When one sits down to write a book with a heartthrob of millions as its focus, the author runs every risk of becoming a hagiographer.

There are hundreds of examples of this all over the world, and more particularly in Hollywood and in our own Bollywood, which are replete with ‘biographies’ of stars which read like fan mail, with almost no reference to unpleasant truths about them.

But Anupama Chopra is too seasoned a hand in the game to fall for such foibles. So, even though the introduction in the inner flap of the book’s jacket talks almost breathlessly about Shah Rukh Khan, the reigning superstar of the “exploding $1.5 billion Bollywood industry”, and the “international phenomenon” who generates “Beatlemania-like” hysteria “around the world”— Chopra (from page one) strives to give a realistic picture of King Khan, going to his family roots and recreating the backdrop from which the star evolved.

From the tone of writing to the use of introductory phrases for every personality, the book seems aimed more at the international audiences that are discovering the mystery called Bollywood in recent years. But for a homegrown reader too, it is an account that juxtaposes the star— and the human being who is the star— with a fine balance.

Racy storytelling

The book starts off in a manner that sets the pattern for the racy storytelling fashion in which the book is written, through the account of how a second-generation Indian-Canadian— who in a way represents the millions of Hindi film crazy NRIs and PIOs— gets to relive his dream literally by getting to dance with SRK on stage.

After giving an introduction to what Hindi cinema is— apparently for those readers who would not know what Hindi cinema is— it gets down to business, that is the business of talking about Khan.

Chopra— despite some propensity to meander away from her core topic to give a picture of the newly-independent India as she talks about the struggles of Shah Rukh’s father Meer Taj Mohammad— slowly starts recreating the backdrop from which the superstar emerged.

The chapter, “A Lady Killer is Born” is particularly successful in creating the childhood of SRK and his sister, with their mother Fatima keeping them unaware about the realities of the tough life they were having and father Meer laying the foundations of secular beliefs in their children’s minds.

From then on the book is largely a roller coaster ride, just like many of Khan’s films are, going into how the superstar persona got slowly built from a determined young man who started off in Delhi theatre and got perched in the peak of Bollywood— travelling via TV serials— all without a single Godfather.

And the tone of the book is kept interesting throughout as the author delves into Khan’s skirmishes with journalists, his propensity to mouth quotable quotes and his brushes with the Underworld.

The book is not blemishless, but they are few and far between, though the spelling of Kalidasa’s “Mricchakatikam” as “Mirch Kattika” is particularly painful to the eye.

A decent read, though homegrown readers will find many of the long explanations about things we all know— and apparently meant for the overseas reader— somewhat annoying.

(King of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema; by Anupama Chopra; Warner Books (USA); $24.99; pp 250)