Bollywood Badshah Shah Rukh Khan is on a gaming high of late with his new movie Chak De India. The love for games, especially cricket, was always inherent in him.

But now, his focus is on hockey and that too being played by women. He is all for women power and he wants them to win a World Cup not only in reel, in the movie Chak De India, but also in real life. Excerpts from an interview with King Khan:

On his role in Chak De India:

I am playing Kabir Khan, the coach of an all-women hockey team. Once upon a time, I was the hero of the Indian Hockey team, the Captain, the best centre forward player in the world, the man that a nation found a hero in.

But then the man was sentenced to hell by them only. So, he has now decided to make a comeback to the game he once loved, to reclaim his lost honour and prove his point to the nation that he still loves. He does the impossible by making a rag-tag bunch of loser girls a team in the race to win the coveted World Cup. He is hell bent on making them hockey champions. That’s it.

On his gaming tour of Chak De India:

Yeah! Chak De India is a very special movie for me. It’s for the first time I am doing something for the empowerment of woman. You see, if men can excel in all games like cricket and hockey to name just two, then why not women? So if men can compete in all kinds of World Cup games then why not women? And I am talking only about Indian men and women.        

On his differences with Shimit Amin, the director of Chak De India:

No comments! But then the controversy will not end once and for all. I would like to say, don’t go by our differences over the trivial matters of the promos. It’s done and over with. It has all been sorted out amicably. Period.     

On his favourite sportspersons: 

Let’s be Indian. I am an Indian at heart. So I would like to name the entire Indian Cricket team. Remember I had cheered them before their departure for the World Cup, and then of course, Neelam Jaswant Singh, the most noted hockey sportswoman and the one who inspired us to make Chak De India.

Besides them I also adore Sania Mirza and P T Usha. My due respects to all the other players whose names I couldn’t mention here.

On the problems being faced by sportspersons in India: 

For this I can only give you a hearsay statement: Toh Sahab jo kuch bhi maine suna hai woh sach ho na ho lekin main sach hi kahunga aur sach ke siva aur kuch bhi nahin. Ok. Indian sports lack proper promotion, the players grouse is not addressed properly, there is no adequate sponsorship to boost their morale, the media does not give them due credit.

I can pen a whole book on the trials of the Indian sports players. And mind you, all other sports fall into this bracket barring cricket. So how can you expect them to be endowed with the proper competitive spirit?

His advice to parents of whose interested in sport:

Parents, more often than not, are stumbling blocks in the path off their offspring who choose to make it big in sports. I would advise them with a one liner message. Let them try it once. At least give them a chance. If they still do not succeed, give them another chance. Who knows they may become the celebrities of the next generation.