So, the great rivalry between the two Khans continues, or, at least the paparazzi make us believe so. Ask either Aamir or Shahrukh about their cold war, you already know what you would get for an answer,"We are good friends, this rivalry or coldwar or whatever you call it, is all creation of media." Oh really? So be it. Who are we to dispute? Lesser mortals like us form our opinion from what we see in page 3, what we read in their blogs, twitter or press. We would try and find out the reality on another occasion. This space, I thought, could be better utilised to summarize my perception of two of my most favorite actors in Bollywood in present day.
Aamir Khan, comes from a family that had been long related to the industry. Tahir Hussain, his father was a producer, while Nasser Hussain, his uncle was a producer-director-actor. It was but natural that Aamir took to acting. He made his debut as a main lead through
Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak in 1988, which was a runaway hit. This movie established Aamir as the young heart-throb of the nation. Movies like
Dil, Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar followed and elevated him to mega stardom in bollywood.
Shahrukh Khan, on the other hand, had no connections with the industry. He made his acting debut in television (
Fauji, Circus), enjoyed some amount of success there and made a natural progression to the big screen. He made his debut in
Deewana and took the nation by storm by his passionate potrayal of the love struck character of Raja.
If
Baazigar and
Darr made him a house hold name,
DDLJ made sure that he was ruling everybody's heart.
Both these actors have delivered numerous hits after their initial period of success and have proved to have been the best thing to have happened to main-stream cinema after Amitabh Bachchan. We are not going to discuss their filmography here, all of us are aware of that. We would also not fall into the trap of arguing who is a bigger star, we have had enough of that over the past two decades. What we would do here is, we would compare and contrast both these stars' strengths, their approach towards their profession in general and to different characters in particular. To put a disclaimer right here, the opinion expressed in this post is solely mine, and is based on my own understanding of both these actors from whatever materials I could gather. You would have your own, which you may post down here as comments, as that would add tremendus value to this post.
Aamir, I have come to believe, after following his career over the years, is a man of method. His approach towards a role is perfectly calculated. He reads, understands, feels and then decides if he wants to play a particular character. Once decided, he goes into thorough research to form an idea on how that character would react to different situations in real life, how he would walk,talk or behave. He then prepares a mental blueprint of what his every move would be, as per the script, during filming. So when light-camera-action is called, all he needs to do is to enact his thoroughly researched but completely finalised blue print in front of the camera. That leaves no room for any ambiguity in his approach during the shoot and all his pre-shoot hard work and effort seals almost every loophole in the final product. That's why we call him a perfectionist.
Shahrukh, on the contrary, is a spontaneous actor. He lets his heart dictate his moves in front of the camera. He was never a method actor, but a versatile one. He has got terrific screen presence and can generate unbelievable chemistry with his audience through the camera. That is his strength. The very fact that he goes by his instincts while playing a character, has sometimes gone against him, a section of public accuses him of playing himself in most of his movies. But the same public line up in front of theatres, every time a new movie of Shahrukh is released. Therein lies his success.
Where Aamir is way ahead of Shahrukh is in his selection of roles. He knows his limitations extremely well and selects characters well within his comfort zone. So while he seems to be doing a variety of roles (which he indeed does, as he experiments much more than any of his contemporaries), he is intelligent enough to tactfully avoid those kind of roles that would show off his limitations as an actor. Only one out of ten times would he have failed in his interpretation of a character (remember Mangal Pandey?). Roshan Seth had rightly pointed out how it was a rare failure of Aamir in terms of performance. He has been even more careful ever since.
Another plus point of Aamir lies in his detailed knowledge of the medium. Coming from a family of film-makers, he was always aware of the finer technicalities of movie making. He, as it is often said, is a born director. He has often been accused of interfering in his directors' work, to which he explains that he doesn't interfere, he only adds value by providing his inputs. Senior directors like Mahesh Bhat had not taken this attitude of Aamir so sportingly at one point of time. That of course, is a different matter all together, here the point is, Aamir's through technical knowledge puts him at an advantageous position vis-a-vis his competitors.
On the other hand, Shahrukh Khan has been a people's actor. He is a self-confessed entertainer. Mind you, this too is no cake walk. Its not easy to make people believe in madness. Shahrukh not only entertains you through his stylish portrayal of characters, he make you believe in him, if not always in the character he plays. When he says "Main Hoon Na!", you feel as if he is really there for you. As most of his female co-stars have admitted, when Shahrukh romances a girl, it just feels so real. This is bound to transmit to his audiences, through the eye of the lense, and it indeed does, as even his worst critic would agree. The energy that he exudes is infectious!
Another myth about Shahrukh is that he is arrogant. But to state the truth, he is a very humble and down to earth person. The context in which he keeps saying he is the best is misunderstood. Shahrukh, at one point of time was a sportsman. He still thinks like a sportsman. So at times, this sportsman's
on-your-face attitude comes through his interviews, and is often not taken in right perspective by the media. But one must understand that Shahrukh Khan is intelligent enough to be well aware of where he stands as an actor or a human being. For whatever he has achieved in his career, anybody would love to swap places with him, he knows very well that he doesn't need to blow his own trumpet. As his close associates like Karan Johar or Farah Khan would confirm, it's his tongue-in-cheek style, that is blown out of proportion, just for the sake of cheap publicity.
Aamir and Shahrukh, both have achieved tremendus success in their illustrious careers adopting their very own methods. It's really foolish to judge which is a better way,as what is right for one might be absolutely out of place for another. So if one says Aamir is better, you could argue that Shahrukh is the "Baadshah of Bollywood" (Not for nothing such a tag is bestowed upon him) and if another says Shahrukh is better, you would have Aamir's mind-blowing filmography to counter him.
So what's the moral of the story? Instead of getting into this end-less comparison act, lets enjoy what both these wonderfully talented artists have to offer, while they are at it. If compare we must, we would leave that for another day, maybe till they hang their boots, and who knows, even then we might find ourselves at the same cross-roads!
