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Mohar Basu: He is a feeling, and feelings don’t age
Updated On: 02 November, 2025 08:23 AM IST | Mumbai | Mohar Basu
On his 60th birthday, Sunday mid-day writer Mohar Basu, who has authored Shah Rukh Khan: Legend, Icon, Star, says that SRK’s life and grace are an inspiration for all ages
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Pic/Satej Shinde
I don`t remember the first time I saw Shah Rukh Khan on screen. I somehow always knew him. It’s perhaps because my mother adores him. A lot of my knowledge about him comes from her and perhaps the love, too, is something I inherited. She had told me stories about how he was delightful to watch on TV in shows like Doosra Keval, Circus and Fauji. I have come to understand that her reason to love him is rather simple. Many women of her generation saw Shah Rukh as the antidote to the Angry Young Man. As a woman of her own mind, I don’t think she takes well to anger in men. Yes, Salim-Javed designed the angry young man as a vigilante standing up against a system and an establishment designed to disadvantage the common man. But very early on, clones of angry-young-man in films that lacked the nuance of its original creators, began looking like polite versions of Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal. It makes sense, thus, that SRK appealed to her and many women of that time. He is charming on screen, says the right things, articulate, well-read, respectful to women, gentle and his philosophy aligns with the psychological wiring of people who were done with unabashed testosterone-laden stories on screens.
But these are the reasons why my mother, who is 68, likes Shah Rukh Khan. It’s baffling how many of the same reasons stand true for me too. It tells me two things — Love for SRK cuts across age groups and the more things, the more they remain the same for women.
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