SRK, the gentleman

With publicity comes humiliation - Tama Janowitz.

And the bigger the public figure the greater his humiliation. So why would India's biggest star, Shah Rukh Khan, want to publicly announce his humiliation to the world? Ever since Shah Rukh was detained for a two-hour interrogation session at Newark because he was a Khan, some people in B-Town and a few disbelievers are going into a tizzy whether the whole thing was a publicity stunt or not. Reason? Shah Rukh's next film My Name Is Khan, directed by Karan Johar (releases January 2009) has a way-too-similar scene. Life imitating art? Not quite.
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The little I have observed of SRK (as I call him) over a span of 14 years is that of a marketing genius. He's probably also the most media-savvy guy in India today he has us eating out of his hands through his genuine charm (a trait envied by most actors). But behind the public persona is an intensely private man, happy with the simpler things in life eating popcorn on a rainy day and watching films with his kids. There are many reasons why I feel SRK would never resort to such cheap tactics to promote his film. Firstly, My Name Is Khan releases six months later (the hype would have died down by then), the film has already been sold at Rs 98 crore worldwide to distributors Fox Star Studios (normally unsold films are hyped to get a good market price) and SRK is known as much for his arrogance as his success at the BO. Would he expose himself to such humiliation just to promote his film? Also, it's a bit far-fetched to assume that one of the world's richest and most powerful countries, USA, would subvert their system to promote one of our films. Never mind that the distributors 20th Century Fox may well be one of the world's biggest distributors.

If SRK was that powerful, he would have got his bodyguard Yaseen into the USA. Yaseen's visa was rejected twice because he is a Muslim. While this may be the first time that SRK was called to the detention room and questioned, it's a known fact amongst his friends that post 9/11, on most occasions at international airports, while SRK's entourage from his spot boy to his make-up guy u2014 go out before him (being non-Muslims), the actor has to wait till everything gets cleared. This time too while SRK was being interrogated, his organisers were out waiting for him.

Why would Karan Johar who is spending a huge amount of money for his next home production Wake Up Sid's promotional campaign make his best friend suffer humiliation on a global level for publicising My Name Is Khan? SRK wasn't allowed to make calls for an hour. He didn't have time to change for his show at Atlantic City because he was running late.

It's too easy to point fingers and accuse a dignified actor like SRK of a cheap publicity stunt. As Henry Fielding says, "Some folks rail against other folks, because other folks have what some folks would be glad of."
And so the envious keep talking...