Thank you very much. If only I got so much applause when I actually gave a lecture to my students. My name is James Smith. I'm the Vice Principal International.
I would like to welcome you all to the University of Edinburgh and welcome those... of you who have come from further away or are watching online to Scotland. This is simultaneously for me a very easy and difficult introduction. How does one introduce somebody who is so well known to so many people? What can I possibly say?
On the other hand there is so much one could say but I'll get to that in a moment. in a moment. The university has a very long and deep connection with India.
Our first Indian student graduated in 1876 and since then our Indian student population has grown somewhat. I suspect several hundred of you are actually sitting in the audience in front of me, which suggests lecture theatres will be quite quiet this afternoon. We're very proud of our Centre of South Asian Studies, one of the leading UK centres dedicated to the study of the subcontinent. As well as coordinating research and offering courses, the centre acts as a cultural hub. in Scotland.
Film showings are an important part of this. Last night they screened, and I do apologise for my pronunciation, Cooch Cooch Hotta Hay. Thank you. I can do more, but let's just move on. Of course, that was part of the plan.
We're also very proud of our research and our teaching partnerships in India, and in 2010 we launched our Indian Liaison Office in Mumbai to support and sustain these relations. and I have my colleagues from that office sitting here. There are countless examples of collaborative, innovative partnerships that span our research in India, from stem cells to Sanskrit, from animal health to antimicrobial resistance, and from Li-Fi to educational leadership.
India has long been, is and will continue to grow as one of our most important partner countries and the focus of the University of Edinburgh's engagement with India will continue to be creativity through collaboration. There is similarly a long and strong connection between Scotland and India, but given today's guest, and I know you don't really want to listen to me but that's another story, I will restrict myself to talking only about set jetting, where fans visit locations having seen them in their favourite movies. Scotland's castles, landscapes and... whiskey a part of this allure, but apparently and surprisingly, so too is the weather.
My colleagues from Mumbai assure me that it is, and I quote, amazing, and I'm frankly amazed. Maybe they're just jet lagged. This year, Scotland was voted the world's best cinematic destination in a poll run by USA Today. Producers of Bollywood films have been flocking to Scotland since 1998, as you know, filming on location in places such as Edinburgh Castle, Eileen Donnan Castle, Glasgow's...
George Square and Glencoe. Given today's events, I think there may be an SRK and University Film Location opportunity that we have to explore. VisitScotland has produced a special online map, Bollywood Scotland, to encourage visitors to dance in the footsteps of their favourite Bollywood stars by highlighting dozens of Scottish backdrops and locations to some of their favourite films. So, now we're on to Bollywood stars. I'm delighted to be able to welcome Shah Rukh Khan to the University.
I should say I'm delighted to welcome Dr. Shah Rukh Khan. An hour or so ago I was privileged to be part of an honorary degree ceremony. I can't finish. I'm actually finding this quite disturbing now but I'll continue.
One more minute please, one more minute. I was delighted to be part of an honorary degree ceremony where Dr. Shah Rukh Khan received his degree. Of course he started He starred in many, many well-loved Bollywood films, and that's part of the reason why we were celebrating and acknowledging him today.
But he's also been described by the Los Angeles Times as perhaps the world's biggest movie star. And he's been named by Newsweek as one of the 50 most influential people in the world. people in the world.
I think it's really important to acknowledge that he's used this influence to outstanding effect. He's a deep commitment to improving child education and public health in India. He's adopted a dozen villages as part of the solar energy project Lighting a Billion Lives to provide them with electricity. He's worked to improve the living conditions and rights of underprivileged people across India.
And exactly two years ago, he established the Mir Foundation, named after his father, which supports female victims of burns and acid attacks. Ladies and gentlemen, It gives me enormous pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Shah Rukh Khan. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you very much, everyone. It's a great pleasure to be here.
Thank you. Okay. Alright, how this works is that I have to give you a lecture. So I prepared some. It's very thick but it's because the font is big.
So I'll go on and on until you guys get bored. You can stop me halfway and ask questions or... Okay.
