I'm learning from my kids: Shah Rukh Khan

“I love children; not just my own but everyone else’s children too. And my entire thought process as an actor, an entertainer and a producer has been geared towards providing something for them all in my own unique way. I am hugely passionate about kids. Most of my acting is designed to appeal to children more than adults. I love entertaining children,” confessed Shah Rukh Khan, who was in the capital city recently for an event.

“With every step (professionally and personally) that I take towards achieving the zenith of my career, I constantly try and look out for ways to do something that will elevate the young ones,” added SRK, who has three children, out of whom the youngest, AbRam, is just three years old.

Talking about the one quality that he has learnt from his own children that he highly appreciates, the actor said, “I am surrounded by children these days; my own as well as their friends. And the one thing that I am finding very different or unique or fascinating is the fact that they are extremely straightforward. They are uprightly honest and clear-minded about life. I think we have a generation of kids who, because of the exposure of facilities around them, are simply going to be honest about what they want to do with their lives. I think I never possessed that sort of clarity when I was young. And this very quality is what I am learning from them these days.”

He goes on, “I’m learning that you have a thought, a belief, a dream and the confidence to give your best shot to it without getting taken in by any sort of a pressure — peer or parental.”

As the question about what all shararatein he used to partake in as a child himself came up, a flood of memories came back to him and he revealed, “We used to live in apartment flats. I used to indulge in two most stupid and completely wrong acts, which I would in advance warn all kids never to follow. One of them was unnecessarily ringing the doorbell of all my neighbours and then running for my dear life. And the second one, for which I was terribly bashed by my parents after I accidentally got caught, was bombing letterboxes of my neighbours during Diwali. I clearly remember a girl and her family who used to stay above us on the fourth floor. She was elder to me but she was liked by everyone, especially by the boys. And I don’t know why or what had gotten into me. I actually went on to bomb her letterbox out of all the boxes that were left from the neighbourhood. Her mother caught me and came rushing to my father after the incident, and complained that I did it to grab the attention of her daughter. My father replied, “Agar aap mujhe pehle miltin toh aapka attention grab karne ke liye main bhi aapka letterbox uda deta.” She cracked up like anything after listening to this and our families became friends,” he said with sufficient probity.