Why Do Women Like Shah Rukh Khan?

Amongst a million zillion other reasons…

In an interview with Simi Garewal she asks him. (Writing from memory, there are sure to be many errors).

“You are sensitive. You respect women. You love your wife! You understand how women feel (etc) … do you think that makes you a little like a woman in some ways? …Effeminate? ”

I have no doubts that even the coolest JKGs would have been unhappy to hear this last line. We know what this question can imply. And how it can label a man in India!

(If a man is described as a woman it means, he is weak, he gossips, he quarrels, he has no muscles, he is a bad driver, he loves to make gajar ka halwa for his spouse, women do not think he is attractive, he pouts if he does not get enough attention from his spouse, he puts his family before his career, he cries easily… etc ).

So what does Shahrukh Khan say? He couldn’t possibly have started a tirade against stereotypes, (which would have been great, though!), so he takes a short cut. He gets his famous look on his face and says,

“.… to be compared to a woman is an honor. I have a lot of a woman in me.”

There was more and it got Simi Garewal her famous ‘awww’ look on her face.

Simi Garewal like many of us believes that Mamta Banerji, Kiran Bedi, my maid who dragged her neighbour off the water tanker with his hair, my other maid who has been thrown out of her house, Mayawati, my grandmother who read Ramayana every morning, Sushma Swaraj, Sonia Gandhi, Pooja Chopra’s mother can all be described very simply in one word, ‘sensitive’. And if a man is sensitive he is being ‘like a woman’.

Most people are wary of labels, because labels put an official stamp on stereotypes, but in India the biggest insult for a man is to tell him he is like a woman. Shahrukh Khan made a compliment of it. Here’s a man who shamelessly flaunts his sensitivity. Dares to show he cares. Loves his family, loves even the daughter. What’s amazing, he talks about his wife with ease, how they met, how they fell in love, and since he is sincere he epitomizes the kind of guy many Indian girls can take home to their mothers.

So how can I object to his using my blog name for a book on his life?

Solilo sent me this, Thank You Solilo!