Found In Translation: How Shah Rukh Khan Shaped My Cultural Identity

By Shreya Shenoy | March 2024

In 2008, I sat facing my parents’ box TV in our two-bedroom apartment in Durham, North Carolina. Typical of the problematic child I was, I ignored my mother’s pleas to back away for the sake of my eyesight and instead tried to transport myself into the scene. In it, a man was standing on one end of a field of mustard flowers with his arms outstretched. On the other end of the field, there was a woman in an ivory salwar bounding toward him to embrace him. I wasn’t quite sure of the context yet; I didn’t understand Hindi and was too young to grasp how to read the English subtitles on the screen. Nonetheless, I was mesmerized by what was unfolding before me, and also by the man — he was young, kind-hearted and well-dressed. His smile revealed a boyish charm that was enough for me, even at the age of four, to keep my attention glued to the screen.

In 2015, I accompanied my parents to see another film. At this age, I was more familiar with the man and his movies, though not quite as enamored by them, with a preference for cartoons rather than sweeping romantic dramas. This sentiment remained unchanged by the film, as I found it gaudy, poorly paced and filled with plot holes. However, I could admit that one of its high points was the reappearance of the man and his co-star, the woman. Two decades have passed since their tryst in the field of mustard flowers, but their several musical numbers together indicated that they were still deeply in love with each other. As an eleven-year-old, I realized that the man was as striking as ever, and I quickly took note of the several individuals around me who felt the same way. Moviegoers of all ages swooned at the man, from wives seated next to their tired husbands to teenagers who kicked and squealed in their seats. Despite its poor reviews, the film became one of the highest-grossing Hindi movies of all time.

 As Bollywood’s biggest star, Shah Rukh Khan has starred in nearly a hundred movies over three decades, in which he has played an army officer, the boss of a crime syndicate, an immigrant with autism, a secret agent, a rocket scientist, a washed-up field hockey player-turned-coach and almost everything in between. While he has managed to succeed in many of these roles, Khan is best known for being a romantic hero after the international acclaim of his breakout movie Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge in 1995. Khan played Raj Malhotra, a lovestruck bad boy seeking to win the heart of the ivory salwar-clad Simran against the wishes of her strict father. His performance moved millions of Indians, including my parents, who brought a copy of the film to the U.S. with them to regularly rewatch on their box TV. Khan’s popularity has only grown since then, with him continuing to release annual blockbusters to this day. This year alone, his releases Jawan and Pathaan have grossed over $270 million. 

Naturally, I contributed to both of their box office runs — notably, in early September, I convinced my roommate to spend her Saturday driving us through gameday traffic from Chapel Hill to Cary, North Carolina, so that we could watch Jawan during its opening weekend. Despite her self-professed claims that she “wouldn’t be a fan,” she cried on three separate occasions during the film. 

I am not as bashful as her in my hysteria but can admit that I have shamelessly gone out of my way to watch Khan’s interviews, talk show appearances and even his advertisements. My introduction to his filmography began as a four-year-old with that fateful aforementioned viewing of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, and the healthy diet of Bollywood movies my parents instituted at home was part of their initiative to foster a connection between myself and my Indian heritage. They also took me to the temple weekly, taught me how to cook Indian food and only spoke to me in our native language, Konkani, until I started attending school. At 19, I can confirm that none of their efforts worked — I am a monolingual atheist who has to order chai at coffee shops because I am incapable of making it myself. Much to their chagrin, though, I am a fervent fan of Shah Rukh Khan. 

The ability to get lost in Khan’s universe has served as a welcome distraction from other pressing issues in my life. That being, as a diasporic Indian, I rarely feel secure in my identity. I have retained little cultural competency as I have aged, and I grapple with how my heritage will live on beyond me. The little KonkaniI have retained allows me to speak to my grandparents on the phone weekly, but I often worry about how I will be able to pass on my mother tongue to my future family if I can barely speak it myself. I feel immense guilt for the cultural wealth that will die with me and how seemingly ineffective my efforts to reclaim it feel. My six-year-old cousin laughs at me when I try to communicate with her, and I have burned more bottoms of pans than completed dishes in my attempts to imitate my mom’s cooking. I am seldom able to employ my Indian identity, but I’ve instead found it to manifest in other subtler ways: An insistence on arguing over who pays for the restaurant bill, a persistent inability to handle North American winters and finally, an undying love for Shah Rukh Khan.

References

1. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Directed by Aditya Chopra, AA Films, 1995. 

2. Khan, Shah Rukh. “Thoughts on Humanity, Fame and Love.” TED Talks, Video, 11 May 2017, https://www.ted.com/talks/shah_rukh_khan_thoughts_on_humanity_fame_and_love?lang uage=en. Accessed 6 Nov. 2023.