First of all, it's an honor for me to receive this doctorate today. So thank you everyone who's involved with this. And humbled is a word often used by people in my profession. You meet actors, they'll go, I'm very humbled, I'm very humbled.
I dislike the hypocritical obsequious connotation of it in these contexts, so I'm not going to use it, but I will say that such occasions... have a way of putting me right in my place, which is right there. So thank you, everyone, for putting me in my place.
I do get invited to conferences and inaugurations now and then to speak. And when I receive the invite, I also receive my brief. It's usually about success and my tips on it. Not my toes. Those are covered by I will never show my toes claws in my contracts.
They're very ugly. And it's my attempt at gender equality. My co-actresses have no cleavage claws, I have no toes claws.
Now most people believe Bollywood stars aren't insightful about anything other than the fateful occurrences which made them stars in the first place. But I've had the odd divergence from being taken for stupid though. Recently I got an email from an international association of advertising and they said, dear Mr. Khan, the advertising community would like you to come and address them on globalization and disruptive marketing.
And I spent the next four hours on Google trying to assimilate. The disruptiveness of innovating a product to match its market. But it was one of those rare days when even Google can't help you.
A day when you need to leave Google and ask for deliverance from God. But I have a film releasing soon, so I don't want to take extra favors from God before the film releases. So I chose business over knowledge.
I did the next best thing. I sat on my IOHawk. Have you guys seen that Segway thing? So I went on my IOHawk and told everybody, a gathering like yours, that there is nothing I can tell you that you already don't know.
And people, when they're told they're smart, they like it. You're such an august gathering of people. and blah blah blah, instead let me entertain you because you all deserve a break.
And before the organisers could interject, I started thrusting my pelvic into their faces and broke out into the one and only intellectual thing I know how to do, the loongi dance. So I got away with it without being humbled. It always pays to be a better dancer than your advertisers.
And what's more, they seem to have a good time. But that was a conference and this is a doctorate from a prestigious university of Edinburgh. So I'm going to try to sound intelligent and insightful, especially for you today.
One of the subjects on the list of five I was sent for my speech today was life lessons. So for whatever it is worth, here goes. Let me start at the very, very beginning.
Whatever I've learned of life has been at the movies. Actually, the first few films that I did in my career and titles were given to them, very nearly formulated whatever I know of life, and that's how I'm going to pass it on to you. One of the first movies of my career was a movie called Divana. It must have... Okay, but do you remember the story of the film?
I'll remind you the story. So I fall in love with a widow, who I meet literally by accident, in which I very nearly kill her mother-in-law. Then I marry her.
Not the mother-in-law, but the widow. The widow is not keen on the marriage because she still loves her late husband, but she marries me anyway. My rich mean father disapproves of this unison and does what a rich mean father does.
He tries to kill the widow. And I'm naturally disgusted by his behavior. And after a long two-page stand-off with him, in which I use heavy-sounding Urdu words, I leave the house for good. Then for some reason, apart from the fact that I ride my motorcycle without holding the handlebar, I have an accident. Seeing me so forlorn and sad in the hospital bed, my ex-widow wife falls in love with me.
And there is something about absolutely sick men which always attracts women to them. I've noticed this. The sicker the better. Then again, by chance or fate, I rescue a stranger at night from a bunch of goons, and guess what?
He turns out to be the original husband of my ex-widow wife, who hadn't died in spite of his inheritance-hungry uncle's best efforts. Now he will uncover the truth. then decides to kidnap me and my ex-widow, now not-so-ex-present-day wife, to get hold of his nephew. I escape his clutches.
And I come back with my wife's undead husband to rescue her. By now, she's, of course, trapped to a bomb. And...
Do you think they'll take my doctorate back? Well, she's strapped, of course, to a bomb, and after a liberal round of fist-fighting, kicking and screaming, the evil uncle is blown to smithereens by the very same bomb that he had strapped on, status-confused lady of the film. But not before the sacrificial ex-husband had an akamakazi, unstrapping his ex-wife, and set the bomb off, killing himself in the bargain.
All obstacles removed, our hero lives happily ever after with his beloved wife. I'm not sure why the movie was called Divana. which in Hindi means madness of a particularly nice or romantic kind. But I have a feeling it had something to do with the guy who wrote the plot.
