Arjun Kapoor dances to
the tunes of “Mai hun Superman… Salman ka Fan” and something is just too loud
to be ignored. We can call it pride or even arrogance; but being Salman-ka-Fan
sort of justifies it all… With this brush if we want to paint the fossilized
topic of comparing the three famous Khans of Bollywood, how do we rate the
Aamir, Shahrukh and Salman?
Aamir had always been
too ‘girlish’. Several times he tried too hard to break this image but alas –
how could be change it unless he comes on screen with a mask every time! So it
does not matter whether he plays a tapori in ‘aati-kya-Khandala’ wearing
leather jacket and growing a bit of stubble, he still appears like a cheeky
chick. Shahrukh has slightly different flavor - even when clean-shaven he
always appeared like unshaven – and he made the ‘boy-next-door’ look his
biggest strength. Not all girls actually believe in their dream of marrying a
prince – most of them would perhaps agree to marry a frog if the frog wears
Versace. And what a rich wrinkled frog Shahrukh has been! A dog can bite, even
a cat can bite, but a frog is too harmless to be of any harm – and that is what
makes him attractive to girls. Girls could dream a lizard to turn into a
monster but never an SRK to be threatening to them – that is quite some quality
to possess. That brings us to the only Khan who has remained himself all
through the ages. Salman Khan is the only Khan who never needed to humiliate
himself in order to win our hearts… Don’t believe it? Just look at coy and
childish Aamir playing pK!
Photo: Aamir playing
pK
Coming back to Aamir
being girlish. It was no surprise that Aamir failed when he tried to portray a
Manly (Mangal) Pandey. In order to hide his girlish looks, Aamir tried
something which worked just as bad – he tried to play the kid! We all loved him
in 3-Idiots because appeared too natural for the juvenile’s role he was
playing. He continued the same to Dhoom-3 where he played a character suitable
for his looks – that of a cute child. Btw, before that he failed once again in
Talash – because he was playing the role of a Manly Policewallah with a manly
moustache. So in pK he returned to his comfort zone and this time took it several
notches above – he made himself into a clown! Ok, fine, it was alien. But the
alien he was playing seemed to have been inspired by a clown – just look at the
way he carries himself off…
Photo: Aamir failed
each time he played a manly character like Mangal Pandey or in Talash
but succeeded when he played a boyish joker or a clown-like alien.
While Aamir thrived on
his girlish looks, Shahrukh was neither a proper ‘boy’ nor a proper ‘girl’ and
his only strength was his ‘newspaper vendor boy-next-door’ look. So our so
called King failed when he played Ashoka the Great. His tapori-panthi, sly,
street-smart moves were out-of-class for the classy look and feel needed in the
character. Shahrukh also made complete fool of himself when he tried to outdo
the original Bachchan’s Don. People would accept him a road-chhap tapori but he
appeared to be wearing rented suits and stolen deodorants for his role as a
Don. SRK being the only Khan without a look worth second glance outdid all his
previous antics by growing his six-packs which appeared more naturally grown in
a starving smoking man than a person frequenting a gym of any shape and size.
With his eight-packs he proved in front of the whole world how desperate he
could be! Before all this madness about body-chiseling SRK was thriving on
being a rare combination of intelligence, manners and romanticism. All his
earlier life he must have been an ignored, average and invisible boy and hence
the viewers connected with him instantly! After all, despite having the worst
biopics he always used to get the girl by the end of the movies! How
fascinating for the public to see such a pathetic boy getting all beautiful
girls from one movie to the other! To the girls, he appeared to possess many complimentary
qualities which they would like to have in their boyfriends, if nothing less
then nothing more than that also. Being a boring loyal husband was not an
option but compulsion to the King Khan without a proper beard.
Photo: Shahrukh failed
when he tried characters which required class; was ridiculed when he grew
six-packs perhaps as a revenge on God for not giving him a proper body
The only Khan who did
not need to humiliate himself in order to make it big at the Box Office has
been the undisputed Salman
Khan. Salman is the ultimate Dabang of Bollywood – the unashamed handsome devil
– who had it all with grace and class each time. The only Khan who when takes
his shirt off, people don’t close their mouths with hands, like they did with
Aamir’s weirdly tattooed Ghazini or Shahrukh’s not-worth-counting packs. While
Aamir might have gone completely nude to promote his one movie and Shahrukh
might have nearly killed himself to develop eight-pack abs in this old age,
Salman is the man who has grown older with grace worthy of his (sur)name.
Photo: Salman Khan
is the unashamed Dabang of Bolywood; the only Khan who did not need to
humiliate himself to make it big at the Box Office
While Aamir went after
marrying multiple women and also did not miss to create affairs with a White
woman abroad to produce illegitimate child and Shahrukh with his poor looks
held on to perhaps the only woman who agreed to marry him as a loyal husband,
it is Salman who dared to love. When he loved, he made no attempts to hide it.
When his women abandoned him, he cried like any human would. And when he loved
next time, he made no secret of that either! How can you not love the humanly
vulnerable yet rock solid Khan? If you see him or watch his interviews, you
would certainly notice one thing about him – he never pretends! He is
straightforward and dil-se; what all other phony actors claim to be but are
not.
Salman Khan is the only
Khan with real fan-following from other men. If you are Salman-ka-Fan, you
won’t need to be ashamed, something which comes frequently if we start to think
about being fans of Aamir or Shahrukh. That is why Arjun Kapoor says
“Salman-ka-Fan” and takes the Taj Mahal by storm:
Photo: Arjun Kapoor
sings ‘Salman-ka-Fan’ in Tevar
Salman Khan was the
only Khan who had the guts to stand with NaMo (Modi) and fly kites in front of
the whole media, even before Modi got power in Delhi. On the other hand,
Shahrukh is a known Pakistan-sympathizer while Aamir is by and large
non-political.
Photo: Salman Khan
with Narendra Modi
Salman Khan is also the
only Khan who can pair-up with the Dabang Girl Sonakshi. Imagine girlish Aamir
or tapori Shahruku appearing like school-kids in front of the Desi Girl? We
would rather eat all the popcorn ever produced than watching the lesser-Khans
humiliate themselves once again…
Photo: Salman
‘Dabang’ Khan with Sonakshi ‘Khamosh’ Sinha
On these happier notes,
let me now take a break :)
Some months back I
posted this pic on facebook. I got so many 'likes'. I loved this image because
of three reasons: 1. Wisdom in its quote, 2. I am a big fan of Russell Crowe 3.
In my wildest fantasies sometimes I fashion myself as a warrior :) But blinded
by these reasons, I did not notice what was there on Russell Crowe's shoulders :)
Many months afterwards when I realized that there was a dead animal on his
shoulders, I said Yuk!!! I wanted to be a warrior but not one who carried dead foxes
and wolves on his shoulders! Because after all "What we do in life echoes
in eternity"! So I searched for his image without a dead animal on his
shoulders. And I don't find one... So what is the message? I see it as a dead
animal, he saw it as utility. Marcus Aurelius said, "Everything we see is
a perspective, not the truth."
