'My reflexes are very fast'

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sheetal

@sheetald

Rocker

Posted: 19 years ago

SRK: The sportsman. The poet. The star.

Most of us are quite updated about superstar Shah Rukh Khan's life and times.

But only a few actually know the man behind the actor. And fewer know about his life before he became a star. Mushtaq Shiekh caught a glimpse of the man when he penned his book, Still Reading Khan. Here, in an excerpt, he shares some of that with rediff.com. The twilight has just broken over Mannat, and I sit on the edge of my seat. In the darkening gloom I eye the recorder nervously, can't even see if the damn thing is moving? Is it picking up Shah Rukh's rapid-fire reminiscences of his early years as an actor? Of the first time he earned money by acting, when he was about nine? So animated is Shah Rukh that I can almost visualise the scene. He's talking about the first house he remembers, the one in Rajinder Nagar. On the verandah, a chaadar (sheet) suddenly makes an appearance; it seems to have a life of its own as it billows around, finally to rest on a wire drawn across the length of the verandah. As the apparition settles down, five pairs of grubby hands grab it from the top, pull it down just enough for the boys to peep out. They then step out to view their work. It looked good. The verandah was the stage, and the chaadar, sneaked out of his mother's trunk and draped over the wire, was the makeshift curtain. This was Shah Rukh's first staged performance. It seems prophetic today that these first scripts in Shah Rukh's childhood came from lurid, two-penny Hindi masala (thriller) novels, often picked up because of their 'interesting' titles. The plots had the hero, Inspector Vikram, solving the most intrepid problems in books like Khooni Panja (The Bloody Paw) and Raat Ke Andhere Main Cheekh (A Scream in the Dark Night).

The scripts were then written and performed by the gang -- Praveen, Teeny, Shah Rukh, Kitti and Bittu. The audience consisted of boys from the mohalla, who would pay a rupee to watch the play. Shah Rukh was even then the 'popular' entertainer, but his films have not quite matched up to the kitsch titles of his early productions. But at that time, Shah Rukh had never thought of acting, professionally that is.

It does seem fantastic, but if one were to describe the young Shah Rukh, he would be a lot like Raj, the character he played in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. The way the introductory scenes portray him in the movie is exactly what he was like then. Much like Raj, Shah Rukh's main interest in school was sports. St Columba's Boys High School would wind up its scholastic activities by two or three in the afternoon, after which Shah Rukh would head straight to the practice grounds -- for football, hockey and cricket. I raise my eyebrows. All three? "All three. I was just like what I am now. I could do five things at a time. I am a multi-tasker," he says, lounging in his chair. But which one was he good at? "All three," he says. "And I was the captain, captain of all three."

He leans forward, shifts the stuff on the table and fires footballs positions at me. "In football, I was the left out at times, but I was better at right. It was the 4-2-4 formation. Earlier it was 5-3-2. In 4-2-4, the winger, the inside actually, performs the job of a centre forward and the left in. In 5-3-2, there was the centre forward, there was a right in, left in, right out, left out. Five players. When it became 4-2-4, these two guys did the job of the centre forward and these two became the left in. So I used to play the right in. The right out is the flank. And there is no centre forward in 4-2-4; two guys go into midfield and four guys for defence or it could be changed to 4-4-2."

I stare nervously at Shah Rukh's finger drawing imaginary players on the table, my mind drawing a blank. This is much Greek and Latin to me. I hope my annoying recorder is picking this up at least. Shah Rukh then hurtles down to the cricketer's crease. He was the wicket keeper. And captain, of course! He wasn't a great bat, coming in fourth down or fifth down. But he made up for it with his excellent wicket-keeping skills. "My reflexes are very fast," he explains.

In hockey, Shah Rukh was the centre forward. Though he loved cricket the most, it was hockey that he excelled in. And he admits it without any shred of modesty. "I was fantastic at hockey. I was a very good wicket keeper in cricket. But as far as importance for a team goes, I was a fantastic centre forward. Main kahin se bhi gol kar sakta tha (I could score a goal from anywhere)." But it was a skill that got him a few blows too. While playing for Hans Raj College once, he'd executed a masterly last-minute rescue operation, leading his team to win against the favourites, Khalsa College. The Khalsa team was a formidable one, many with no serious interest in anything but the stick and the ball, some even having failed their college exams thrice in a row. There were five minutes to go, when a young boy in red shorts scored a surprise hat trick. After the first goal, even as the Khalsa team went hoarse yelling, "Lal chaddi ko pakad, lal chaddi ko pakad (Catch the one in the red shorts!)", the light-footed boy made two more goals, to win the match for his college. The Khalsa team, however, made up in blows for the goals that they lost. And the one appointed to beat up Shah Rukh was none other than Gauri's brother! But that is another story, which I will come to later.

