The No 1 actor of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan, has been entangled in lot of controversies recently, though not of very serious nature.
He gives his version of the controversial events.
Excerpts
On Ajay Monga’s charge of plagiarism of Om Shanti Om
I was narrated the script of Om Shanti Om by Farah Khan many years ago when I was shooting for Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se. That was the time that Santosh Sivan narrated a script of Asoka to me. I did not do the film then.
But later, I was supposed to do another film for Farah called Happy New Year with Amitabh Bachchan. But Amitji fell ill and was hospitalised and we knew that film could not be made because of his ill health. It was his film all the way and we knew that he was not in a position to give so much time and energy to the movie.
It was then that I told Farah to bring over the script of Om Shanti Om to me, which she had narrated to me earlier and I agreed to do it. So there was no way how we could have taken the script from anyone else as the said person has claimed
On Manoj Kumar’s petition
Manojji is a veteran film personality and we respect everyone from the industry. We will do what he wants as long as it makes him happy.
On Aditya Chopra’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’s new heroine
Oh, Anushka Sharma is very good, very hardworking. She has a bright future. Aditya told me that he had narrowed in on a few girls and was sending me some pictures. I told him to finalise one and then show me the picture. That’s how Anushka was selected. We were also looking at some established names, but then we felt we needed a fresh face for the film. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi will release this year.
On his new projects
Besides Dulha Mil Gaya and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, I am doing an animated film Ravan, which is a long drawn process for me. I am also writing that film now. I have Farah’s next film as well, which will start next year. So life seems to be a choc-a-bloc with work for now.
On his injured back
I am currently bed-ridden. I forget I am 43 and I tried to do a fight sequence and got hurt very badly. I hurt my back and my neck. The doctor is coming every two hours to check my state and monitor me closely. I am in extreme pain and am taking a lot of painkillers. Hopefully, I should be better soon. My children are happy to see me at home, and that’s the only consolation.
On his friends
There are some friends who feel that I don’t get the time to meet them. I’m very simple. I do two to three films a year and they take up 200 days. I do around 15 endorsements with an average of three days per endorsement which take up another 50 days. I also manage to do about 20-25 live shows - whether it’s award shows or the rehearsals which take up about 40 days. Then I spend a few days shooting and promoting my television shows.
I have my own production company, and I spend some time with office work. I take about one-and-a-half months break from work to spend with my children. So I run short of 70 days in a year. I have a lot of friends who I can’t give time to.
Salman Khan also got angry because I could not do his film Main Aur Mrs Khanna. It wasn’t easy for me to say no, but then Dulha Mil Gaya, which is my friend Vivek Vaswani’s, was also stuck because I have not been able to give my dates for my special appearance, which I just managed to film for him recently.
