Open letter to Shahrukh Khan
Dear SRK,
Ever since I read that security around you had been beefed up following the alleged threat call that you received from underworld don Ravi Pujari, I along with countless others across the world have been concerned about you.
Frankly, the concern, though more heightened now, began a while ago: the sight of your angry vein-popping dark rage at Wankhede Stadium on what ought to have been the day of your great triumph; your bitter self deprecating remarks on public platforms about your loneliness and pain; the sight of your tense cigarette-smoking visage at IPL matches; the news of your health scares and surgeries; the needless and gratuitous hurt caused to you and your family by State authorities after the birth of your son - all this has led those who love you to perceive your palpable distress, notice the tension in your persona, feel your pain.
Lonely is the head that wears the crown and by that adage, you must be one of the loneliest people on the planet today.
Few can understand the extent of your isolation, the trauma of your fishbowl existence or the pressure on you to continue at the pace you've set for yourself.
Perhaps the problem arises because people like you who lead larger than life existences cease to be regarded by others and often even themselves as only human.
Human in their need for genuineness and peace; human in their emotional vulnerabilities and fallibilities; human in their body's fragilities and insecurities.
Too often, we the public have not realised that our icons and brightest stars are people too.
Michael Jackson, Princess Diana, Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston, Robin Williams - the list of those we've lost due to the pedestal we placed them on is a litany of reproach.
Why did we not sense their anguish, understand their stresses, and reach out to them in time so that they didn't carry their crosses alone?
Extremely talented, brilliant, successful and popular people are too often victims of their image, prisoners of their legend.
Their driving need to succeed, to stay at the top to keep hearing the applause, to never stop performing, coupled with an often cruel and insensitive public is a double whammy.
No one understands that beneath it all, under the faade and the make-up, they too are just fathers and brothers and sons and daughters -coping with every day pressures and anxieties like the rest of the world.
So this letter to you, dear Shah Rukh, is to tell you to be a bit easy on yourself and to know that you do not have to be the Badshah, the King, the Emperor or the Superstar - 24x7.
That your fans and well-wishers would like to see you happy and cheerful and free from stresses and worries as much as they would your chart-breaking films or your dance performances and other public appearances.
Next year you will be 50, SRK, and undoubtedly there will be a spate of celebrations across the country to commemorate the happy occasion.
I hope while you receive all the adulation and love, you also find time to look back on your extraordinary life and allow yourself to feel the enormity of your achievements; I hope your health issues are behind you, that odious dons like Pujari have the sense to leave you alone; that your films and cricket teams do resoundingly well.
And most of all I hope that you know how much you are loved and that you are not alone.
With every good wish etc
The writer believes in the art of letter writing
www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report-open-letter-to-shahrukh-khan-2014975
ps: mods can close this thread, if its already posted.
Anupamaa
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