Here’s why Shah Rukh Khan chose ‘Jeetender Kumar Tulli’ as his name for Arya Samaj wedding with Gauri

And while Shah Rukh Khan chose a unique name for his wedding, Gauri too picked a Muslim name ‘Ayesha’ for their nikah ceremony. “We have not told this to many people,” the actor said in the book. Apart from the two wedding functions, the couple also had a court marriage.

While Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan had an inter-faith marriage, they seamlessly sailed through the differences. On many occasions, the couple has spoken about practicing both religions and bringing up their kids in a secular way. The couple tied the knot in 1991, and have three children Aryan, Suhana and AbRam.

 

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While Gauri Khan’s parents warmed up to Shah Rukh, they were initially not ready for the match. An excerpt in Shah Rukh Can states how her mother had swallowed a handful of sleeping pills, but miraculously survived. The couple later lied to them that they had gotten married, when they had just registered for a court marriage. Realising his love for their daughter, and how he was ‘not going to get out of their lives’, they gave in and blessed their relationship.

In an interview in 2008, Gauri spoke about the same and said her parents were “obviously not for it.” Gauri was only 21 years old when she married Shah Rukh, who was 26 at the time.

“We were so young and then to take a decision to get married and to a person who is going to join films, and being from a different religion,” she told Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla on their show First Ladies. Gauri recalled that they changed Shah Rukh’s name to Abhinav so the parents could feel that he was Hindu. “We changed his name to Abhinav so they feel he is a Hindu boy but that was really silly and very childish,” she recalled.

Shah Rukh Khan, talking to Outlook Turning Points in 2013, spoke about his children’s religion and said, “It will also keep my two children completely confused. Sometimes, they ask me what religion they belong to and, like a good Hindi movie hero, I roll my eyes up to the sky and declare philosophically, ‘You are an Indian first and your religion is humanity”, or sing them an old Hindi film ditty, ‘Tu Hindu banega na Musalmaan banega – insaan ki aulaad hai insaan banega’ set to Gangnam Style.”