Did I mention that Shah Rukh was an athlete too? Hundred metres, 200 metres, 400 metres: he'd won championships in these races. "I was very fast," he confides. It was a talent that apparently landed him with the nickname Mail Train.

Excellence seems to have been his motto in every aspect of school life. But it could be gained only through hard work. He abhorred jotting down notes, preferring to listen instead. If at any point, he was asked a question he could not answer, he would writhe in shame. He needed to know the answers. He still needs to know all the answers. He still feels cornered and ashamed when he doesn't understand what the other person is talking about.

It was this trait that served him well in school. He refused to take tuitions, preferring to understand the subject by himself. He would read the text and try to work it out by himself. Which, he reveals, didn't quite work with mathematics. It was so complicated, he says, that he would neither be able to read it till the end, nor get the final solutions. Shah Rukh notched up several awards in school. He got the Ravi Subramanian Award in Class XII, given to the student with outstanding performance in all 13 years of school. The previous year, he'd been awarded the Sujit Memorial Prize. Unluckily, just the year before he received this award, the Oxford scholarship that went with the prize had been withdrawn. At school, he took his first step towards creative activities to curry favour with Mrs Hudm, an excellent teacher with whom most of the students were in love. "I think I wanted to be her favourite, and I loved her. And one way to become her favourite was to take part in elocution competitions." After the elocution contests came the inter-class plays and then, somewhere along the line, he began to write small plays himself. Shah Rukh, however, had begun with couplets. "Coming from an Islamic family, everyone around me spoke in Urdu. My father would read us bedtime stories in Urdu and sometimes also recite the poems of Ghalib and Iqbal. I guess my interest in writing couplets arose because of this. My father encouraged me to think of couplets and write poems. He even kept a book in which he would write down, in his own hand, all that I recited in Urdu. I still have it with me. It is one of my fondest possessions," says Shah Rukh. As a kid, his father would give him permission to go to the Chavva Saab Ki Ram Leela that was performed right behind his home. The performance would go on till two or three in the morning. At times, Shah Rukh would read out his shayari (couplets in Urdu) or participate in the shows -- playing the role of a monkey. At around one or two in the morning, when the Ram Leela troupe took their tea break, a bleary-eyed announcer would come up the stage: "Ab ayega ek chota sa bacha saath saal ka, Sharook, jo aapko thodi si shayari sunayega (And now a young kid of seven will come and recite his poetry)." Shah Rukh would go up on stage recite his shayari, one of which went like this:

Parinde udthe hain main dekhta hoon
Log chalte hain main dekhta hoon
Apne huliye ko dekh kar main rota hoon
Kise kya malum main kin sapnon main khota hoon

(I watch as the birds fly
I watch as the people walk
I watch myself, and cry
Who know what dreams I lose myself in)

The announcer would then announce a small cash prize for the child, "Gupta sahib ki taraf se bache ke liye...(From Mr Gupta, a little something for the child)". This was sometimes as much as Rs 500. Clutching the money, Shah Rukh would go home, thinking of his next poem. As a seven year old, Shah Rukh had charmed the cockles of an aunt who'd insisted on Shah Rukh's tukbandi. "She used to have on this very prominent lipstick on her face -- if I remember right, pink lipstick. And I remember reciting to her: Log kehta hain ki meri aunty ke hont gulabi hain
Main kehta hoon ki meri aunty ke ankhen sharabi hain." (They tell me that my aunt's lips are like a rose
I tell them that my aunt's eyes are intoxicating)

At home, Taj Mir would often call his son brahmachari. "Tu brahmachari hai yaara, mere ghar main brahmachari aaya hai (You are a celibate, a celibate has come to my home)." And though he never spoke of it to young Shah Rukh, the boy knew that bramhachari was his father's younger brother, whose love for the fine arts had kept him from marriage. At home, his parents would often call upon Shah Rukh to perform to his favourite songs. Mumtaz was his favourite actress, and he was often asked to perform to her songs.

Histrionics had been part of him even in his childhood. He'd charmed his chemistry teacher into increasing his grades by telling her that he was like her son. "I also used to feign an attack of epilepsy very often. I'd 'faint' in the classroom and the teachers had to take off their shoes for me to smell. Once, when we had a new teacher, I 'fainted' and the other kids convinced him that if he didn't give me the suede shoes he was wearing, I'd die. He had to roam around barefoot the rest of the day."