In a heartwarming gesture, after a tumultuous period in the recent past, Shah Rukh Khan acknowledged the patience of his fans standing outside Mannat to catch a glimpse of him on his birthday by sending biscuits and water bottles for them.
On Shah Rukh Khan’s 56th birthday, we take a look at the inspiring journey of an ‘outsider’ from Delhi who became the ‘Bollywood Badshah.’
Shah Rukh Khan’s Early Life
Shah Rukh Khan was born on November 2, 1965 into a Muslim family in New Delhi. He spent the first five years of his life in Mangalore, with his maternal grandfather, Iftikhar Ahmed.
His father, Meer Taj Mohammed Khan, moved to New Delhi in 1948 after the partition of India.
Khans mother, Lateef Fatima, was the daughter of a senior government engineer. SRK described himself on Twitter as half Hyderabadi (mother), half Pathan (father), and some Kashmiri (grandmother)”.
Khan grew up in the Rajendra Nagar neighborhood of New Delhi. His father had several business ventures including a restaurant, and the family lived a middle-class life in rented apartments. SRK attended St. Columbas School in central Delhi.
In his youth, he acted in stage plays and received praise for his imitations of Bollywood actors, particularly Dilip Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, and Mumtaz.
Education and Early Work
SRK enrolled at Hansraj College, Delhi (198588) to earn his bachelors degree in economics, but spent much of his time at Delhis Theatre Action Group (TAG), where he studied acting under the mentorship of theatre director Barry John.
After college, he began studying for a Masters Degree in Mass Communication at Jamia Millia Islamia University, but left to pursue his acting career.
Shah Rukh began his professional acting career with television, transitioning to films later. His first starring role was in Lekh Tandons television series Dil Dariya, which began shooting in 1988, but production delays led to the Raj Kumar Kapoor-directed 1989 series Fauji becoming his television debut instead. He also appeared in Aziz Mirzas television series Circus (198990) and Mani Kauls miniseries Idiot (1991).
Move to Mumbai And Superstardom
In 1991, he moved from Delhi to Mumbai to pursue a full-time career in Bollywood, and signed four films. His first offer was for Hema Malinis directorial debut Dil Aashna Hai.
His film debut ended up being Deewana, which was released in June 1992 and was a box office hit, formally kickstarting SRKs journey to stardom. He broke the norms of playing a romantic hero as a young actor, and garnered appreciation for portraying ‘negative roles’ in two box office hits in 1993: a murderer in Baazigar, and an obsessive lover in Darr, a risky moves for Bollywood’s leading men in those days.
After films like Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa and Karan Arjun came Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), which established him as a romantic hero”. That was the beginning of several other romantic hit films in his career, including Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Mohabbatein (2000), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003) and Veer-Zaara (2004).
The series of romantic comedies and family dramas earned SRK widespread adulation from audiences and cemented his place in Bollywood history, as its most successful movie star. It also garnered him an international fan following which few of his contemporaries could emualte.
Shah Rukh Khan’s frequent professional associations with Yash Chopra, Aditya Chopra, and Karan Johar moulded his ‘romantic’ image and made him into the superstar who we all know and is still going strong in his 50s today.