I’ve already told you about my top favourite scenes of Shah Rukh Khan – but more than Shah Rukh the actor, I love Shah Rukh the person. He is by far one of the most charming people on Earth – one wise crack and one dimpled smile is all it takes to make me swoon. He became an actor shortly after I was born, so in a way I feel like I’ve “grown up” with his career – and over the years, I’ve amassed many memories of this King. Today, in honour of his birthday, I’m going to share with you three of my favourite Shah Rukh memories. Hope you like!
1. “Mummy, look! Shah Rukh Khan!”
This is a very vague memory, but it doesn’t matter if it’s vague – it’s been recounted enough times in my family that I know every detail anyway. One day, when I was really young, I was crossing the streets of Mumbai with my mom. It was a very busy street, so of course we had to be quick and dodge the cars. Except… I saw a billboard with SRK on it. So I stopped, in the middle of street, with cars coming at me from all directions, and yelled: “Mummy, look! Shah Rukh Khan!” Suffice to say, she was not amused – but at that age, a picture of the King was all it took for me to drop everything and stare. (It’s still like that, even today.)
2. 2004 Temptations Tour
Remember the Temptations Tour from 2004? This was when SRK (and a bunch of other actors) toured international cities – it was supposed to be big. Back then, I didn’t live in India, so when I heard he was coming to Miami, I was super thrilled – Miami is quite close to the island I lived on (Grenada). I still remember how delighted I was while purchasing my plane tickets, concert tickets, and planning the entire thing in my head – I was going to SRK! Then, a crazy thing happened a few days before I was set to leave – a hurricane hit our island, and it was bad. The airport was closed for days. There were no flights. I couldn’t go. I was heartbroken, to say the least. So this is a bit of a bittersweet memory – it was one of the most exciting things to happen to me at first, and then one of the most disappointing. But it’s still okay, because…
3. Jab We Met
I finally got my chance to see SRK in person, at a press conference for the Gitanjali group. He was absolutely sweet, charming, humble – all of which comes across on TV, but which is more obvious in person. I wasn’t holding out much hope for any personal interaction with him, but when the press con ended we all went up closer to get pix of him. After taking the pix, I yelled, “Thank you!” and somehow he spotted me waving at him, so we totally had eye contact going on and he bent his head slightly and smiled at me. I stretched out my hand tentatively, and he noticed, so he came around and shook it and told me “bye.” Yup, I pretty much died. My only regret is that I didn’t get a picture with him (I couldn’t; it was a pretty crazy scene), but that’s okay… there’s always next time, right? And when that next time happens, I will be here to tell you about it! 🙂