For Shah Rukh Khan a film is not just an adventure in a make-believe world, it is a life lived. The story doesn’t end after two hours of screen time, he carries it in his head, and carries the characters in his heart, imagining Pardes’s Arjun and Ganga, stolid and responsible, have a couple of kids, he takes her to the movies occasionally, but is usually busy with recordings, and slowly, sedately, they slip into middle age instead of careening into it like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’s Raj and Simran who, growing old together, are still having a lot of fun.

Dad like his own in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

These were some of the scenarios we discussed, one afternoon in the late ’90s, when Mumbai was inundated with off-season showers, but Shah Rukh sitting pretty on top of the world, with Karan Joha

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