Shah Rukh launches ‘An Unsuitable Boy’

Actor Shah Rukh Khan launched Karan Johar’s autobiography yesterday in Mumbai. The book has been in the news over Johar’s revelations about his fall out with close friend Kajol, his ups and downs with his long-time friend Khan and how his movies are often labelled elitist. The book has been co-authored by Poonam Saxena. Karan Johar has directed Shah Rukh Khan in four out of his five films. anymore,” he writes. Not only does the filmmaker write extensively about his sexual orientation, the time when he lost his virginity and about his “two unrequited love situations”, the dark side of Bollywood — its insecurities and jealousies — also find sufficient mention.

WHEN TALKING SEX

Much has been said and speculated about Johar’s sexual orientation in the past but he has somehow maintained a low profile on the topic. So, it is for the first time that the filmmaker has talked at length on this topic. Johar writes that he had his first sexual encounter at the age of 26 but this is not something he is “proud” of. Completely inexperienced sexually up to that point of time, he says he paid for sex in New York. “It was a nerve-racking experience for me,” Johar writes. Johar also points out that, somehow, people equate being in the entertainment industry with having a lot of sex. “But I don’t want that much. Actually Johar and Kajol, after more than two decades of friendship, have had a fallout. Johar (right) with his father Yash Johar, and Shah Rukh, on the sets of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998). I don’t care about it. People think that since I am travelling a lot, I am having a lot of sex. But it doesn’t happen that way. A boarding pass is not a pass for sex. I am not in love with anyone anymore,” the filmmaker writes.

There is a reason behind the importance that he gives to sex in this memoir. Johar, in his own words, “was very backward in this department” as a child.

“There was a big age-gap between me and my father, and no one else told me about these things. I had a very square group of friends: We were all very good girls and boys. We were the Gujarati bunch who would go for picnics. We were the most uncool, unaware and innocent lot,” he writes.

However, there are no full stops or ambiguity as one moves from sex to cinema — something Johar has been passionately involved in.

The filmmaker feels that the new trait he has acquired is honesty, something which, according to him, he did not have in the last decade because he felt the need not to be honest in personal or professional situations.

“There was a time when I was very concerned about what other filmmakers did... It was borderline jealousy, competition... I used to sometimes wish their films wouldn’t do as well as they did. I used to be troubled by Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s brilliance. I used to be affected that I couldn’t write a film like Raju Hirani,” Johar writes.

Another significant issue that finds mention in the book is his complaint that he never gets credit for his work.

“I feel no matter what kind of films I do, I never get credit. It gets forgotten immediately afterwards. I am still associated with popcorn, frivolity, NRIs and rich people,” he writes.

AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT

One thing is clear, Johar doesn’t use the memoir to deliver a sermon or talk about the faults of the film industry or offer advise on what to do and what not to do in Bollywood; he is, instead, telling a story — his intimate story.

Has the filmmaker been honest in his narrative?

One cannot say for sure, but given the fact that most of the people he writes about are still around, some as powerful in the film industry as this filmmaker himself, one would imagine so.

Despite the controversies that are already doing the rounds and those that may crop up in the days to come, this is a significant memoir, opening doors to the troubled minds of Bollywood.

—IANS and PTI