Shah Rukh Khan was named as one of the top 50 Most Influential Men in the world by Newsweek, and the actor seemed to be quite flattered. He SMSed his reply, and told us how humbled he felt. We reproduce his long SMS right here:
1. How strangely coincidental it is... I landed in America and woke up to this news first thing... As it's in the papers here... the list I mean. It feels surreal and amazing to me. Who am I and what have I done to deserve this. I am quite humbled and at the same time realize the power of the Indians and Asians around the world... that just by their love for my work they have changed the perception of an Indian actor around the world. Wow... this is the power of the Asian audience really.
2. Being ahead of someone or below is immaterial. I think the Dalai Lama and Oprah do a lot more good for the people around the world than I do... will try and do much more for touching the lives of people in a positive way than I have done so far.. guess haule haule ho hi jayega. This list makes me feel like doing much more good for the people than I have done so far... through my work and even otherwise. I am socially getting more conscious with these honours.
3. Power means to be able to live a life of happiness on your own terms... where honesty and goodness need not be sacrificed to make a livehood. Where you have the freedom to be compassionate to all without worrying of how your status will be affected. Power means to make people smile around you at will... it also means to be unaffected by negativity and vile that surrounds you... cos you know it wont harm you. It means that You can face your God with your head held high and that your children love you becos you are a gentle person not a big star or known celebrity.
4. By my own understanding of power as stated above I am quite powerful... but as seen by some as a tool to rule and bend some rules... number one... king Khan... monies... super duper hits... I don't think I am so powerful... cos those definitions are very subjective and transient. I believe power is to be permanent... and it will be so in the eyes of the people I touch with love... but not those I touch by material achievements. Material achievements will come and go... the spiritual ones will remain long after I am gone... hopefully.
5. I feel there are a lot more people in my country who deserve to be in this list much before me. Yes Soniaji is there... to me I think her and her family's sacrifices in the line of duty make her most deserving... alone women in an alien land doing so much for her country and having given up so much already. I also believe there are some amazing people who have dedicated their lives to the nation politics... to social causes... to the doctors in villages... to businessmen of amazing achievements like the Tatas and Ambanis... and I think every common man who rides in a bullock cart... buses... trains to work and celebrates Diwali and Eid and independence Day with so much happiness for so little deserves to be there. I think 1.2 billion Indians deserve to be there before I make it on this list... and in an indirect way the Newsweek feels I stand for all those billion people and their way of being Indian and have put me up there... so actually I believe I am just a representative of all of us... not actually the powerful one.
LOVE
SRK
