Written by: Toufiq Rashid
4 min readJan 25, 2023 02:43 PM IST
First published on: Jan 25, 2023 at 02:35 PM IST
Yesterday, a message from a friend asked: “Are you free tomorrow? Do you want to watch Pathaan?” My eyes lit up and the fangirl in me wanted to jump with joy. However, the middle-aged, 45-plus me took a moment to react: What if there is protest or agitation at the movie hall? After all, there have been some attempts to work up a controversy around the film.
In the end, the fangirl won and I gave my consent, trying to rope in others. I wanted the safety of numbers and, more than that, a group of friends with whom to discuss Pathaan. No SRK movie is complete without the post-movie, “girly” gossip session. The only question now is: Will we get tickets?
Pathaan’s release takes me back to my journey as a Shah Rukh Khan fan. Like millions of other girls, SRK happened to me when I was in class seven or eight with the release of the TV show, Fauji. He must surely hate it when middle-aged women like me tell him, “We have grown up watching your movies”. Even if we have, he will always look ten years younger.
I loved SRK’s sense of humour and wit, his way with words, his courage and his intelligence. I was a teenager who, like thousands of girls my age, was crazy about everything he did, and every line he spoke.
Whether it was while talking about friends like actor Kajol and filmmaker Karan Johar, his wife, his children or pollution and the environment or politics, he always seemed to have the right answer. Despite living in Kashmir, where cinemas were shut down, I would do anything, risk anything, to watch his movies. The so-called combined study sessions were all about watching Dil To Pagal Hai and Pardes.
My obsession with SRK continued, even when my friends began making fun of his repetitive roles, saying he only had “five expressions”. I would find myself defending him for hours, much to the dismay of my mother. My husband knows about my love for SRK, as do my kids. Just till the other day, I would dance with my daughter to the songs from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. My then five-year-old and I both cried our hearts out when we watched SRK die in Raees while on a holiday in Bahrain. She, of course, vehemently denies it now.
However the “love affair” came to a temporary halt when I felt his silences had become deafening — when he refused to speak on anything as if nothing happening in the country concerned him, when people like me waited to hear his voice, when I waited for him to call out the bigotry, the hate, the divides.
The hurt was the greatest when even as some of the worst political decisions of our times were being taken, he was neither heard nor seen. We did not hear from him when Jamia Millia Islamia, his alma mater, was attacked, and when secular India came out to protest. I wrote an open letter on social media, which I am sure never reached him, in which I signed off as an “ex-fan”.
However, things have again changed for me in the last few years. I have begun to understand and empathise with his silence. I realise that silence doesn’t always mean submission and I understand what speaking up could cost a person like him and what that means for thousands earning their living from “brand SRK”. Maybe the silence is resilience, maybe it is not being apologetic for who you are, or maybe it is also a form of protest. I don’t know but I won’t judge now.
I am happy again to be a part of his fandom. Maybe not in as dramatic a way as before. But I will surely go to a theatre to relive my childhood love and I know that when he appears on the big screen, I will once again forget to breathe.
The writer works at the social media app, Pixstory
Tight security outside a theatre during the first day first show of Bollywood movie Pathaan, in Guwahati, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023. The movie is set for the release Wednesday amid calls for a boycott. (PTI Photo) 
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