Shah Rukh Khan (DNA; February 17, 2014)

Quite straight forwardly, Aquarius is the humanitarian of the zodiac. Now let’s be clear, I like people who do things for other people, I also like people who do things for animals, global warming, world peace, underwater creatures, feathered beings, amphibians and pretty much anything and anyone out there who needs a helping hand. I even like the lofty sound of the word ‘humanitarian’, in fact after the word ‘legend’ it could possibly be my aspiration to have it carved into my epitaph: ‘Here lies a ‘legend’ of cinema, gentle and ‘humanitarian’, who smoked his way to paradise and never turned vegetarian’.

I get a lot of flak for not championing social causes and I’ll explain why later, in the meantime I looked up some ‘causes’ on the Internet with a view to co-opting one or other and saving my ‘Celebrity without a Cause’ reputation. Here’s what I came up with:

“David Gracer is on a one-man crusade with a modest goal: To save the world. While some would-be heroes hope to yank mankind from the jaws of extinction by eliminating greenhouse gasses or launching kickass covert military operations, David Gracer has another plan in mind. He wants to save the world through entomophagy, which means the key to our very salvation is to shun delicious hot wings and eat bugs instead.”

I’ve never been big on food, it’s just not one of my things. I guess I could try chewing on some cockroaches and crickets but I’m not sure it would save much more than my ever-growing eccentricities. Instead I could do my own version of ‘saving the world through my stomach’ by getting myself an eight pack.

My daughter and I were watching Two Broke Girls the other day. We watched the French guy take his shirt off; with all the smugness of a hero-worshipped father I asked her eagerly, “Is he hotter than I am?” “Of course he is, Papa” she replied giggling. I swore I would out-ab that French fellow, out-build his body, out-strip his 20-year-old chest and get him out of my beautiful daughter’s dreams. I threw myself into the gym as if I was Schwarzernegger preparing for his Mr Universe contest (20 years ago!!). The song in the background was of course Eye Of The Tiger and I kept mouthing the words: I’ll be back!

Reps never got repped as much as they did that evening. No man can afford to be ousted from his daughter’s, ‘hottest guy in the world’ count.

It’s just not on. I was counting on being her Mr Universe for the rest of my days.

Two days later, a door bigger than my wounded ego unhinged and fell on top of me. I now have a fractured shoulder, a disheveled kneecap, a scar on my noodle and a broken Mr Universe dream. I’m lying in bed watching TV with my daughter again and guess what? It’s Two Broke Girls and A Half Broken Man!!!
Clearly my ‘save the world through your stomach’ cause didn’t fly.

Here’s another worthwhile crusade I found: The ‘No one gets to do my dance but me’ crusade.
“Ric Silver owns the electric slide. Thanks to Ric Silver and his one-man crusade to stop people from performing the Electric Slide in public, anyone caught doing the Electric Slide will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. On what grounds does Ric Silver think he can stop everyone else from line dancing the night away? Because he owns the copyright to the Electric Slide.”

Now this one really got me thinking. If you’re going to own a cause, why not start by owning your own slick moves on the dance floor. ‘I’m going to copyright the Lungi Dance,’ I thought to myself in a surge of brilliance. I could patent the lungi and merchandise the moves. I started seeing images in my head: Animations, Lungi Dance figurines, top trump cards for different moves, tiffin boxes with Lungi Dance logos smattered across them, the works. I could even have a Lungi Dance police like the moral police that chases hapless loving couples out of parks and surreptitious corners.

My fan clubs could volunteer their services to this great cause, we could print signs saying ‘The Lungi Dance is SRK’s’, ‘Don’t dance the Lungi Dance, dude’ or ‘Anyone dancing the Lungi Dance will be prosecuted in a court of law” and have demonstrations at the Jantar Mantar. We could even register as a political party and give some of our compatriots a ‘dance’ for their money.

