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A review by inoirita
Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India's Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence by Shrayana Bhattacharya
4.0
Do you remember the first time you saw the King of Romance on screen? Did you instantly get a smile when he said his cheesy dialogues and smiled his half smile that is accompanied with a soft boyish charm? Do you remember the first time you saw this man love a woman on screen and you felt that you needed a love like that in your life?
From a very young age, the indian woman has no other option but to fall in love with Shah Rukh Khan hopelessly! I've met people with different actors as their favourites, actually even I'm not one of those top fans of King Khan, but I know most women feel a different kind of peace of while watching the movies of this talented human being. In his characters they find a man who has defied the standards of the archetypical masculine hero and they get to dream about a man with whom they can share their deepest thoughts. Khan's characters immediately do not jump to the rescue, but they listen to what the woman opposite him has to say which is such a rare trait of the indian hero on screen. His characters truly think of women as equals which is interpreted by Indian men as impossible standards that women set up while dating. I'm sure many women has had to go through the suggestions to stop watching these impossibly romantic bollywood movies that'll ruin their expectations of a realistic partner. But what men don't get is women don't really want a man who's going to chase her through different countries, they merely want a man who wouldn't feel insecure talking about life while giving them a hand with chopping vegetables.
Khan has a shadow on the lives of women of all ages in India despite the economical challenges that they undergo. While only a tiny section of the women in India are able to access the comfort of a multiplex, many do not have the permission to indulge in movies that might ruin their mind and most of them simply cannot afford to watch his movies. Their love for him lies through that one time they watched DDLJ and his songs that appear on their broken radios. But it is a love that has survived decades of terrible bollywood movies and derogatory item numbers and Khan's legacy will still challenge many generations of lovers.
From a very young age, the indian woman has no other option but to fall in love with Shah Rukh Khan hopelessly! I've met people with different actors as their favourites, actually even I'm not one of those top fans of King Khan, but I know most women feel a different kind of peace of while watching the movies of this talented human being. In his characters they find a man who has defied the standards of the archetypical masculine hero and they get to dream about a man with whom they can share their deepest thoughts. Khan's characters immediately do not jump to the rescue, but they listen to what the woman opposite him has to say which is such a rare trait of the indian hero on screen. His characters truly think of women as equals which is interpreted by Indian men as impossible standards that women set up while dating. I'm sure many women has had to go through the suggestions to stop watching these impossibly romantic bollywood movies that'll ruin their expectations of a realistic partner. But what men don't get is women don't really want a man who's going to chase her through different countries, they merely want a man who wouldn't feel insecure talking about life while giving them a hand with chopping vegetables.
Khan has a shadow on the lives of women of all ages in India despite the economical challenges that they undergo. While only a tiny section of the women in India are able to access the comfort of a multiplex, many do not have the permission to indulge in movies that might ruin their mind and most of them simply cannot afford to watch his movies. Their love for him lies through that one time they watched DDLJ and his songs that appear on their broken radios. But it is a love that has survived decades of terrible bollywood movies and derogatory item numbers and Khan's legacy will still challenge many generations of lovers.