Happy Birthday Shah Rukh! Here’s the only gift I can offer :)

Hi Shah Rukh, wish you a very happy birthday. My mere mortality would laugh in my face if I even tried to comment on the scale of celebrations happening around you and in your fandoms, especially after the humongous success of Happy New Year (Yay!), so the less I say the better.

I would like to do something for you on your birthday, but my lack of options worries me. I can’t write poems, can’t sketch your dimply face (though you very kindly shared some of the dodgier fan arts on Twitter too), and my sanity doesn’t allow me to tattoo or carve your name on my skin. So I’ll be satisfied by wishing you in the only way I can-through my blog.

Generally open letters are vicious spectator sports, designed to shred the recipient into pieces to the collective glee of people reading them, sort of like a bull fight or the gladiator arenas of the olden days. But this post is a love letter masquerading as an open letter, so it would be a good time for people allergic to PDA to get off this feels train right about now.

It would be easy to pepper this post with a lot of your memorable dialogues but I won’t talk about your films, roles or other very successful endeavors . What I will do is tell you what Shah Rukh Khan stands for in my eyes. Of course you are the romantic hero that has made a million female (and a lot of male) hearts flutter, the possessor of tawny eyes and impossibly deep dimples that you have knowingly exploited to pull at our heartstrings. And you arguably also have the best set of hands and forearms in the world, of which I’d like to make a cast and keep at my house, for, you know, research purposes.

But above and beyond all of that, you’re Shah Rukh Khan, so much more than the sum of your parts. You are witty, well read, self deprecating, an interviewer’s dream, chivalrous and an enviably good father who takes pride in his children. What’s not to like, right? You make it pretty easy for a fan to like you. I don’t know if I’m explaining this right, but I would love you even if you weren’t rich, if you started giving boring interviews, or even stopped making films (please don’t do any of the above). The affection that I have for you goes beyond all of this, and has entered the realm of just wanting good things for you and being happy in your happiness, regardless of what you are or what you do.

Before Facebook and Twitter made declarations of fanaticism a little too easy, my liking of you was displayed in the confident reply of ‘Shah Rukh Khan’ whenever someone asked me who my favorite actor was. I confess, like many other teenagers, I was blown away by Hrithik Roshan’s perfect debut, and later by Ranbir Kapoor’s effortless acting, and the genetic lottery that is Sidharth Malhotra (seriously, there has got to be a cap on good features in a single person) But in spite of these transgressions, I knew that no one else could even come close to replicating the effect that you have on me.

I like most of your films, and I love you in all of them. Except Hum Tumhare Hai Sanam, but we’ll forget you were in it because it’s your birthday. I’m happy when your films do well and you earn money and break box office records (take that 3 Idiots!). I’m thrilled when you win awards, and I grin and clap like a monkey toy on Energiser whenever you come on TV. I shocked myself about how happy I was when you laughed openly and wholeheartedly on Comedy Nights with Kapil, glad that you had some moments of genuine mirth. I hate it when you look sick or sleep deprived during promotions, masking your fatigue with sunglasses. 

While I’m never starstruck by actors I see at events, I have stared at you unblinkingly like a creep on the three occasions that I’ve seen you, and literally squealed and skipped with joy when you gave me a half hug after an interview. Everybody who knows me to some degree knows that I’m your fan, and while I didn’t mean to be ‘that crazy fan’, I think my vehement defence of you and all your films against anyone who questions it gave it away. So much so that even my Teach India learners knew that they would be marked absent on the day they said anything unflattering about you. #justkidding

Obviously I’m not blind or crazy enough to say that you’re perfect or you always do the right things. Remember Hum Tumhare Hai Sanam? But time and again I have realized that even through all of the supposed shortcomings, through all the occasional hamming, regardless of the weird extreme close up of your wet muddy nipple in Happy New Year, my feelings for you remain unchanged.

It is because of this love that I’m offering you the very presumptuous and frankly unasked for gift. What do you give the man that has everything money can buy, and then some? But then I remember your interviews and the way you talk about your loneliness. I see a recent article where Jackie Shroff calls you a ‘lonely Baadshah’. I’ve watched your interviews where you’ve said you don’t have too many friends you can talk to. So this is what I want to give you-my friendship and a listening ear. Not because you can give me anything in return, but simply because it is unacceptable for me that a person I admire and who has given me and so many others countless moments of happiness, is lonely.

Sorry about being self- aggrandizing, but allow me to argue my case. I am a great listener, and it takes a lot to scandalize me, so I would be open to anything that you say. I have no connection to your inner or outer world, so I’ll always give you an honest opinion. I also have a decent sense of humour, which I’m sure will come in handy. I don’t like taking favours or getting gifts, so you know I have no vested interest. I’m also a Cancerian, and according to Linda Goodman and a lot of other star gazers, Scorpios and Cancerians are supposed to have a mysterious and irresistible pull, which will ensure that you like me. Oh, oh, and I’m an excellent secret keeper, which will ensure that none of the things you tell me ever see the light of day.

So I will gladly be your ‘no strings attached’ friend, and listen to you as talk about your day, your ambition, your dreams or a random idea that you thought up in the bathroom. I would just as calmly sit in silence with you as you mull over your thoughts, fanning away the smoke from your cigarette because I’m allergic. Think about it.

As Ayn Rand said in the Fountainhead, Love is exception making, so I’m making an exception and doing a public display of affection for you on this day. I'm hoping that the Internet plays Tuffy from Hum Aapke Hai Kaun and delivers this letter to you (not Mohnish Behl, you stupid dog!) with 'Radhe Radhe bolo Jai Kanhaiya Lal ki' playing in the background and you accept my offer. Even if this fantastic wish doesn't come true, I'll still be your well-wisher from afar. I wish you more success and greater highs, but more than that I wish you good health and lots of dimpled smiles and true happiness. Happy Birthday Shah Rukh Khan. May your arms forever be outstretched to receive the blessings that the ‘kaayenaat’ bestows upon destiny’s chosen child.