So here's my first life lesson, inspired by the movie title Divana. madness of the particularly nice or romantic kind is an absolute prerequisite to a happy and successful life don't ever treat your little insanities as if they are aberrations that ought to be hidden from the rest of the world acknowledge them and use them to define your own way of living the only life you have All the most beautiful people in the world, the most creative, the ones who led revolutions, who discovered and invented things, did so because they embraced their own idiosyncrasies. There's no such thing as normal.
Normal is just another word for lifeless. Soon after I acted in Diwana, I became the hapless hero of a movie called Chamatkar. This movie had a more believable plotline.
I get cheated off all my money by my best friend slash conman and find myself asleep in a graveyard only to be awakened by the ghost of a murdered mobster. A ghost that only I can see and nobody else can. I am very perceptive that way. Anyway, the mobster ghost helps me get a job as a teacher through his ghostly good offices.
I fall in love with his daughter, of course, from a wife that has passed on after being duped by the flunky of the mobster. Together the ghost and I organize a cricket match. Yes, I was doing that even before I owned a cricket team.
An avenge. and avenge the various misdeeds done to us by bashing up the flunky and the conman then we forgive them because we have a good heart and let each other descend into their respective abodes where we belong in the first place he goes back to the grave i go away with the babe now chamatka means miracle right and straightforward without any nuances so my next lesson is the following if you find ever find yourself cheated of all your money and sleeping on a grave do not fear A miracle is near, either that or a ghost, but all you have to do is fall asleep. Trust me.
In other words, no matter how bad it gets, life is the miracle you are searching for. There is no other one around the corner. Develop the faith in it to let it take its own course.
Make all the efforts you can to abide by its beauty, and it will not let you down. Use every resource you have been given, your mental faculties, the ability of your heart to love, and feel for those around you, your health and good fortune, all of the thousands of gifts life has given you to their maximum potential. Honor your life, please.
Honor each gift and each moment by not laying it to waste. There is no real measure of success in this world except the ability to make good of life's endowments to you. Sometimes life's gifts arrive wrapped in all wrong damn wrapping, at which point we have to learn to do two things with them. Recognize them for what they are and gamble on our fear that they might be disasters.
This brings me to my third life lesson, inspired by two movies in which I played the Anti-hero, Dur and Bhasigal. Okay, those stories I won't tell you, you seem to know them. But 20 years ago in the movies, roles were very clearly defined. They provided the security of your stardom in a sense. If you'd been successfully playing an angry young man, you'd pretty much be angry and young for the rest of your life.
If you'd been a police inspector in three movies, odds were you'd be in the next 33 too. This applied to female actresses also. Wives were wives, seductresses were seductresses, mother-in-laws were mother-in-laws, and so on and so forth.
Few actors would have willingly switched from romantic heroes to obsessively violent lovers. I took the leap not because I was particularly brave, but because a very dear director friend of mine sat me down and told me I was extremely ugly. And being ugly necessarily meant... I know, now I know. And being ugly necessarily meant I do bad guy roles.
I wasn't the romantic hero types he said. Actually, he used the words that my face was not chocolatey enough. So I started to eat a lot of chocolate. And while waiting for it to take effect, I jumped into bad guy roles.
Dar means fair in Hindi, and everyone always tells you at speeches like this that you ought to be brave, so I'm not going to bore you with that idea. Instead, let me tell you this. Being brave means being shit-scared all the way to the party. Yeah, I'm sorry if that word is being very scared all the way to the party.
But getting there, but getting there all the same and doing the funky chicken in front of all your teenage kids friends anyway. Let me just add on behalf of all the fathers of the world who have embarrassed their kids by doing this, it takes a lot of bravery, resolve and grit to do it. So just do it.
Don't let your fears become boxes that enclose you. Open them out, feel them and turn them into the greatest courage you are capable of. I promise you nothing will go wrong.
But if you live by your fears, everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong. And you won't even have done the funky chicken. While we are on that, what everyone...
I do it. I do everything for you. I'm a doctor now.
