Badshah Of Bollywood, King of Romance and the King Khan himself… Superstar Shah Rukh Khan celebrates his 55th birthday today.
On this special occasion, here’s a swag throwback that shows this Bollywood legend is just as badass in real life as he is on the big screen!
With a versatile career spanning more than 25 years, SRK has been ruling our hearts with his winning smile and iconic dialogues.
Shah Rukh truly was a tough cookie and even when faced by threats and abuses from gangsters, the actor always kept his calm mode on.
As per Bollywood Hungama report, in Anupama Chopra’s book the ‘King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema’, the acclaimed film critic has highlighted various conversations of SRK’s brush with underworld like Abu Salem and Chhota Rajan!
In 1997, when Shah Rukh came under the mafia’s radar, he was given a bodyguard, Mohan Bhise, from the Special Operations Squad. The actor kept his movements to a minimum and even changed cars and routes to work everyday.
While shooting for Yash Chopra’s ‘Dil To Pagal Hai’, Shah Rukh got a call from the Gangster Abu Salem. Even though the gangster cussed him out in Hindi, Khan remained calm and polite and kept his conversation in English.
Salem was reportedly angry that SRK had refused to do a film of a Muslim producer, close to Abu Salem. He argued that SRK should have shown his community some support. Shah Rukh however reminded him that he was already working with Mansoor Khan, Abbas-Mustan and Aziz Mirza.
Realizing that SRK’s words made sense, Abu Salem said that he’d spare his life and that he doesn’t need police anymore. The police however didn’t take any chances and refused to let go of SRK’s police security.
Every time Salem would tell SRK to do a particular film, the superstar had the same savage reply each time – “I don’t tell you who to shoot so don’t tell me which film to do.”
SRK described this particular phase of his life as ‘depressing and scary’. The danger was imminent; as Abu Salem always used to have all details of SRK and his guards’ whereabouts. However, despite the risk, the Badshah of Bollywood proved to be a total badass and completed shooting key scenes of his film Duplicate on the streets of Mumbai.
Soon afterwards, the Chhota Rajan gang also started calling him. But when he refused their film offers, Anupama Chopra said that “they withdrew with surprising decency.”
King Khan was extremely popular with the family members of the gangsters. Once, Abu Salem himself told SRK that his mother and his wife were big fans.