India's getting a li'l cramped for Shah Rukh Khan.
Like Genghis, another Khan conquistador, India's most-loved is stretching his legs … leaving footprints in faraway Toronto, adding to the impressions in the USA, UK, Malaysia and Singapore; everyone's walking the SRK walk.
But like the perennial 'cool rider' - he stays calm, unaffected. In fact he contradicts the statement …
"No! India can't get small for anything. It's a vast nation and we've got plenty more people being born every minute. It's quite a challenge to be working here and entertaining people.
Of course, you can also make an attempt to go out and be a kind of an ambassador, perhaps not the best one; but for whatever it's worth, to talk of Indian cinema on world forums is a high. I got such one chance with KANK; inspite of 4-5 other films also there.
It's a good thing that foreign markets are looking at Indian films - in a small way, but they're looking."
"As for the Genghis Khan bit, its coincidental, I actually finished reading a book on him recently. Apparently, he was one of the nicest people, unlike what most people think.
He was also a great administrator. He was the first guy to teach administration to the world.
But because history is written by the victors and not the vanquished, we read it from the side of the Europeans. And that could be lopsided."
Yeah! He also was the world's number one Alpha male with his genes all over the continents. Similarities? "Yes! His genes are all over the world, but my films are all over the world."
No fire, no smoke … talking of which, your smoking scenes in 'Don' seem to have lit another kind of controversy?
"It's in the movie. It's part of a scene. But if the health advisory says smoking is bad, it's bad; I completely agree with that. My disagreement is only if it is in a film and not reality. Anyway, it's no big deal, huh? Frankly, it doesn't make you a better actor if you're a smoker?" Still, does a don have to smoke?
"Actually he doesn't have to. Nobody's seen the film yet, but in it he says 'I'm trying to give it up because it kills you.' He doesn't actually like cigarettes."
So much huffing and puffing about that one… we switched to another sholay - between him and Ramu? He'd been dropping some quotable 'James' (oops, gems) about 'SRK's superstardom being thrust upon him'?
"Actually, I really don't know what to say. If I'm working with someone, I know things about them because I'm in constant touch with them. Then, when I read their interviews, I understand them.
Seriously, I've really outgrown this and am beyond all of it now. I don't know how to say it, what to say. If you don't like something, you don't like it.
Everybody has the right to say what they feel. As far as I'm concerned, I can't comment on Ramu's work, because I haven't seen it. I haven't met him. But maybe he's right about my 'superstardom being forced upon him'."
And hopefully, his next Yashraj film, 'Chak De', should put to rest the rumors about 'so-called' problems with the Chopras?
"No I don't think so. You used the word 'rumour' I don't think that rumours are meant to be justified or given the dignity of an answer.
Whether I do eighteen films with them or I don't do a film with them after speaking this to you - rumours will always be there. Rumours mean just that. "
- Omar Qureshi
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