And while you're talking about fears and bravery, let me also add this, that all the planning in the world won't take you where you want to go. And it's fine not to know what you want to be 20 years from now. Most of those who had it all figured out become bankers anyway. I'm sorry. This goes live on YouTube.
My big next loan for the film is finished from my friendly neighborhood banker. Okay, I did a movie once called Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naan, in which I was... One of my favorite films actually.
And in which I was the victim of a lover's confusion. And my next lesson is precisely that. It's okay to be confused.
Confusion is the root to all the clarity in the world. Don't worry about it too much. Don't ever take yourself seriously enough to be so clear about your own ideas that you stop respecting other people's.
Our values are our values. They don't make us any better than anyone else. At best, they just make us different. Always try to see the other person's truth because like every movie has a story, every human being has one too and you have no right to imagine that yours is better than anyone else's.
You can leave that silliness to my esteemed colleagues and me. And if you thought the last two stories I told you were crazy, here's another one in the reckoning for the Oscar for weirdest screenplay. Guddu.
Yes, Guddu was my name in a movie. I hardly look like a Guddu, but they still name me Guddu. About loving and giving.
In which, basically, I have an accident. Yes, another one. But this time, instead of almost wiping out my future mother-in-law, I wipe out my girlfriend's eyes.
Many convoluted subplots, including a life-threatening brain tumor to me, a legal battle for the right to donate organs, and a fast-on to death by my mother, my scientific lawyer father, my mother, and I are battling over which one of us will donate our eyes to my blind girlfriend. In the end, I recover miraculously, I still don't know how, and my mother dies. Donating her eyes to my girlfriend and then we all live happily ever after.
Life lesson number four, rears its head. Give of yourself to others, and while you're at it, make sure you realize that you aren't doing anyone any favors by being kind to them. It's all just to make you feel that sneaky little twinge that comes from being utterly pleased with yourself.
After all, the one that gets the most benefit out of any act of kindness or charity that you do will always be you. I don't say this as many see it in a transactive or karmic way. It's not an I do good, I get benefit equation with some white bearded figure taking notes from the heavens above.
It's a simple truth. An act of goodness becomes worthless when you assign a brownie point to yourself for it, no matter how subtly you allow yourself to do so. As benevolent as your gesture might be, someone else could have made it too.
Regardless of how rich, successful and famous you become, Don't ever ever underestimate the grace that other people bestow upon you just by being the recipient of your kindnesses. You might be able to buy your friend rolls for his or her birthday but it's no substitute for a patient hearing of your sulky rants on a bad hair day. Sometimes things just happen. As encapsulated in another movie title of mine, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. And you know what?
They don't always add up. So my fifth lesson is this. When life hits you with all the force of its resplendent rage, the roles isn't going to give you comfort.
A friend's grace will. And if you can't find resolution as easily as you would like to, please don't panic. Everything evolves as you go along.
Even disasters eventually resolve themselves. Give life the space to move at its own pace, pushing it ahead only by way of being kind to yourself when you're hurting or in despair. And you will be hurting and despairing a lot in this lifetime.
You don't always have to figure things out or find an explanation for the circumstances you are in. It's more prudent to accept that sometimes there just isn't one. Ram Jani God knows, that's what it means, as we say in Hindi, and as a priest responded to my orphan child character when I asked him what my name was, in a movie of the same appellation. The boy plodded through three entire hours of film referring to himself by that fatalistic phrase, and why not? Who says that what we call ourselves is any definition of who we really are?
And that's lesson number six for you. All the names you give yourself, or those that others call you, are just labels. You're not defined by them no matter how flattering or uncomplimentary they are. What defines you, genuinely, is your heart.
Ask or read about the artist formerly known as Prince, and you'll learn a thing or two from him, if you don't believe this insanely sexy Indian superstar telling you so. But I generally say this out of experience, because if I was to go by what I'm called on the social media, I would be an old, desperate, manipulative has-been star who swings both ways making crap movies. And these are just the good mentions.
