Since everyone is having their ShahGauri moment...wanted to share something I came across:
What is the most beautiful love story you have heard, read, or experienced?
I think it would be Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan. Personally I am not very much fond of his acting or the kind of movies he's been doing recently (like Chennai Express, Ra.One or Dilwale), but as a husband and as a father both, I think he has been a really great man, and I respect him from the bottom of my heart for that. If there's been any man who has been loyal to his wife despite the choice of his career (given that almost every Bollywood actor has either divorced his wife after gaining stardom or started an affair with someone), it's him!
This answer is going to be a long one, and I will cover only their love-story, and nothing else.
Since this question is about what's the most beautiful love story you've read/heard', so I will also share a lot of instances I read, and watched (from shows like Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai by Farooq Sheikh, Rendezvous by Simi Grewal, Koffee with Karan and many more shows where they revealed tiny bits of information about how they fell in love with each other and how their story progressed) and here are some of them -
- Born in Delhi into a Muslim household, Shah Rukh Khan's father Meer Taj Mohammad Khan was an activist in Peshawar before India's independence, while Gauri Khan was the daughter of colonel Ramesh Chandra Chibber. Hurdle number 1 - Inter-Religion alliance!
- SRK met Gauri in 1984, when he was 19 and Gauri was just 14. Yes. She was that young! He asked her out to dance in a party of some mutual friend, and Gauri rejected his offer saying that she's here with her boyfriend. It just broke his heart, but later he found out that the guy Gauri was referring to was actually her elder brother who was also present in that party. SRK said to her Consider me your brother too!' and that pissed her off. Then, afraid and uncomfortable, SRK went on to ask the mighty brother if he could dance with his sister, the brother agreed, but on one condition, that there will always be a six-foot distance between the both. So they danced while Gauri's brother was standing just next to SRK watching him like his next prey. This picture is of that party I guess -
- After that party, they exchanged phone numbers. It was the time when mobile phones were not introduced and landline phones were all people got. SRK used to call Gauri and if her brother would pick up, sometimes, he would speak in a chirpy voice acting' to be a girl asking for Gauri, and sometimes he would just hang up the call in fear of being beaten up by the elder brother! :P (SRK HIMSELF REVEALED THIS INSTANCE IN FARAH KHAN'S SHOW - Tere Mere Beach Mein).
- Gauri and SRK started dating, she fell for his wit, confidence and style, and she would often bunk her school to meet him. No, SRK was not popular/famous/rich at that time. Hurdle number 2 - Financial difference!
- In 1988, 4 years after meeting Gauri, SRK got his break on TV in a serial named Dil Dariya' and in 1989 he got his breakthrough from serial Fauji' which went on to become a really successful on-air show of that time.
- Gauri Khan, in an interview with Simi Grewal, talks about how he is always making people around him laugh with his witty comments and jokes. Shah Rukh also went on to say that he makes funny Qawwalis out of classic hindi songs in order to entertain Gauri :P
- Soon SRK became overly possessive for Gauri. She wasn't allowed to keep her hair open, let alone talk to any other male-friend. He didn't even allow her to wear white-tops as he thought they are see-through'. Sick and tired of the relationship, she celebrated her birthday at his place, and left for Mumbai the very next morning with her girl-friends. She was studying in Lady Sri Ram College at that time, and it was a college-trip.
- Heartbroken and sad Shah Rukh, decided to follow her - clueless regarding her whereabouts, he just asked a friend to join him. His mother lend him Rs 10000 and he reached Mumbai. Big city. Little time. For a few days he kept on searching for her but couldn't find her anywhere, and out of chance his friend suggested him to visit bandstand one evening, as Bandstand was one of the most popular tourist spots.
- Just a day before leaving Mumbai, SRK gave a shot to his friend's advice and went to Bandstand. Call it luck or coincidence, he saw Gauri with her friends, enjoying the sunset and the sea. She was not at all happy at seeing her possessive boyfriend there! :P
- SRK tried to apologize for his suffocating behavior and to woo her, he randomly said that one day he will buy her that' house. (He pointed at a bungalow owned by a Parsi, which stood tall at Bandstand, facing Arabian Sea). Thinking of it to be another sugar-coated promise, Gauri ignored it, and they patched up! FYI - This all happened before he got a break into movies!
- The next hurdle was marriage. Gauri had turned 2021 and SRK was 25. They decided to marry each other and the biggest challenge was to make Gauri's family agree for it. They devised a plan and Gauri introduced Shah Rukh at her home as a hindu'. She told her family that he had converted and changed his religion, but no, they weren't fools! Her father caught her lie in a jiffy and the problem increased.
- SRK and Gauri's brother were good friends by now, so Gauri's brother was the neutral one when it came to their marriage. With great difficulty and lot of will power and dedication, SRK and Gauri both somehow made her parents agree for the wedding, and the wedding was conducted as per Hindu rituals. The wedding happened on October 25, 1991.