Who knows, we might just catch the public imagination. I could change my look, wear a lungi and become a national hero. My political motto could be, “Jab politics ho jaaye Gungi, tab kholo unki Lungi.” If not my daughter’s hero, the nation’s will do. But I startled myself out of this fantasy within seconds. The thought of wearing the Lungi without a statuesque heroine accompanying me, is unwelcome and as I have said a trifle too airy for the Delhi cold. Brrrr. This dream will have to be frozen in time, right away! I might as well hang this cause up in the Hall of Fame for lost causes too.

The next cause I researched in my Encyclopedia Causica was this:
“Ed Lake investigator of fake porn: Anyone who says chivalry is dead has obviously never heard of Ed Lake. Since 1996 he’s been patrolling the internet protecting damsels in distress from the evils of photo editing software. Ever since seeing a fake nude photo of Gillian Anderson, Ed has dedicated his free time to “investigating” other celebrity nipple shots to determine if they’re the real deal. Because he’s a gentleman.”
Here was a truly wicked idea. I could hire someone to take up the cause for me. No image change, no sweaty public protests, no insanity workouts, this one was simple. Hire a guy to trawl the net day in and day out, all he has to do is find morphed pictures of me and have them vanish into thin air (I’m not sure how the vanishing part would work though). Better still, I could have a guy morph my head onto the French guy’s body and make this appear on my daughter’s screen every time she googled him. “Hotter than me” my last left ab!!

But as I was busy imagining myself materializing on my daughter’s Mac looking like a stud half my age, I happened upon this guy:

“Pennsylvanian man Jesse Rothacker covered himself in snakes, to protest the inaccurate portrayal of snakes in movies Mr. Rothacker runs the “Forgotten Friends Reptile Sanctuary,” so maybe the frustration of spending eight hours a day trying to convince people that what their home really needs is a few more snakes drove him to these extremes. Oh, and he’s on record protesting that he should be allowed to carry concealed firearms in public parks. “

I’d just have to take this one up over the internet trawler. Snakes aren’t done any justice in the Indian film industry. Every time they’ve appeared on screen for the last 50 years, they’ve had the same sapera tune piped out in the background. They’re always made to look evil and vengeful, appearing suspiciously out of nooks and cranny’s or obsessively following those who accidentally ran over their spouses in another lifetime. They haven’t even been VFX’ed yet (please contact Red Chillies VFX, we have some amazing snake models) and worst of all, women dressed up like bad excuses for apsaras slither about doing snake dances, with scary contact lenses, while the real snakes in the movies come off looking like heroes. Also I have grown up with this confusion, that did Mr.Nicephore Niepce get the idea of a camera from a she snake’s eyes? Bollywood has made us believe that the Nagin takes pictures of anyone who disturbs the sanctity of her copulation with a naag, who incidentally always wears a skirt. I think more than me, the Snakes should form a crusade against this cross dressing, silver chloride kohl in the eyes, portrayal of their kin in the movies. I think I will have to drop this cause too. Sometimes it is better to leave the world problems to snakes, as they say.

Maybe I should just accept that causes are no more my thing than consuming cockroaches is. I doubt the idea of ingratiating myself in the public mind by exploiting other people’s misery will ever appeal to me. I have had enough misery in my own life to understand what it feels like to be a Tragedy Trophy. And I’ve heard enough conversations about people living in challenging circumstances while sipping champagne at charity balls too. This is not to say that I am cynical about all those people out there doing excellent work for the good of humanity. It’s just that, “humanitarian”, to me is just, being a little considerate, that’s all. It’s not a lofty thing at all. It’s the smallest way of doing the biggest things in life. “Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.” Albert Schweitzer. That’s all.

Its not a public thing either, it’s a private sustenance of goodness within the confines of the world I live in. I try.

Humanitarianism is an ethic of compassion founded on the age old idea of equality. Equality is the acceptance that all beings are born with an inherent dignity of their own for which they are owed respect in equal measure regardless of any notional or circumstantial contextualization.