If you aren't charged about doing something, if you don't have what in Hindi we call josh, The fire in your belly for it, then don't do it. It's a waste of your time and more importantly, of those who pin their hopes on your endeavors too. Redefine yourself if you have to, but do it on your own terms and just get on with it.
In fact, like my character in the movie, my name is Khan, if you've seen it. Don't forget where you came from. Please don't forget where you came from and who you really are. It ought to be the compass by which you navigate through life's vicissitudes.
The knot that keeps you oriented despite a series of misfortunes or a shower of privilege. One of the biggest hits I made was an unexpected one and for once the plot was neither meandering nor barking mad. I was the coach of a beleaguered women's hockey team that went on to overcome its own problems, its struggles and win a world championship.
Its title was Chagwe, an inspirational martial cry that Sikh soldiers used while lifting logs in order to make bridges across rivers on their campaigns against their enemies. It implies the will to get up and get on with it. Which brings me to life lesson number seven. Whatever it is that is pulling you back it's not going away unless you stand up and start forging your own path with all your might in the opposite direction. Stop whining and start moving so to speak.
I didn't mean the kid. Sadness and happiness... I'm sorry she can whine.
Sadness and happiness have the same quality of transience. Life is a balanced exchange of one with the other. And this is lesson number eight. Don't attach yourself to either. They're both going to change with the same certitude.
Take them with the ephemeral spirit of their impermanence and manage them. healthy dose of good humor. Laugh at yourself when you're despairing.
Share it here too, when one of my movie plots makes you hysterical with laughter. I need to tell you in Guddu we did consider donating a single eye, the guy, to his blind girlfriend and both of them waltzing into the sunset eye patch to eye patch. We didn't do that.
Then there was Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Kam. Yes, it means to be happy sometimes and sad others. It's the very beauty of a life lived in full measure.
Why fail yourself by desiring one emotion and detesting the other? I have acted in 50 plus full-length films or 60. If I took you through a journey of each title, we'd be sitting here forever. And you'd all end up fast asleep. So I'll wrap up with my last couple of words or lessons. Okay, film number 17. This one is Live From The Heart.
They'll say love love people love the world around you love animals and birds and big cities and mountains love dreams Yeah And love your work and love me forever, love your friends and love me forever, love your enemies and love me forever. But most importantly my friends, love yourselves. Embrace all that this life has in store for you. Let your heart be as deep as the deepest ocean, and as wide as the furthest horizon. Know that it is limitless.
Love is not an excuse to grab or to hold on, or own or to barter. It is the only excuse you will ever have to call yourself special. And if someone you love lets you down, don't fault yourself for not trusting him or her. Fault yourself for not trusting your love enough to forgive his or her trespasses. You never know what the future will bring, whether there will be a tomorrow or not.
I died at a shockingly young age in a movie called Kal Ho Na Ho which means just that and I wasn't even a smoker in the film which was a yeah I've been told that kids so I can't use too many of these connotations and talk so I'm controlling myself but I never let my two older children watch it to the end we even filmed I asked her and my friend to whole alternate ending specially for them but now they have grown up and they nearly as grown up as you are they will soon be embarking on a wondrous journey of their own like most of you are Instead of trying to protect them from life, the wiser and older version of me grabs every chance to tell them, live as hard as you can in this very moment. Live now, live today, you may not see it with your youthful eyes, but now is as much time as you will ever get. Because tomorrow, we will all be dead. And just in case there is no cycle of rebirth etc., why take a chance?
I don't want to end this on a cynical note by reminding you about the reality of death. I want to let you all know that how important your today is, your now is. Study hard, work hard, play harder. Don't be bound by rules, don't hurt anybody. never grow up and never ever live somebody else's dream.
Remember however many times you go wrong, no matter how many times you fail, despair, feel like this world is against you. In the words of Bob Marley, at the end, everything's gonna be alright. And in my words, Hindi films are like life.
Everything gets better in the end. And if it doesn't get better, then it's not the end. Picture, abhi baaki hai mere ka. So all you kids here, please take it as the only truth you need to know.
In the end everything will be alright. Take it and believe it because the most, and this I say honestly, the most unlikely actor to make it in Bollywood is telling you so. The most romantic hero who doesn't look anything like chocolate or taste like it. Thank you very much.
