'Raj, naam to suna hi hoga.' To claim that a good chunk of India knows who Raj is, is not an exaggeration. And definitely not to someone who grew up in a small town in the country in the 80s and 90s. India was at the cusp of change with liberalisation as the catalyst. Both the country, and the world at large, appeared to have shrunk. Everything was achievable, and Shah Rukh Khan's Raj in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) represented that ambition. The youth wanted more. Shah Rukh's character, an 'upper middle class' person who lived abroad, was no different. He wanted love, and boy, did he get it back, many times over. Soon, SRK became the poster boy of liberalization, a fact that a handful of filmmakers and writers (including director Tigmanshu Dhulia, and author Shrayana Bhattacharya) have pointed out. The generation, who were around his age, or even a couple of decades younger, looked up to the NRI 'global desi' figure the superstar painted in his films. Even six years down the line, when Shah Rukh became Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham's Rahul Raichand, the effect was similar. After all, Rahul was an orphaned boy who grew up to be capable enough to handle his father's large business, and then leave everything and move to the UK in order to set up his life all over again. The idea of patriotism, ever since the beginning of actor's career, had very little to do with the chest-thumping jingoism we have now come to associate with patriotic movies, or more appropriately, nationalistic films. Shah Rukh's patriotism was a little 'hatke'. He (and his collaborators) wanted the average Indian to dream big. They wanted his fans to know that you could be this Indian too, the one who made the big bucks away from homeland, whilst managing to keep its culture and 'parampara' close to his chest. No wonder then, that SRK's K3G and DDLJ connected with the Indians who were living away from the country. They could see themselves in this Rahul/Raj, and so could the ones back home - that was the Shah Rukh magic people gravitated towards and lapped up hungrily. And trust Shah Rukh Khan to seamlessly blend his idea of what being an Indian is, with the complicated emotion of love, so that both were fused together, one almost indistinguishable from the other. At least, that was the case in Mani Ratnam's Dil Se (1998), Aziz Mirza's Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani (2000), Ashutosh Gowariker's Swades (2004) and Yash Chopra's cross-border love story Veer Zaara (2004). In Dil Se, Shah Rukh was an All India Radio journalist who wanted to cover the geo-political tensions in Northeast India. There, he encountered Manisha Koirala's stunning Meghna and became obsessed with her. Now, she, as the readers would recall, happened to be a part of United Liberation Front of Asom (an armed separatist organisation). In the end, both Meghna and Amar die together, for their ideology, and for the love of 'their' land. In Mirza's Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, Shah Rukh's character represented the Indian media who's willing to go to any lengths for a juicy byte. In the feature, he first competes with his frenemy Juhi Chawla's Ria, and then - even as the pair falls for each other - they decide to give voice to the voiceless. The journalist Shah Rukh moved on to later join hands with a NASA scientist SRK, and in the same year, an Air Force officer SRK in Swades and Veer Zaara, respectively. In both the films, a much more grounded Khan showed what it takes to be a loving, aspirational Indian. The great 'Shah Rukh Khan mixture of love for partner, and love for India' shone brightly in these films. In the late Chopra's feature, this was more in-your-face, with Khan portraying an Indian officer who falls in love with a Pakistani woman (played by Preity Zinta). He is even imprisoned for it by the Pakistani government. But in Gowariker's earthy, much more mellow Swades, he played Mohan Bhargava, a scientist who permanently moves to India after living in a village and working with its people for a brief period of time. In the movie, he is partly inspired by his romantic interest Gita (a credible Gayatri Joshi), a modern educated woman who chooses to use her knowledge to teach the underprivileged. Three years later, Shah Rukh's patriotism became more pronounced with the 2007 Shimit Amin directorial Chak De! India, but still pretty rooted when compared to today's films. His Kabir Khan, a disgraced hockey player, is roped in to coach a women's team of unruly professionals. He hopes to take them to victory, to prove that he is no traitor, but a proud and passionate sportsperson who just wanted his team to win. Both in Chak De! India and the 2010 Karan Johar film My Name is Khan, Shah Rukh's on-screen persona deals with the double edged sword of patriotism and religion; reinforcing how the latter has nothing to do with former. In these films, Khan, who is a Muslim himself, seemingly reminded his naysayers that he is not just his religion, he is not even his nationality, he is something bigger - an entertainer. A creative individual who has little to do with boundaries and everything to do with love (for the arts). In Pathaan, Shah Rukh Khan makes his comeback to the 70 mm screen after a long gap of four years. By the looks of the promos, Pathaan wears his love for India on his sleeves. This time around Khan's patriotism is louder, because that is what the audience understands now. His allegiance to his country is larger than life, stylish and dripping with the full-bodied dialoguebaazi of Hindi cinema. Sample this line from the trailer - 'Ek solider ye nahi puchta desh ne uske liye kya kiya hai, puchta hai wo desh ke liye kya kar sakta hai' (A solider doesn't ask what his country has done for him, instead he asks, what can he do for his motherland?). He even tops it off with a 'Jai Hind.' But in the end, all that matters is whether Pathaan is able to convey what the actor himself actually believes to be true patriotism. In a 1997 interview with actor Farida Jalal, Shah Rukh - whose father Meer Taj Mohammed Khan was one of the youngest freedom fighters of India - had defined what he understands by the term 'Indian.' "When we were kids, we were asked to write an essay on 'My country India'. I think that should be changed, it should be the country is India, and we are the citizens of this country. We don't own India. Ownership doesn't mean this is our India. It means what we have to do for our country. My father used to say that the freedom we have won for you is hard-earned, so protect it. At the time I used to think, freedom from foreign rule or something, but after growing up I understand what he meant. (It means) having freedom of press, freedom of speech, freedom from poverty." Pathaan released in cinemas on January 25.
