I didn’t want to be poor, says Shahrukh Khan

Actor says he signed films because he feared being poor.

Bollywood King Shahrukh Khan has been ruling the industry for so long that it seems he always had it all — fame, money and success. However, in a recent interaction with around 800 management students, SRK recalled his early days and made some honest confessions about his struggle in life.

“I am really scared of failures. Coming from a lower-middle class family, I saw a lot of failure,” said the 47-year-old actor, getting all nostalgic, reported the Hindustan Times. “At a certain juncture of my life, I was thrown out on the road because we could not pay rent. Poverty instills fear, stress and sometimes depression.”



“I saw my parents going through it. After I lost my dad at an early age, I equated poverty to failure. I just didn’t want to be poor,” he added. Shahrukh stressed on the fact that his strained childhood pushed him to make an extra effort in life. “I signed films for the fear of poverty more than creative desire. Most of my initial films were discards of other actors. Deewana [1992] was discarded by an actor called Armaan Kohli, Baazigar [1993] by Salman Khan and Darr [1993] by Aamir Khan. I did them all to avoid unemployment. The time was right — I became a star,” he said.

Earlier in an interview with iDiva.com, Shahrukh had said that even though he started out with the purpose of earning, he eventually realised that personal success is not dependant on money. “I was a lower middle-class boy from Delhi when I moved to Mumbai. I had Rs 1,500 in my pocket and wanted to become big enough to earn a lakh. After I began working, I realised there’s no end line,” he said. “I believe that money has nothing to do with your personal success. On the face of it, I’m the biggest capitalist of all. I have all the riches. I’m the living proof of what stardom should be in material terms. But I’ve never sold my soul.”

By never selling his soul, he meant, “I’ve not done anything I didn’t want to do. I’ve not done films for money. I’m not saying this with arrogance but I’ve never asked for a film. At times, I have called up a person if I liked his film but I’ve never asked for a film.”

Clearly, SRK’s stardom is not only related to his skills but also his humility. His recent film Chennai Express has broken all records at the box office and he will next be seen in Farah Khan’s Happy New Year.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2013.

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