Lose some to win some

"My upbringing was on the dry Pathani food of Peshawar, raan and chaap, and aromatic masala khana of Hyderabad, biryanis and khatti dals. My parents used to mix these and feed me. To these they would add restaurant food, butter chicken and mutton korma." ""Shah Rukh Khan, in Still Reading Khan

Mushtaq Shiekh's biography of Bollywood's reigning superstar is a bit like the food Shah Rukh remembers from his early days. It's a strange mix of many dishes: we savour the chunks of information, indulge ourselves greedily in the slices of research that run through the pages of the book, and relish every "baby Shah Rukh" photograph in sepia-tint. But do we get the satisfaction of a nicely digested meal? Unfortunately, no; it doesn't quite succeed in acquainting the reader with King Khan.

The problem is the way Shiekh deals with this very coffee-table book. Along the way, it keeps losing focus and, more alarmingly, its finesse. It's almost like a promising film gone awry by intermission. While Shiekh excels in the earlier chapters on Khan's parents, their lives, Khan's growing years and the early years of his marriage with Gauri, the book is a let-down, ironically, when the author passes the mike to Khan in the chapter titled "Crafty Movies". A sample: "You had said that 'I know if I look in a certain way the audience would cry' and you would exploit that look. So you would not mind pressing the button, which you know will make people cry or you will try to press other buttons ..." What is the possible reply to this weak question? No less of a mumble: "Well, I can try pressing other buttons, but it eventually activates the same first button. It's a relay system... but actually it's the same thing because there is just one button that makes you cry and one button that makes you laugh..."

Halfway through the book, one starts flipping over. One wants to pat the author on the back for his treatment of his subject. One smiles earnestly while reading a 1986 newspaper cutting ("Shah Rukh Khan as Harold Gorringe, the 'gay' neighbour in Barry John's play Black Comedy, was excellent"). But it's tiresome to gaze at pages offering generous studio shots of Khan by the likes of Subi Samuel and Atul Kasbekar, and full-page""sometimes meaningless""blurbs by Khan. It's jarring because what we really want is to hear Shah Rukh the novice, the son, the friend, the lover, talk: "In my first professional play, I had to say one line, 'Lady, I have a message for you.' I would rehearse it 150 million times and believe that the whole theatre of 600 people, fathers, mothers and daughters were waiting just to hear this line." Interestingly, Shiekh does get some candid talk from Khan's colleagues like director Ashutosh Gowarikar, who remembers Khan telling him, "I'll destroy Aamir. I'll take over Aamir. I know he's your friend but ..."

Still Reading Khan is special for a close encounter with Khan, the boy-next-door. The Khan who began his journey from Delhi's Gautam Nagar, dreaming of becoming a sportstar, forming the C-Gang at Delhi's St Columba's school, topping in electronics, meeting Gauri and her gang, Pink Ladies. He's the teenager who sneaked cigarettes into the house, ate egg paranthas with theatre pals Divya Seth, Rituraj and Sunjoy Mukherjee and eventually married Gauri, who spent their first night after marriage in a dilapidated Film City set all alone, while he went for a late night shoot. He's the struggling actor who was offered Deewana after Nagarjuna refused it, Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman and Darr, after Aamir rejected them, and Baazigar after Salman Khan withdrew from it, with payments for most of these films varying between Rs 50,000 and 75,000 each.

We also learn about the journey of his father Meer Taj Mohammad from Peshawar to Delhi, where little Shah Rukh accompanied him to a Mother Dairy booth to drink milk straight from the tap. This book is like what the Mother Dairy trip must have been for the child: you put in the token, slurp away and walk back home, forgetting about it, only to return the next day for another fill. It's a good trivia-trove for a 10-minute flip-through late at night, but no more.

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STILL READING KHAN

Mushtaq Shiekh
Om Books International
Price: Rs 2,995; Pages: 448