The journey to Shah Rukh Khan’s box office scorcher ‘Pathaan’

After a superstar has done television, reality shows and films of every kind, shape and size, and of every scale, with every promising film-maker there is in India, ‘What next?’ becomes an uncomfortable yet inevitable question. After three decades of a glorious career, maybe reinvention is the name of the game. And Shah Rukh did just that. He kept giving himself new challenges, pushing himself creatively.

The lover-boy image was slowly dwindling. Romance was no longer a genre that ensured footfalls. It was a natural progression for him to find roles that were out of the box: a complex film about a superstar and his troubled fan in Maneesh Sharma’s Fan, a vagabond in Imtiaz Ali’s Jab Harry Met Sejal, a gangster in Rahul Dholakia’s Raees and eventually a dwarf in Aanand L. Rai’s ambitious Zero.

There was merit in the choices made, but none of them landed. Zero was arguably the biggest bomb of Shah Rukh’s career. He had never fallen that hard, that low. For the budget it was made on, the film struggled to make respectable box-office numbers.

The film’s failure hurt him on a personal level. It was probably the fact that his peers Salman Khan and Aamir Khan were delivering blockbusters such as Tiger Zinda Hai and Dangal around the same time.

A trade analyst and exhibitor I frequently talk to for my stories said, ‘Zero was the biggest film after Thugs of Hindostan, which was released on Diwali. It had a sharp trailer. But within the first week, it was clear that the film would not connect with the audience. It was too ambitious, too convoluted. It’s never about personal likings. The eccentricity of the plot landed with many, but that number was few and far between. Largely, the film didn’t resonate with the people. And this was coming on the back of several underwhelming movies from Shah Rukh – be it Fan or Jab Harry Met Sejal. Zero was a sign that Shah Rukh needed to look from a macro perspective at what was not working.’

Or maybe Shah Rukh felt he was losing the pulse of what people wanted from him. He needed to weave people’s expectations into his reinvention process. This wasn’t about one failure. He needed an overhaul, and for that to happen, he needed to cut out the noise. Much to the surprise of everyone in the industry, Shah Rukh retreated into a sabbatical.

Much after the success of Pathaan, Shah Rukh mustered the courage to put his emotions of that time into words. In an interview with Robin Uthapa, he said, ‘I was actually taking a break for just one year. I thought, “Thoda rukta hoon, physically fit hota hoon [Let me stop a while, get physically fit].” Zero required a lot of hard work, and then it didn’t work as well and nobody liked it. I felt bad. But then I thought I will do something which people like, bohot karli apne dil ki [I’ve done enough of what my heart wants]. I have been working for the last 32 years and I never thought there will be a time when I will not work.’

Lockdown altered everything in everyone’s lives. Holed up at home, even one as big as Shah Rukh’s, can be scary. Being left alone with your darkest thoughts, not knowing if you’ll ever get the chance to go back to work again – in his case to a film set, in front of the camera – can be daunting. But stars like him burn too bright to fade on a low note. A resurgence was inevitable.

Shah Rukh’s career, and his life, have been like that of a cosmic, mythological hero – one whose life is full of obstacles but who always has the gods smiling down on him (even if sometimes he has to fight the gods himself). Add to this epic tale a sprinkle of magic, the blessings of his deceased parents, an epic, enduring love and the prayers of a million fans across the globe, and you have a much-loved man who is fallible, yet invincible.

The love Shah Rukh enjoys isn’t ordinary. By design of this industry, superstars are loved and adored. They are pampered, they have fans screaming their names, an army of women swooning over them. But Shah Rukh is different. He gets blessings from our mothers. Our fathers tell us, ‘Shah Rukh Khan jaisi shiddat se mehnat karo, saari kaynat tumhe tumhare manzil tak le jaane ki saazish karegi [Work as hard as Shah Rukh Khan, and the whole universe will conspire to take you to your destiny].’

Shah Rukh himself believes it is the duas that have brought him back from the dead. ‘When I started working again, there was this strange hunger and newness to work [in me]. Ever since I have returned, I feel bigger, better, faster and happier.’

On 20 November 2020, Shah Rukh returned to his turf, Yash Raj Films, where he once shot the biggest movies of his career, to kick off the shoot for Pathaan. In some ways, the film was the realization of his lifelong dream – to be an action hero. Everyone, including his mentor Yash Chopra, had felt there was something too deep about Shah Rukh’s eyes to waste on action. It is possible they were simply being polite. Shah Rukh didn’t have the gait, physique or technique to be an action star. He was neither a martial arts aficionado like Akshay Kumar, nor a stunt expert like Ajay Devgn, and neither did he have the irreverent swagger of Salman Khan. Shah Rukh’s charm was made of something else.

Since Darr, action had been his elusive dream. He had said in an interview, ‘In Darr, I was doing action, running, shooting guns, and I thought – this is my path now. I am going to be an action hero. Somewhere without me realizing it, I was converted into a lover. Adi [Aditya Chopra] fooled me.’4

Aditya Chopra had his own reasons to keep Shah Rukh away from action. In his only interview after 1995, he addressed it. ‘He is a soft, nice guy who pretends to be all macho. He says he likes action but he is not like that. While working on Darr, I had told him action ideas, and six months later, I took DDLJ [Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge] to him.’

It’s not as if Shah Rukh hadn’t tried his hand at action before. He knows how to throw punches and look suave doing it, but the world has always been too busy sinking into his dimples and intense eyes. Pathaan, in every sense of the term, was a perception shift. It was Shah Rukh owning his own identity, embracing his dream and giving himself a much-deserved chance at doing something that everyone thought he wasn’t cut out for.

At fifty-five, he had little to lose – and he finally stepped into the shoes of a bona fide action hero.

Excerpted with permission from Shah Rukh Khan: Legend, Icon, Star, Mohar Basu, HarperCollins India.