I wish you all the best in your lives. These are the only life lessons I can give you. And I'm open to you if you guys want to ask me something, or I don't know what the protocol is.
If you just hold on for a minute, we have polled the South Asian students in the University of Edinburgh. And we do have a set of questions for you, Dr. Cowan. But I'm going to kick off with one of my own.
I've taught the history of Indian nationalism and researched the history of Indian overseas migration at the University of Edinburgh for the last 25 years. One of your best-loved films, and my personal favourites, was Swadesh. It talks about the anxieties of Indians living far away from home and the tensions between modernity and tradition. The same theme is touched upon famously in Didi Jael and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gamman's sermon.
many of your other films looking forward do you think these differences can be reconciled in a positive way or will there always be difficulties should I speak on this night I did these films thinking they're just entertaining you intellectualize them so much See, I have been coming to this part of the world for years now, and when I started off, I had no idea that there is going to be a diaspora, or people, from various parts of the world, trying to find their feet in different parts of the world. And I think... Somewhere down the line, your motherland, your homeland, the place where you belong to always is the place where your roots are. And yes, there are times when there is a little dissent in terms of what you're looking forward to, having to work.
outside make a living go away from it but the whole idea of Sardes or DDLJ the bottom line was that you are always going to be rooted where you started from and which I wish for every young kid here once you inshallah make it really big and do well in your life and you've achieved every material gain that you want which you should please don't give up on that don't become a philosopher before you become rich make sure honest truth please don't do it find your space, find yourself, however small it is, find yourself your apartment, find yourself a partner, find yourself a business, do everything. And once you have made it what you want to, please, please, if there is any kind of issues back home, go and look after it. That's how DDL Jens Vardes was planning the project.
But there will always be confusion that should you be back home or can we reconcile the fact that we are not doing anything for my own house. I think those differences are alright. Live with them.
But once you have got what you wanted to achieve, please go back home. and you know look after it too that's that's the only thing I can say thank you very much so the next question is from Nishant Sharma where is Nishant hi Nishant yeah sir I would like to ask you as a global brand ambassador of Indian cinema how do you think we can promote and strengthen the ties between India and Scotland and also you have been shooting here for many of your films so how was your overall experience thank you I shot in 1998 then I came for the Edinburgh festival here and the first time when I came here we came and did kuch kuch hota hai the shooting here see for filmmaking people just as a business the main thing is the logistics and the kind of you know the facilities you get here Because you come with about 100 people, 150 people. So it varies from the car that you need to the hotels that you need. And basically all the infrastructure for making a film. That needs to be of ease.
And I remember we had just flown into Scotland. We had made no plans. We were quite unplanned. We needed to do a song.
It was raining. But the facilities here were fantastic. It was really brilliant.
That's why we were able to pull off the song. And of course, it's odd for me to talk about the beauty of Scotland, the Highlands. It's fantastic to look at. And not only that, I think the city area.
which I've not really roamed around in a lot, but have noticed in coming in, going out. It's extremely quaint and beautiful. It has a lot of culture and a lot of character, actually. And filmmakers would love to do that. So as long as...
I don't know which other film handling units in Scotland. But if they are able to give us, every filmmaker, not just us from India, I think every filmmaker some kind of a platform where they know we just need to come with a script and shoot here, I think that would be fantastic. And it would make a huge amount of business sense, apart from tourism sense, and I think just the fact that, you know, everybody wants to shoot in a beautiful place, and Scotland is extremely beautiful.
Great. Okay. Thank you. So the next question is from Twinkle Tucker.
Where is Twinkle? There she is. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, Trinkle. So you're a very busy man. You've been traveling from one set to another set, changing different countries.
Even today morning when I read your Twitter status, it said that you were shooting all day and night and then traveling to Edinburgh, coming back, going back as in. So in this whole process, how do you manage to balance your personal life and your work life? I'm really gifted.
I don't need more than four or five hours of. asleep. So I've trained my family to be awake after 12 midnight.
