Aamir , Salman and I have a kind of non-blood brotherhood: Shahrukh

What is your relationship with your contemporaries especially the Khans?

I wish everyone well, and I am sure they wish me well too. We (the Khans) have been doing this [acting] for too long. Initially, for the first 5-6 years, when there are new actors, such things (competition etc.) might happen, especially when people around you talk on those lines but when you have been there [in the industry] for so long, two things become very clear firstly, if people say that you are done with when a newcomer is making his/her debut, it's not true. I have seen enough of that, and secondly, if someone says, you are competing with your contemporaries,' then that's not true either since the contemporaries' have known each other for very long.

Over the past few years, your equation with Aamir and Salman has been talked about a lot?

If anyone saw us [contemporaries] the most of us sitting together, they would be surprised. I am not extremely friendly with some [actors] as we don't know each other personally. But if Aamir, Salman and I specifically sat down and chatted, you would see a very different relationship. So, for instance, Aamir can say, yaar, tune abhi tak Dangal (2016) dekhi nahi (you haven't watched Dangal till now).' And I will tell him, I will watch it when I am free.' So, he will say, You call me up; I will come over.' In fact, I had called him the other day but he was leaving for a foreign country.

So, the three of you never talk about films?

We don't talk work at all. In fact, we have never done it. So, our equations are on a very different level. We never sit together, gauge and judge that, accha, meri film nahi chali (oh, my film didn't do well).' It's not like Salman will ever sit with me and say, oh, your film didn't do very well. What have you done?'

Do you see any common factor between you, Salman and Aamir?

I think all of us know that we share something common but that commonality is not films or stardom. That commonality is something else, which we also don't know. So it's very difficult [for us] to assume that [other] people will know about it and so, we will compete about that commonality. I don't think so.

Till date, a number of stories have done the rounds vis--vis the rivalry' between Aamir, Salman and you...

To be absolutely honest, there is no such feeling (of competing with one another). The easiest thing would be to say either yes or no, but there is nothing like that between us. When we talk to each other, I think work is the last thing on our minds.

So, can it be safely said that you three share a special relationship that people can't see from the outside?

I think the three of us know that we have something in us that makes us think on similar lines. So, if I say something, Aamir will understand and if Salman has to say something, Aamir and I will understand, and that's how it goes. There might not be any fourth person in the world who has been doing it for so long and will understand the same things. Even we don't understand or try to understand that camaraderie. We know about each other's feelings.

Do you see any common factor between you, Salman and Aamir?

I think all of us know that we share something common but that commonality is not films or stardom. That commonality is something else, which we also don't know. So it's very difficult [for us] to assume that [other] people will know about it and so, we will compete about that commonality. I don't think so.