- The struggles did not end here. They were married, but they couldn't afford their own home! For initial period after the wedding, SRK and Gauri stayed at Director Aziz Mirza's house (Aziz Mirza was the director of TV serial Circus, in which SRK was playing the lead). Gauri would work and help in the household, while SRK was gone for shooting for days at stretch. Meanwhile, he got offers from movies.
- They could not even go to their honeymoon as SRK was busy with his movies at that time, and he wasn't in a position to delay or change schedules, being a new-comer in the movie-business, so he took Gauri along to Nepal while shooting for Hema Malini's movie "Dil Aashna Hai, and that also counted as the couple's honeymoon!
- It was so difficult that Gauri's mother asked her to come back and that they would take care of her. They did not want their daughter to live in someone else's house like that. Soon SRK bought his own One-BHK flat in Mumbai, which was again nothing, but a shoe-box compared to Gauri's house and her lifestyle in Delhi. Despite all offers from her parents and her family, she decided to stay with SRK and told her parents that they are coming to Delhi soon!
- Gauri, who was living totally alone in the house, would pray that SRK would flop as a movie star so that they would shift to Delhi and he would rather act in TV serials, so that she got to stay close to her family :P (she has revealed this thing in Rendezvous by Simi Grewal)
- In June 1992, SRK's first movie "Deewana was released which gave kick-start to SRK's career as a Bollywood hero. Gauri's prayers were not heard, of course and SRK went on to deliver hits after hits.
- Soon they shifted to a bigger apartment in Bandra, where they had their first child - Aryan Khan - in 1997. (Below is a picture of baby Aryan with his mother)
- After Aryan, in the year 2000 - their daughter Suhana was born.
- Aamir Khan rejected the role of an obsessed lover in Darr. Salman Khan refused to play the ruthless avenger in Baazigar and Saif Ali Khan rejected DDLJ. All these roles fell through to SRK who contrived the off beat roles with his own style, passion and hard work and made them bigger than life. These roles are what made Shah Rukh Khan the superstar.
- SRK was getting bigger movies, and better money. And what he did next was fulfill a promise he made to Gauri, way back when they were dating. He did not forget about the bungalow that he wanted to buy for Gauri, the one facing Sea on Bandstand.
- In the year 2001, one evening, he comes home, calls Karan Johar, Farah Khan, and some more of his friends, and asks them to accompany him. Nobody having any idea about what's going to happen next, join him and SRK takes them to a strange looking bungalow. On the terrace of it, he throws a party for everyone, and that is when Gauri realizes that her husband has done something really insane this time - he had bought this huge bungalow which was way out of their budget!
- The bungalow at that time cost Rs 1315 crore, while SRK could afford a place only worth three times less, but he pooled all his resources and any how bought the house. He named it Mannat'. (Gauri revealed this entire story in a show named The First Ladies' with Abu Sandeep). Today this house is over Rs 2000 crores! And certainly her parents no more ask her to come back to Delhi anymore :P
- After Mannat, SRK's next big move was launching his own production house Red Chillies Entertainment' where Gauri started her career as a producer and then buying the IPL Cricket Team named Kolkata Knight Riders'. There was no stopping for him.
- Despite it being an inter-religion alliance, SRK never forced her to stop worshipping Hindu gods. They taught their children to believe in one God and they celebrate all festivals with equal enthusiasm, be it Muslim or Hindu.
- Shah Rukh Khan, during 23 years of his cinematic career, has led a love scandal-free life. While questioned about this, he answers with all his wit, "Whenever there's going to be a choice between a piece of ass and peace of mind, I would always choose the later one. I'm deeply in love with my family which also includes my wife. Later, he cleverly adds that, "I have, like Picasso, taken all my sexual energy and put it into my work. So, the work is sexy and the outdoors, a little unsexy.
And now, he's called The Badshah of Bollywood' and Gauri - the first lady. They had their third child AbRam in 2013 via surrogacy, and this is one of those few couples, who never really fell out' of love.
When Gauri was asked in an interview, why she never dated any other man, and rather married the first love of her life, she happily answered "Instead of dating and experimenting with other men, I invested my time in improving my relationship with the one man I had in my life...
PS - For all the girls who say they want to have a husband like SRK - ask yourself are you willing to sacrifice everything for a man who has nothing and then help him reach the zenith of his success? Are you willing to marry a middle class man and help him become a millionaire? Anyone can marry a millionaire and lead an easy life. Gauri Khan has an easy life now' because she has lived' through the difficult times and she deserves it. She has access to every luxury of the world today', only because a few years back she couldn't even afford a house-maid to do the cleaning or laundry either. She worked her way up and helped her husband become a success. So, to have a husband like SRK, become a Gauri who is willing to participate' in her husband's struggle and isn't there just to eat a chunk of his success! :)
Veer Hanuman
Kumkum Bhagya
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