In plain English (now that I’ve impressed you with my brilliance!): Each one of us is due a fundamental respect just for the fact that we exist, regardless of how anyone (or any circumstance) chooses to define us. All definitions are limited after all, because definitions and their connotations are based solely on our perceptions of the world around us.

I saw a lovely interview recently, of the president of Uruguay, Mr Jose Mujica in which he was asked what he felt about being labeled ‘the poorest president in the world’. “Those who describe me so are the poor ones,” he replied. “My definition of poor are those who need too much. Because those who need too much are never satisfied.” It was an interesting take from a self-effacing man who donates most of his earnings to charity and runs his country from a modest farm where he drives his own tractor. He was turning an idea everyone took for granted on its head. In fact, he was questioning the way the world chose to define both him and his so called poverty.

It is really quite beautiful to upturn accepted notions and go about my life renewing ideas constantly. I like to do it with my kids. Their relationship with me is not fixed in the classical sense that children relate to their fathers. I see them as companions on a journey, I learn from them and they learn from me. There is no assumed supremacy between us. I look at relationships through the prism of freedom and growth rather than confinement and control. This may be confusing for other people at times, but more than that, it is comforting. I genuinely believe, for example, that my beautiful starry car, belongs as much to my driver Mohan as it does to me. In fact, Mohan is even more emphatic about feeling this way than I am. This is a comfort to both him and me (and possibly to the car too!). I urge you to try this upside down living for yourself and see how it feels to look at people in a new light (PS: please exercise caution when applying these clever thoughts to your marriages!). I would like to think that humanitarianism is the ability to remove barriers created by the limits of our thinking and feel compassion for all living beings (including ourselves). As Mother Jones put it, “My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I bide where there is a fight against wrong.” So fight the smallest of fights for the smallest of wrongs. Start this fight with yourself. Your inabilities sometimes to see the little wrongs that may stem from you. Let your “humanitarianism” travel with you all the time, every place not necessarily only in designated causes and organisations. If all of us do that, then we will have the biggest boldest humanitarian organization…the world itself. A little Utopian but as I said try the upside down living for a change. And you can try this at home, its absolutely safe and requires no big stunts.

I read that Aquarians are also the most futuristic thinkers of the zodiac. They’re supposed to be visionaries unable to remain caught up in pettiness or the past. Compassion is a product of seeing the largeness of the world and understanding our own insignificance in it. Both go hand-in-hand. No one would have to take up great causes if each of us made a little effort to open our minds towards each other and be kind every day. No one would feel the need to “save the world” if we all understood the immensity of our universe, its sheer beauty and the wonderful gift of life that it has given us.

In the words of Bob Marley, a famous Aquarian, “Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!”

I try this in a small way. Everyday. I also believe that celebrities should attach themselves to associations and causes to take forth their messages. The benefits of celebrities being attached to causes are not fabled but real and produce great results in awareness. The combined appeal of their creativity, and public persona brings about a transformation. But everybody is not a celebrity. As a matter of fact being associated with many such organisations, I feel my role is more important as an individual and how I would be if I did not have the celebrity tag attached to me. Therein lies my belief. We all need to develop a sense of not just seeing the cause but the need. And make it our ‘need’ to do something about it.

P.S. By the time you read this article, I just want to inform you, I am back to doing abdominal crunches. I needed to. Crutches or no crutches…I’ll be back. French guy take cover!

Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; January 29, 2014)

The Celebrity Cricket League Season 4 made its debut in Mumbai. The inaugural day was a treat for Bollywood and cricket fans, who showed up in large numbers at the DY Patil stadium on January 25, proving why the two are considered akin to religions in our country.

Salman Khan obliged fans with pictures, bucked up the teams and danced to Yo Yo Honey Singh's hit songs including Shah Rukh Khan's Lungi Dance.

