... Fall In Love With SRK

From an obsessive lover to a sincere superhero, sports-team owner to fairness cream poster boy, Shah Rukh Khan has done it all. But the role he excels at is that of the affable superstar. Chandani Sehgal meets Bollywood’s leading man to find out just what makes him the eternal, enduring lover boy

- Chandni Sehgal

On days when everything goes wrong (yes, Bollywood’s biggest superstar has those, too), Shah Rukh Khan says, “I go cry in my bathroom, like really cry—macho men cry.” He goes on to tell me how most of his nights are spent doing dadesque duties—tonight it’s helping daughter Suhana transfer data from a broken phone because “she’s too lazy to do it.” Maybe it’s those limpid brown eyes, that Cheshire cat smile or the fact that he says just the right thing at exactly the right moment, but you can’t not believe him when he insists that he’s just like us. But don’t be completely fooled yet—Shah Rukh Khan is, undoubtedly, one of the most recognisable and loved actors in the world, his fame knowing no bounds. This 51-year-old super dad is also the star of over 80 films and one of the highest paid actors in the world. Add to that his Padma Shri, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the Légion d’honneur from the Indian and French governments respectively, and you know you’re in no ordinary company. So, after a three-hour-long cover shoot where he plays to our fashion director Anaita Shroff Adajania’s cues, we carry on chatting and he charms me, just like everyone warned me he would.

THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND