It is rarely the looks that make an actor a star. If some people think Shah Rukh Khan made it despite his ‘ordinary’ looks, they have missed out on a charm that defines King Khan. People often criticize him as non-experimental, safe and repetitive. They’ve got it all wrong. It’s the entertainer in him that outshines all of that. It’s the ease with which he makes his heroine feel the queen, the nursing he provides the weaker ones in the film, the humour he brings into little details. And the fact that he carries this charisma even better off the screen makes him popular, especially among the youth.

“I have tried to satisfy and entertain all age groups but the youth have been more entertained by my films,” he said at an award ceremony recently. It’s the youthful attitude he displays, sated with his humour-laden dialogues and cheerful clothes that make him the guru of GenNext. In the past decade, the actor has only gotten younger and that is what always makes him strike a chord with his fans. He recently won the Youth Icon 2005 award and also the IIFA award for Best Actor for the film Veer Zaara. At the youth icon award, he was up against Wipro chairman Azim Premji, singer Sonu Nigam, cricketer Irfan Pathan, designer Manish Malhotra and tennis star Sania Mirza.
He is the megastar who started out with daring films like Darr and Baazigar that could have either made or wrecked his career. But he kept essaying his various roles with conviction. Shah Rukh’s is a case of hard work with the homework of a mastermind, who knows that it takes more than acting to make it in a land where a millions dreams die everyday.


Women haven’t forgotten the charisma that a young Khan lent to his character in the TV serial Fauji. That was when Hema Malini spotted him and asked him to play the lead in her directorial venture Dil Aashna Hai. His journey from there to probably the most talked-about house in Mumbai is considered the quintessential case of the boy next door who made it to the big league with differentiated genius. Everything he does today is news. From his back problem, his children’s visit on the sets of Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahi, to a burglary in his house, to his brother-in-law planning to enter films.

A theatre actor from Delhi who goes to Mumbai and doesn’t have what people call ‘conventionally good looks’, he should have made it only as a character actor employed as long as another Johnny-come-lately doesn’t show up. But Shah Rukh was a winner. He is an observer. And a pensive one at that. This comes through in the way the man conducts himself at interviews, on stage, with seniors and juniors in the industry and in public. Of course he has often faced flak for his lack of experimentation with roles, for the tremendous publicity he does for his films and for his chain smoking in front of TV cameras. As a role model for millions, he needs to get a bit more responsible just like his recent support of the ban of smoking on the big screen. “Don’t smoke, don’t drink and say no to drugs—firmly,” he said.