be tenacity. If you’re going to plod through this life, dig your heels in like a pit bull with a locked jaw in a dog fight. The odds are, you’ll win. Yappy Pomeranians never really cut it!
PS: I was sitting and writing this article and my daughter was reading a book titled, The Fault In Our Stars. I take my daughter’s books very seriously, since Twilight became such a big franchise.
It’s a book about two teenage lovers who both have cancer and are surely going to die. It’s the story of their love loyalty and the tenacity with which they want to live the last days of their life to the fullest. An excerpt from the book is as follows.
As Hazel and Gus often remind each other, the world is not a wish-granting factory. Nevertheless, “a forever within the numbered days” can be found, and as Hazel shows us, maybe that’s all we can ask for.
That I feel is the lesson of life that we all should learn and follow. The forever within the numbered days, of relationships, people and life itself which is temporary by nature, should be the quest and our goal. No matter what changes and what is taken away, your loyalty to your love should remain forever.
PSS: Damn! The book rights are already taken and soon to be made into a major motion picture.

SOURCE : Click Here !!