Amidst the mass hysteria, the superstar, who was in a jovial mood, said, "I appreciate that they like my work. I wanted to play this year but Jai Ho came along. Hopefully next year I will play the CCL." When asked if Sohail's Mumbai Heroes is the coolest team since he is associated with it, the superstar mischievously nodded in the affirmative, adding, "My father wanted me to become a cricketer but became an actor."
   Riteish Deshmukh and baiko Genelia Deshmukh brought the Marathi tadka along, as they made a unique entry to the stadium, on the beats of Nashik dhol. Riteish revealed, "A friend of mine organised that. It's to welcome the Marathi team in grand Marathi style. Our slogan is Veer Marathi shoor Marathi, shivba cha varsa veer Marathi."

Also upping the glamour quotient on the first day were Shruti Haasan (brand ambassador CCL), Trisha, Huma Qureshi, Sneha Ullal, Daisy Shah and former Miss India Manasvi Mamgai. Bobby Deol's wife Tanya and their sons Aryaman and Dharam too were there.










 

Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; January 28, 2014)

Shekhar Ravjiani, 38, is a Kutchi, born and brought up in South Mumbai. He is emotional, sensitive and simple. Emotionally, he depends only on himself and is vulnerable only in front of God. While he is usually calm, there are times when he has a bad temper. He loves his daughter Bipasha the most, considers himself blunt and travels to different places when he is not working. His biggest critics are his daughter and wife Chhaya, who are currently hooked on to his latest song Zehnaseeb from the upcoming film Hasee Toh Phasee. Over an hour-long conversation with Bombay Times in his studio, he talks about the mad Sujoy Ghosh, the extremely talented Sukhwinder Singh and why he needs to go to London every two months. Excerpts:
 
How was the duo of Vishal-Shekhar formed?
Music was a hobby for me. It was also in the family as my dad played the accordion. My dad was a share trader, but it was therapeutic for him to play his favourite songs on the accordion in the evening. Mum also had a beautiful voice and would sing. Their friends would come home and they would have music sessions. We lived very close to Jagjit Singh sahab, who was a close family friend. He would come home and I would go to his house when he was doing riyaz and would attend his concerts. I started learning classical music at eight and then the piano. At 17, my father got me a big keyboard and I started making music just for fun. A friend of mine once came home and said, ‘Why don't you create jingles?’ I didn’t even know what a jingle was, but was happy to do it. He took me to Mad Films to meet Mukul Anand, who coincidentally was making Dus at that time. He liked my stuff and asked me to make a title track for Dus. While the track could finally not be used in the film, it was a great experience just being with Mukul and learning from him. I also started doing a lot of ad jingles for him. At 20, my friend pushed me to audition for Sa Re Ga Ma where I got selected. I was 23 when Raj Kaushal, who had been Mukul’s assistant, gave me two songs to compose for his film Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi. One day, I was leaving the studio and bumped into Vishal Dadlani. As it happens, Vishal and I had met years back, when a common friend had got us together in a band, to perform for the Nofra Navy Ball, since both of us belonged to South Mumbai. He played the guitar and I, the keyboard, and that was like one of the worst bands in the world. Coincidentally, he had also been asked by Raj to compose two songs for the same film. We exchanged our stuff and decided to make the title track together. We felt our collaboration had worked and Vishal-Shekhar was formed. We set up out first studio in 2002 inside a marble factory in Worli, next to a graveyard. While we have now moved to a better place in Bandra, that first studio will always remain special to us.

What is Vishal like?
He is a kind-hearted soul and a good man. Despite not having formal training in music, he is extremely talented and a fantastic singer, composer and writer. We are very different as people, but there is something about our friendship, that is the strong bond between us. Our combination is the force. I believe that everyone who comes into your life is destined.
 
