After four years of a no-show preceded by four years of damp squibs, it seemed that King Khan’s reign had ended. Social media, with a troll’s soul, was abuzz with comments like, “The guy is three years short of 60; he is old and wrinkled. It is time for him to hang up his boots, sit back and watch as others take over.” Even Shah Rukh Khan, in his 35th year in showbiz this year, thought as much. “I was told nobody wanted to watch me anymore and that my films won’t work. So, I thought of an alternate career: cooking Italian food. I thought I would start a restaurant and name it Red Chillies [after his production house] food eatery,” he said recently, his signature self-deprecating humour on display. And then came Pathaan. It was a validation like no other for the ‘Baadshah of Bollywood’in a renewed avatar―an action hero, with long, flowing locks, eight-pack abs chiselled to perfection and a sharp jawline. Pathaan soon became a watershed event in the history of Hindi cinema―the first Hindi film to enter the Rs100 crore club on day one of release (January 25). And, with a worldwide collection of Rs832.20 crore in 12 days, it was all set to cross the Golden Globe award-winning RRR’s record in the US.
It is as if Pathaan, an action-packed film, soon turned into a love story between Shah Rukh and the people of India. “There are many battles being fought with this film,” says Ranjani Mazumdar, professor of cinema studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. “One is the attack on Bollywood; two, the attack on Muslims and Muslim stars; and three, on Shah Rukh Khan and the arrest of his son Aryan Khan last year on unproven charges. I was surprised at how much they were able to say in this film. By way of an action-oriented film, here is a lead protagonist who is openly claiming his Muslim identity and is accepted across the nation despite the current political situation we find ourselves in. For someone who was being continuously hounded until recently, the audiences have embraced him on a different kind of an emotional spectrum.”
Pathaan, the latest from Yash Raj Films’s spy universe that includes Tiger (Salman Khan) and Kabir (Hrithik Roshan from War), is a thriller in which Shah Rukh’s biography gets seamlessly woven into the narrative. The film has been very cleverly made, as if it is the superstar’s clapback to his naysayers and to those who keep questioning his identity and patriotism. It is also a sort of interrogation into the meaning of religious and national identities. In one of the most affecting scenes, when Deepika Padukone asks Pathaan, “Kya tum Musalmaan ho [are you a Muslim]”, he replies that he was abandoned as a child and became Pathaan not out of choice but because of circumstances. It kind of establishes a fluidity of identity and talks to the present, which is locked in battles of identity, caste and religion. This is why, to attack the film for jingoism is missing the point of it altogether. “Pathaan is the result of the deep belief that the nation has abandoned us, but we are not going to abandon it because this is our land,” says Mazumdar. “And in that, Shah Rukh seems to be speaking for himself when [Pathaan] tells [the] antagonist, ‘Ask not what the nation did for you but what you did for the nation’, the former speaking his mind as somewhere he, too, felt as if he was abandoned. Yet, that he will continue to love his land.”
Three cheers: (From left) John Abraham, Deepika Padukone and Shah Rukh Khan at a press meet in Mumbai following Pathaan’s release | AFP
Four days after the film’s release, Shah Rukh held his first press conference in years. In all that time, the superstar’s wit and charisma had not been dented one bit. Speaking on how cinema was above religion and bigotry, he referred to costars Deepika Padukone, John Abraham and himself as Amar, Akbar and Anthony, emphasising that there was an urgent need to cut cinematic experiences free from their makers and allow them to float freely in a creative universe. This is not a film one would go to find logic. But then, cinema, like all art forms, is not about a direct relationship to reality. Pathaan is also a testament to Shah Rukh’s textured filmography, where he has played characters of all shades. He is the psychotic lover (Baazigar and Darr, 1993) and the chocolate boy (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, for instance, 1995) and the gangster (Raees, 2017) and the action hero of today.
Members of Shah Rukh’s fan club outside a theatre in Mumbai | PTI
The power of Shah Rukh’s fandom is evident from the fact that he did not promote the film in any manner, except for interacting with his fans on Twitter. And in many of those threads, it was established that his fans now wanted to see more of him in hardcore action. “Sir, ab Dunki ke baad action movies hi sign karna [sign only action films after Dunki],”wrote a fan. Shah Rukh replied with a yes, adding wittily that he has to take a lot of painkillers for action roles.
For Shah Rukh, Pathaan came as a float when his ship was sinking. None of the films he helmed before that had worked―from Fan (2016) to Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017) and Zero (2018). And with him, the YRF banner that produced both Zero and Fan, was also in a bad shape. “But one of the vulnerabilities of being a power figure is that if you take credit for the film’s success, you take the blame for a film’s failure, too,” says K.U. Mohanan, an award-winning cinematographer who has worked with Shah Rukh during the making of Don (2006) and Raees. “So it is always Shah Rukh’s film that didn’t do well. But the real thing might be different. It cannot be equated to his star power alone.”
The Khan triumvirate, including Salman and Aamir, have ruled Bollywood for long, but as Mazumdar says, “You can’t do it beyond a point. So, my guess is that they will be around for some more time, but after a while they will have to [make way for] other people. But whether we will have this kind of legacy of stars again is something we will have to wait and watch.”
And, the Khans, aware and cheeky as ever, address it in Pathaan. As the end credits rolled, Shah Rukh and Salman discussed the possibility of handing over their legacy to fresh talent. “But who can replace us,” they ask. “Nobody.”
Talk about letting your work do the talking!