30 Days of SRK 30: What Shahrukh Meant to Me the Year I Turned 30, and Why I Call Him “Shahrukh”

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I like doing the light fun listicles in the countdown, but ultimately my Shahrukh fandom is fun listicles but also something a lot deeper. And I know this is a safe space to express that.

The year I turned 30 was one of the hardest of my life. It was the year of the 2016 election in America, if you were following the blog then you know how hard that was for me (as it was for most Americans). It was also the year my job shifted from working in an office with clients in and out to working in a windowless room usually without even coworkers to keep me company. And I turned 30 and my brain chemistry shifted and I started struggling with depression and anxiety.

I feel like I need to say “and none of this was really BAD” at this point. Because it wasn’t, my mental issues are extremely mild, working in a windowless room is far from the worst work situation you may have, and the 2016 election hit a lot of people very hard, a lot harder than me. That is something I will say to you, my readers, and I would say to most people because I don’t know their struggles and I don’t necessarily want to say that mine compare. But it is not something I need to say to Shahrukh.

Shahrukh is both a person and bigger than a person. Shahrukh the person, I believe he would personally care if he heard about a young woman struggling mentally. I believe he would even help me. But he can’t help me, he can’t help everyone, he is just a person and his powers are limited.

Shahrukh the idea, Shahrukh the feeling, Shahrukh the image, Shahrukh the Star, he is bigger than just a human person. That Shahrukh, he can cradle me in his strength, hold me in his love, and walk me through the darkest times. He won’t judge me, he won’t measure me against the troubles of others, he sees everything equal and loves all.

Shahrukh the idea isn’t “real” it is something created in our minds, created out of the vision we see onscreen, and the man we hear talking, the life we observe from a great distance. But does that matter? Does it matter if this is just an idea of a thing and not the thing itself? When I am going through long hard nights of the soul, does it matter that I am having conversations with an imagined person who is telling me he loves me and believes in me? No, it doesn’t. He is real to me, he helps me, and that is what I need.

Stardom, Shahrukh’s kind of stardom, is about finding a huge impossible gaping need in the world and discovering that you can grow enough to fill it. The world needs love. The world needs men who love, who feel, who care. Shahrukh the human man, he is just a man, an actor, who picked roles that interested him and played them in a way that felt honest to him. And through that, he touched that need, the hole in the world. Something escaped from him into the vacuum, something that the needs of the world pulled and pushed and inflated until it grew big enough to be everything to everyone, everywhere.

Shahrukh the idea is different from Shahrukh the person, but they are tethered together and if that tether breaks, both will die. I need Shahrukh the idea, I need him deeply and constantly, he is always in my heart and my world. Shahrukh the person, I respect. I think he is a good man, a smart man, a caring man. Because I respect him, the idea that grew out of him stays strong for me. Shahrukh knows that. He knows that every action he takes can either help or hurt that Idea of him that is around the world, that is relied upon by millions of people to get them through their day. I respect him even more because of how hard he works to keep that tether strong, to keep the idea alive, for all of us.

When I was 30, Shahrukh released the movie Fan. It is a dark dark film, and it should have made me even more depressed and anxious than I already was. But, it didn’t. And I think it was because Shahrukh said through that movie “I understand. I know what I mean to you, to all of you, and I will never hurt that. I will always be here for you.” That’s all I needed. Just to know that I would always have Shahrukh, my Shahrukh, in my world, unbroken, unblemished, unchanging.

And that’s why I call him “Shahrukh”. The more common spelling of his name is “Shah Rukh”. But when I was very young and first found him, I saw it as “Shahrukh” and that stuck with me. “Shahrukh” is my idea of a person, is the star who has guided me through the past 20 years of my life. “Shah Rukh” is a very nice good man who lives in India, who I love, and who will never know I exist.

19 thoughts on “30 Days of SRK 30: What Shahrukh Meant to Me the Year I Turned 30, and Why I Call Him “Shahrukh””

  1. This is such beautiful writing! I completely agree with what you said about Shahrukh as a persona and what he does for people. I remember the 2016 US elections so vividly and the anxiety that came the next 4 years in all parts of the world. I also feel for the way you view SRK as a persona. I agree that is what makes Shahrukh so charming as a man because he has a clear awareness of what his stardom means to 1.3 Billion people as well as his global fans (who I can’t quantify).

    For me, as well Shahrukh’s films and his persona were such a saving grace during times of misery. This is why I will always disagree with the people who believe that Indian film is not valuable. If one man can give so much relief to a population and make them smile in times of misery. How can that man’s life not be valuable? Ultimately his persona gives us all so much joy whether we admit or not.

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  2. Thank you for your beautiful comments, Margaret – I can identify with parts. but you really nailed what I love about Shah Rukh – “Shahrukh the idea, Shahrukh the feeling, Shahrukh the image”. When I am feeling low, one of his films soothes, like nothing else.

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  3. Thank you for writing this. And thanks to you i found my home in SRK once again at a time in my life where I had lost my home, family, love and language.

    After my recent trip to India, i know i belong, in front of Shahrukh’s Mannat and in the theatre with other fans and here with you all.

    And how when i was sick with COVID, you saved me by reminding me about paxlovid. And last week when i was in a very rough patch, you were there for me.

    Thank you. So so much.

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  4. I don’t have hat same faith in the idea of the man. But this post has absolutely convinced me that it is real. You, the believers, make it real.

    And now I have to think about the concept of belief making things real on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. And the poor duchess in “Monstrous Regiment”, who was made a goddess by that kind of belief, but one without any actual power. I just hope the experience isn’t quite as excruciating for the man SRK.

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    • We just have to look at Aryan to see the price he paid. Shahrukh the Idea caused the punishment of Shahrukh the person’s son. And Shahrukh the Person couldn’t fight back as a father, because he had to live up to The Idea.

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      • You’re right. The early Shahrukh would’ve broken the world if this happened, similar to how he threatened the reporter and spent a night in lock up after the reporter published lies about him and Deepa Sahi for Maya memsaab.

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        • Exactly. He himself says that he thinks of himself as an employee of Movie Star Shahrukh Khan. That last time he let his father feelings get the better of him was when the guard put his hands on Suhana at Wankhede Stadium and Shahrukh the Idea paid for that mistake for YEARS. Interesting, just realized Suhana used a photo from earlier that day in her birthday post this year.

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          • I don’t know what happened at Wankhede except that he got berated for it. I thought it was a religious slur with people asking him to go to Pakistan or something. I didn’t know someone put his hands on Suhana.
            Poor Shahrukh 😕

            I’ll be fine if he defended his family but the problem is the oppression in India… 😢

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          • If you dig through the coverage, the initial issue was that after his team won, he took Suhana and her friends down on the field to celebrate (normal thing to do for an owner). And a guard started yelling at the kids and moving them off. I don’t know SRK, but we DO know him, you know? So it makes a lot of sense to me that seeing someone making his little daughter feel like she did something wrong would bring out his worst side. And then the Paki slur on top of it, with his daughter witnessing it.

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          • Yes. These little security guards in places get their kicks out of abusing power like this. Of course the added travesty in India is how one cannot stand up to it. 😓

            Thank you for explaining

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          • He mentioned a conversation with Amitabh Bachchan where he said that once you’re a star you will always be blamed. Eg if you got angry you were drunk and creating a ruckus. Nobody cares to look into why you lost it.

            I’m just weaving many things i heard/read together. I feel awful for Shahrukh the person.

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