You were obviously upset with Shah Rukh asking Honey Singh to make Lungi Dance for Chennai Express. What went wrong?
Shah Rukh is and will always remain a family member. No misunderstanding can change that. Every family has that and we are now creating this mad album for Happy New Year. Shah Rukh is a really nice human being and a lot of fun. He also has a great sense of music and is a super guy. I bumped into Yo Yo Honey Singh and he is a very sweet guy. I enjoy collaboration and whenever the opportunity comes to work together, it will be fun. His music is doing well and at the end of the day, the audience decides what it likes.
 
We earlier saw music directors singing their own songs and now see music directors singing each other’s songs.
Every single song chooses its own singer. Music directors like Shankar Mahadevan can sing anything. I am also a big fan of his music and we are really good friends and play each other’s music to each other, when we hang out together. I also like Amit Trivedi and Pritam’s music. We have heard stories of how Panchamda and Laxmikant Pyarelal would sit and drink together and jam and sometimes even help each other if they got stuck somewhere.
 
Your favourite singers?
I love Sukhwinder Singh. He is unbelievable and becomes a part of the song he sings. I also like Shankar Mahadevan, Sunidhi Chauhan and Shreya Ghoshal.
 
Most promising new singers?
Arijit Singh, Sanam Puri, Neeti Mohan, Nitesh Kadam, and Nandini Srikar.
 
Other music directors you really like?
There were three people whose music I always bought when I started. AR Rahman, Ismail Darbar and Vishal Bhardwaj. They are fantastic.
 
Which directors have you enjoyed working the most with?
We had a lot of fun working with Sujoy Ghosh, Milan Luthria (Taxi No. 9211, The Dirty Picture) and Anubhav Sinha (RA.One). Sujoy is a dear friend with a big heart and is totally mad. Milan and Anubhav are very musically inclined. Also, Farah Khan, who is extremely clear about what she wants and for her, it’s always a clear yes or no. If she doesn't like a song, she will say, ‘Yeh Sujoy (Ghosh) ko de do.’
 
Your song Zehnaseeb from Hasee Toh Phasee, sung by you, is beautiful. Talk about it?
I asked Amitabh Bhattacharya, the lyricist of the song, if he knew of a new word and he said ‘betehaasha’ meaning ‘bahut’. He said, ‘I have another word also and the word is ‘zehnaseeb’ meaning ‘fortunate’. It sounded beautiful, but since I had liked ‘betehaasha’ also, he put both in that song, Tujhe chahoon betehaasha zehnaseeb. We recorded the song and Karan Johar, who is extremely musical, loved it. We kept it on the backburner, till Karan met me two months later and asked for it to be put in the film.
 
Talk about yourself?
I sometimes get up at 2 in the morning and start playing the piano in my living room if I’ve got a song in my head, without realising that there are other people sleeping at home. Sometimes, I just go off on a long drive in the evening to clear my head. Or I will just take off for two days to London all by myself. I take walks around to disconnect. There is a place called Serpentine in Hyde Park, where I just like to sit with my cup of coffee and be totally blank. I try and do it once every two months. In a creative process, there is a lot of usage of your brain cells and you start feeling claustrophobic and exhausted after a while and want to disconnect. But, come to think of it, I feel really blessed to be the chosen one, to be able to create music, be able to sing a little, have a beautiful family and be happy at work. From a time, years back, when I had visited Film Centre to see a recording with 180 musicians, it was destiny to have got to work with the same number of musicians myself in Om Shanti Om. I have no regrets in life.

Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; December 30, 2013)

Yo Yo Honey Singh, 30, was called Honey at home. He lived in England where despite the British blacks, the American ones were followed and aped who would say ‘Yo’ for ‘Yours’. So Honey added ‘Yo Yo’ to his name that means ‘Your Honey Singh’ or ‘I am yours’ as he says lovingly. From being 93 kgs to wanting to just create music, he has not just made it, but has made it big. He never celebrates his achievement as he has a big vision for himself. Post the success of his recent song Sunny Sunny from Yaariyan, we spoke to the extremely simple and sorted rockstar. Excerpts:
 
You have had instant success. Let’s talk about your journey to fame? My success has not come easily, it has taken me more than 10 years. I was born in Delhi, have stayed and roamed the world, but had a tough childhood and career path. Only my mom and mausie supported me in music. So, I would just sing shabad kirtan to remain somehow attached to music. We then moved to Coventry in England as my dad had his business there. But I left home to come to London to learn music and worked as an apprentice to survive and would assist blacks from Miami for just 100 pounds a week. I had no money, no work and survival was very tough. Jassi Sidhu tried to get me work, but no one gave me a chance. I would land up fighting with everyone in England and get fired from everywhere. They told me people in Punjab were more loving and there were lesser ego problems there, so I came to Punjab. We had our old house in Chandigarh, in which I opened my office. I never wanted to become Honey Singh. I was just 5 feet 9 inches, but 93 kgs. I only wanted to become a music director and wanted to give India a rockstar. But I soon realised that the kind of music I wanted to make was different from both, the bhangra market in England and the rural market in Punjab, and, thus, no one accepted my music even here. With two lakhs, I started working as a music director for a Punjabi album. My mother had moved back with me to Punjab. I then met Ashok Mastie in Delhi, who asked me to make a song for him and I made a mainstream hip-hop song Glassi for him, but he did not like it. He told me that it would work in England but not India. I told him unfortunately it does not even work in England, but I will make it work in India. I then went back to England and a few months later, I was told that Ashok was frantically searching for me as his producer’s son had really liked the song. I had only sung for the scratch version but they liked that and so I became a part of the song and also the video, as they felt I had this England look that would connect with the youth. By that time, I had lost weight and become 76 kgs. The video became No. 1 on the BBC World charts. But the irony was that no one in England knew either Ashok Mastie or Honey Singh and so none of us gained from it. I decided to work with new singers in Punjab. They would be so besura, without any brains, who would just sell their lands and come to me with money to become singers. I always wanted to be honest with my work and had decided that if any of them could speak, I would make them sing and if they could sing then would give them a hit. The new singers started becoming stars and I started making money and from 2 lakhs started making 25 lakhs per album. There was a singer called Raja Baath and I made him sing a song called Chaska that became a rage. He doesn’t even know what scale he has sung it in, but I made him sing it. For five years consecutively, I got the best music director award in Punjab. The attitude of these new singers would change after just one hit. I always felt that Hindustan mein mere jaisa maker na paida hua hai, na hoga and I had said to myself that I would sit there in Chandigarh and the world would come there only to pick me up. Those guys there were not able to value me. After just one hit song, they would go out give flops and then come back to me. I wanted them to be consistent. They had no vision of going beyond Punjab. I also realised that my videos started doing well. In 2011, I released my first album called International Villager. I had no support and whatever money I had made, I put it all in the album. I shot the music video for Brown Rang with one lakh dollars. I spent so much money as I just wanted to put it up on YouTube as I knew that my market was there, and it became a huge hit. That album also had a song called Angrezi Beat that became a hit. Just as I had imagined, I got a call from Bollywood as they wanted to use it for Cocktail. That was the first film that came to me. People are wrong when they say that there is struggle in Bollywood. That is only when you don’t have the talent. If you have talent, Bollywood comes to you.
 
