Shah Rukh's fandom has to be the easiest on my pocket of all the other fandoms I've been in so far. I can count on one hand the stuff I've bought relating to him (with all the movies being relegated to just 'DVD' tag). The most expensive purchase has to be the one I made yesterday, and even that can be tax-exempted so it's 'free of cost' come next year.
Yep. I bought the 4-kilo thing. I love the chapters on 'The Others' that he did. I think those are the most brilliant. I haven't read the first few, but that's coz I was very clear about not wanting to read it in one linear progression.
What made me bought it, finally? Well, I did want to buy it the day I bought Anupama's but like I wrote, I didn't have the budget, it being bleedin expensive as it is. But reading the excerpts of the book whetted my appetite and I thought ...what the heck, one day I may not feel this strong urge to read it anymore so I might as well do it now. I couldn't find it at the bookshelf (although I did find Amitabh's biography) and I had to wait for nearly half an hour for the bookstore people to get it for me from whereva, but it's worth the wait.
Okay, I confess. What I wanted was Shah Rukh Can (can you blame me? Look at the cover!), but not finding it on the shelf, I couldn't bring myself to write down the title and ask the bookstore girl to find it. I was too embarrassed. I didn't want to be identified as a Shah Rukh fan, or anyone's fan, at a counter. I'm an extremely shy person, and this is the first time I have ever deliberately asked for a book about a celebrity at a bookstore. With 'Still Reading Khan', the title is vague enough (it sounds like fiction) and once the book was in my hand, it didn't matter if they knew whose biography I was searching desperately for coz I could just scram outta there to another counter to pay for it, and thereby escaped scrutiny. The entire time I was waiting at the counter, I put on my 'stone-faced, cultured and polite' mask on to hide my awkwardness every time I ask the girl whether the book was found yet.
I won't do a book review on it coz I generally suck at doing reviews. But it did make me want to change several things in my blog, namely my post labels. It also made me want to write a whole bunch of emails to the author coz while reading it, my brain was flooded with words I wanted to say about what 'Shah Rukh Khan' means to me as a fan. I may or may not write those emails, depending on my laziness, but I do applaud his effort. I absolutely agree that there're more books to be written about Shah Rukh because post-Still Reading Khan he has gone and done more stupendous things that need to be recorded. And it'd be cool if someone who writes as well as Mushtaq does would continue writing about Shah Rukh.
Why write biographies? Well, don't you know? It's one of the ways (I would say, the most effective way) to immortalize a mortal, darling. You'll understand the impact of Mushtaq's and Anupama's and all the other biographers' written words 100 years down the line. Be patient and wait for it, if you're still alive by then, that is.
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