And unfortunately, even my kids, it's not a healthy thing to do. But I find time for them. When I'm making films, like just recently, I was in Hyderabad shooting for last seven days, I had my little son with me. My kids are now in school, I think they get off tomorrow.
I was hoping to be able to stay back and take them back with me. But I'll join them somewhere. But I do find time because there is nothing else I do. I go home.
After I finish work, I don't have my telephone I don't talk to anyone, I don't do any work. I just get into my shorts and I just hang with my kids. I spend a lot of time with my kids.
I mean, that's the only source of, how do I say it, it takes me away. You know, the job that I do, working, always trying to get it right, hoping that this will be successful, hope it entertains everyone. It's a hugely stressful job, so you need to be happy doing the work. I'm very happy doing what I'm doing 18 hours a day today.
I may not be tomorrow, and then I leave it. But having said that, I'm going to go to the next slide. that when I finish that job, all I want to do is just hang with my kids and do nothing else.
So I think I've spent enough time with them. Obviously, it's never enough to spend time with your kids. But I do try to make sure that as soon as I finish work, the next 10 hours or 11 hours, I'm with them. And I'll keep awake all night. I'll travel just like this to be with them.
I came down to have lunch with my daughter about 10 days back. Just flew in, had lunch, and flew back again so that she doesn't miss seeing me. So I spend a lot of time with my kids. They don't come to shooting. They don't like it.
like me shooting. The little one is okay. He doesn't know what I do, so he just comes and hangs around. But I spend a lot of time with my family. Love you.
Thank you. I love you too. Okay, so the next question is from Sonali Mehta. Hi. Hi, Sonali.
Okay, I can't believe I'm doing this. I'm going to ask you a question, but I'm sorry, but can I please hug you? Please, please, please, please. No, no, sir. You're my role model, you're everything.
Oh my god, I'm shaking. So, my question was, obviously you're such a big star, you've made your mark and everything in the world, and today also you've got a doctorate, you're a doctor SRK now. So, what... What have been the main highlights?
Like, if you can just tell it in a gist, what have been the main highlights of the journey that you've had? I think for an actor, the main highlight is, you know, I normally don't get to see my own films. I finish them and then move on to the other.
Because any kind of attachment to a film I think is regressive. Any kind of attachment to your own art is extremely regressive. I think you should just move on. I've been told, and I say this often, that the art is important on its own. The artist is not.
So my reaction to it, relation to it, I want to disengage and move on. But I think the biggest highlight always is you make a film, you make a presentation, you go somewhere, and you see a lot of smiling faces. It's not being being the business part of it, sometimes because of the company, yes, you feel nice. But I think the greatest happiness I have is, you know, there's a film and you watch it with six, seven hundred people in a dark room and you know this is working for everyone.
You know, I remember, I'll tell you a small story of Chakde. I finished the film and we all saw the film and some of the nicest minds had made the film. I really want to point this out that the acknowledgement when I get a doctorate like this, I am actually taking it on behalf of hundreds of people. hundreds of people who are responsible for making me who I am.
I'm just the face, so I come and take these awards and all these honours. But these people have worked really hard. So in Chakdee we had the brightest minds making a film.
We had these young girls who had worked three, six months on learning how to play hockey. We had Adi Chopra, the producer. We had Shimit. We had Jaydeep. We had the nicest talent making this film.
And Mr. Yash Chopra backing it. I'm acting in it. And then we went and saw the film, and I remember the first screening of the film. We all looked at it and we thought it was the worst film we've ever made in our lives. And we came out, and the girls didn't know this.
They were doing it first time, for them just being on screen was happy. So they were irritatingly screaming and dancing. While the four of us were sitting there crying with tears.
And, you know, we had reached that stage of failure when you start telling everyone, listen, at least we did what we wanted to, right? This is what we set out to make and we made it so success and failure like I told you in the speech is transient and we'll come back and it's alright. And we were really really sad. Shemith ran away to America. I actually ran away to England.
And all of us just dispersed and we didn't know and I switched off my phone, went to sleep. I woke up at 4 in the evening here after, okay I took a lot of intake of alcohol. It was the best way I can say. I was very depressed. Because we thought the film was good, it turned out not nice.