Last year this time, you were falsely accused of having sung Main Hoon Balatkari. How did that happen? After Cocktail, I started getting calls for shows from across India. I have a 300 million database of my YouTube videos and recently represented India at the YouTube awards. Gangnam Style was world No. 1 but in India, the No. 1 song was my song Brown Rang. I am a very realistic man and always keep doing a reality check and don’t believe what is told to me, till I see it for myself so I went on a show spree to connect with my audience and see my popularity with my own eyes. I sing +1 on a CD. I don’t go for a show to prove in two hours that I am a singer. I know people come to talk to me and meet me. I have put in 10 years of work and six months behind a song to put it out. I come on stage to meet my audiences. I don’t lip sync. I sing on top of +1 which is very difficult as you cannot falter even at one place, as it will show up. And my audiences realised that I was just like them. I would tour in just one baniyan, there were no crackers when I came on stage. I became so involved with my audience that I forgot two things. One, that I was not the son of a big father, so people could write what they wanted and two, I did not care for the media. When my videos started getting five million hits in a day, there were 5,000 Yo Yo Honey Singhs on YouTube. People started singing in their bathrooms and making videos and getting hits by just tagging them as Yo Yo Honey Singh. One such fake Honey Singh had put up a video called Main Hoon Balatkari. Last December, I had two shows in Delhi on 25th and 31st. The Nirbhaya case had just happened and the whole atmosphere in Delhi was sad. As an artiste, I wanted to cancel both my shows. The 25th show was being done by friends of mine and got cancelled easily. All other shows in Delhi on 31st were cancelled, but the people who had organised my show on 31st were powerful and managed to not cancel their show and insisted that I either pay for all the tickets, as the show was sold out, or perform. I was getting ready to perform when I switched on the TV to see the news that had, by then, been thrown out of proprtion. One of the other event agencies, out of jealousy, had leaked the fake news to stop our show. The damage was done. A case was filed against me and I didn’t know what to do.
 
How did you deal with this emotionally? I love my mother the most in the world. She has seen a lot of poverty and loneliness and is very simple. Whenever I am in trouble, I go far away from her as she is not at all strong. If I see her breaking, I break. I saw her breaking down that night and did not go home for seven days after that news and stayed at a friend’s farmhouse. I don’t show her my emotions. I have done everything in my life alone. My mother was crying all the time and would tell me, ‘Why don’t you go and tell the media who you are? They have made you Kim Kardarshian of India.’ I told my mom that with time, people would know the truth. But I got very hurt. It took me eight months to fight the case till it was finally dismissed. But during that time, I felt very insulted and went away to England in February all alone and stayed with my mausie and her daughter. They are two hardworking ladies, who have won despite the worst circumstances in their life. I knew I needed them and so did they. I love cooking and cooked for them for the time I stayed with them. I told my mausie about what had happened and relaxed myself. At that time, I decided that I would do what nobody’s father would have done in Indian music and decided to fight my case. During those months, I was extremely depressed, but I made 130 songs. Even if I release one song out of that every year, there will be no legend bigger than me. Those songs are ready with me and every song is bigger than Lungi Dance.
 
How did Lungi Dance happen? I got a call from a builder friend, who knew the Moranis, saying Shah Rukh was looking for me. I obviously did not believe them, till I actually met Shah Rukh at his house. In 10 minutes, he understood me and asked me to make a song for Chennai Express. He made me hear six songs and I told him, ‘Yeh toh bakwas hain.’ I told him I will give you a song which will be the biggest song of the year. Everyone sitting there regretted introducing me to him. But the beauty was that Shah Rukh understood that yeh toh mere hi jaisa hai. and he said, ‘Chal main tujhe story sunata hoon.’ Everyone was shocked as to why he was entertaining me so much. I made him talk to my mom as she is a big fan of his and he spoke to her for 20 minutes. My mom went mad and I decided whatever it takes I will work for him. Only Shah Rukh bhai understood the song, nobody else did. He sent the song to his son Aryan, who loved it.
 
What are you like? Main zabardast aadmi hoon. I am my own favourite. I know that I am so good at heart that God gives me the opportunity himself. He knows that I am trying to build my house sitting on the seaside. So every time a wave comes and breaks it, he keeps giving me cement so that I can make a pukka house. I am blessed and no one can stop me. I don’t show my emotions, but take it out through my shayari. I fall in love easily. I have got only 5 % of success yet, as per my talent. I promise you that people will make my tattoos some day. After Michael Jackson, I will give India a rockstar.