And I woke up at 4, which must have been 9 o'clock in India, and everybody had loved the film. Everybody. The whole country had loved the film. And it was just such a huge success, and we still didn't believe it.
So that highlight... When you don't know, is this going to work or not? If you know, then it's no fun. So the biggest highlights of my life have been that I don't know, and I've just woken up in the morning and been told, people are loving it, not that it's a success, but people are really enjoying it, really finding time from their lives to learn something from it, or just enjoying it, you know, just being happy about it. So I think that has been the greatest highlight.
And my kids. Okay, I'm not going to get this another opportunity. Okay.
I think I... I feel Sonali didn't even hear what I told her. So, the next question is from Anandita Jaiswal.
Sorry? Anandita. Anandita. Anandita Jaiswal.
Hi Anandita. Good evening, sir. Good evening.
given that we were on life lessons, in terms of real life connect, what do you perceive to be the objectives that cinema should attain? And if so, whether, I mean, how do they differ in the context of commercial cinema, which you have been most popular with? vis-a-vis art films or documentaries or films a little off track in terms of like Paheli which you have done so how do the objectives which do they differ in terms of cinema that you know because you're young people and you might be making films so I'll be very honest with you whenever you're making a film the motivation is of course to tell a good story as much as you can sometimes it is tainted, sometimes it's just the opportunity, you got a good star cast and you say let's just go for it it's In the real world, these considerations do crop up. It's not so utopian that you sit down and say, a film should say something, talk to me. It should leave me with more than an empty pack of popcorn.
No. Sometimes you just make that kind of film and say, this is it. I believe all of them are art forms.
Whether it's Nautanki, whether it's Punch and Judy, whether it is some serious Othello or Shakespearean play, whatever it is. I think somewhere everybody's got an art form and a story to tell. So in commercial cinema, whenever...
we make a film, I was just explaining it to the press behind, that sometimes the main purpose is to make people entertained at whatever cost. It's a cabaret. You put the dance in, you put the music in, you put the fight in, everything in doses that everyone enjoys.
It's a universal appeal, especially in Indian films because families watch the films. So the grandmom is also watching, the grandkid is also watching. You want to put everything for them. And you take the social cause and make it minimal. You say, let's put it for just good measure so we feel good about ourselves.
On the other hand, the artistic cinema that you talk about, which is very, very niche, you can take a big social cause and make it at a level which is big enough. But you won't be able to get a universal appeal to that, especially again in the Indian context, or internationally also. So somewhere down the line, I can only speak for myself when I say I do some commercial films so I'm able to make the money for the business and try to make the films that I really want to not worry about the commercial consideration. So like a pahili. flop miserably.
And, you know, went for the Oscars. I don't think it deserved to, maybe. But I felt really sad that I had taught a film about women empowerment based on a classical story from India was completely pan.
But it doesn't take me away from making those kind of films. I've made a fan now. I would love to make another one like that. We did Ashoka, which also didn't do well.
You keep trying and hope you get a balance like Chakde. But those balances are very far and few. And the objective of commercial cinema is very clear. universal appeal and niche cinemas, you know, tell a telling story.
And those two cannot mix as much as we would like it to. They cannot. Sometimes, like a Swades, maybe to a certain degree, take a big star, put him in a film. But these considerations, everyone tries.
But I don't think it's a successfully worked. Thank you so much. All right. Okay, so now we have a special treat.
We have our own dance company, Dance Ihayami, who are a Scottish fusion dance troupe, who are going to come onto the stage now and perform their version of Bollywood dance for your entertainment. Wonderful, thank you. Okay, so Dance Ihayami. Come on. G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G Nishaadari Sabha Gandhara Nishaadari Sabha Gandhara Madhyama Nishaadari Sabha Gandhara Madhyama Daivada Shajja Nishadadishavakandharamadyamadeivadasajyavanjamodatanudatasvaridaprajayapranavakara Nishadadishavakandharamadyamadeivadasajyavanjamodatanudatasvaridaprajayapranavakara Nityaniramayanirmalajigamandapratipadhyatirubamaniravadinirasaniranjananirgunabrahmasi