“I loved the fact that SRK’s looks weren’t perfect”

Editor’s note: A huge SRK fan, Heather
Saville-Gupta is more a Bollyphile than an
Indophile really. Born and brought up in
Devon, one of the sleepiest parts of England,
she left UK in 2000 for a year, and never
went back to live since. She ended up
working in Thailand and then Mumbai,
where she’s lived and worked since
2003. She married an Indian in 2008 and is
mother to a one-year-old, Jake. An
advertising and marketing professional by
background, she slipped into Human
Resources for a few years and has now
given up her corporate job to write a book
full time.
By Heather Saville-Gupta
My love affair with Hindi Cinema has been a
eight-year journey which has taken me
from being a starstruck fan to taking up a
job that bought me up close and personal
with the stars, yet did not fulfill my ultimate
dream — to meet the badshah of
Bollywood.
I arrived in Mumbai in 2003, bang in the
middle of Diwali. The festival of lights was
exotic, exciting and larger than life. For five
days, I was on a sensory overload; my ears
ringing with the incessant sounds of
firecrackers, and my eyes wide at the
blanket of light that had enveloped the city.
I fell in love with the chaos, the spectacle
and felt more alive despite the madness, the
dirt and the obvious signs of poverty.
My Bollywood obsession was a natural
development during those honeymoon
days in Mumbai. I loved the over-the-top
sets, the gaudy costumes, the fact that
every film had an identical story with
interchangeable stars. I willingly suspended
my disbelief as the actors sang against ever
changing backdrops, one moment
shimmying at a wedding in India, the next
moment, locked in a passionate embrace in
the Swiss Alps; the heroine clad in a sari
which had inexplicably become dripping
wet. I waited anxiously at the end of every
movie for the handsome protagonist to kiss
his girl, and was always disappointed when
the lip-on-lip action failed to materialise.
The stars were all wonderfully stereotyped,
the female leads were gorgeous, pouty and
spent a lot of time batting their eyelashes at
the objects of their affection, who were
either macho mustachioed older guys, or
prettier slim hipped boys with puppy dog
eyes.
I soon chose my favourites; I was
entranced by the brooding looks of Shah
Rukh Khan and mesmerised by Hrithik
Roshan’s light eyes and sardonic smile. I
saw as many of their movies as I could;
though my Hindi wasn’t great, the storylines
were predictable so the language barrier
was never an issue. I swooned over SRK
in Veer Zaara and Kal Ho Naa Ho, and sighed
over Hrithik in Krrish, though unfortunately
I kept laughing out loud at all the serious
bits, much to the disgust of the
cinemagoers seated next to me (it was
payback for their incessantly trilling mobile
phones, frankly).
More than anything, I wanted to meet my
heroes in person. I tried extracting favours
from people who I knew moved in
influential circles. I attended Page 3 parties
in the hope that they might be there. I hung
out in cool bars and restaurants which
apparently attracted a filmi crowd, but to no
avail. I fed my addiction instead by
watching more of their movies — Main
Hoon Na, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Kuch
Kuch Hota Hai, Koi Mil Gaya, Lakshya. My
idols, of course, were all over the billboards
and in the newspapers, and I was never far
from a shot of SRK looking sexy and
extolling the virtues of some product or the
other. I purchased all the film soundtracks,
filled my iPod with wonderfully melodious
tracks, learned a few of the Hindi choruses,
and insisted on playing them loudly in my
car whenever I visited England. In short, I
was completely addicted to this fascinating
new world which I had stumbled upon.
As I settled into Mumbai, I became
completely obsessed with Shah Rukh in
particular, and spent hours gazing at his
picture which popped up as the
screensaver on my laptop. I even hung
around Mannat (his Bandra residence) for a
while in the hope of a brief glimpse of my
hero.
Individually, his features were not attractive
in the slightest. Together, they created a
look which made me jelly kneed — the
unruly eyebrows, the permanently
furrowed forehead, the gorgeously
kissable, full lips and even the huge nose
worked perfectly together. I loved the fact
that SRK’s looks weren’t perfect. I was
captivated by the eyebrow that wandered
permanently off to the right; the slightly
apologetic half smile, the mournful dark
eyes and the gravelly cigarette smoky
voice. I imagined various scenarios — I’d
meet him in a bar, we’d strike up a
conversation, he’d be captivated by my
British accent, and he’d invite me for dinner.
We’d develop a deep friendship, we’d meet
for clandestine cups of coffee, and have
deep conversations during which he’d ask
for my opinions on the movies he was
considering.
As I settled into life in Mumbai, and as the
months turned into years, I found myself
slowly growing weary of the same old
story lines and identical scenery which
formed the majority of mainstream Hindi
cinema. I started watching Hindi movies
which seemed to be a little different, films
like Black and Rang De Basanti, and later Dev
D and No One Killed Jessica – films which felt
fresher and less cookie cutter in terms of
plot and characterisation. The only thing I
couldn’t shake however was my obsession
for Shah Rukh Khan and I vowed that
somehow, somewhere I’d meet him.
In 2007, I quit my job in advertising and
joined UTV, which was at that point in time
developing a name for itself as a
heavyweight production house, and was
forging a progressive path in terms of
developing edgy and different movies. With
the job came various perks and privileges
including tickets to premieres, and the
chance to meet some of the stars. Over the
next couple of years I met some of the
bigger names, including John Abraham,
Priyanka Chopra, Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan
and Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan. I even met
Hrithik Roshan, my erstwhile hero, and
though I did feel my heart beat a little faster
when he put his arm around me to pose for
a picture, I knew that this was nothing
compared to the way I’d react if I met my
true hero SRK. Although by now, I was
taking Bollywood in my stride, and was
generally less star-struck than I’d been a
few years earlier when I was fresh off the
boat, I still longed to meet my idol.
Today, I am fully settled into India and
consider myself to be “almost local”, with an
Indian husband, half Indian child and PIO or
Person of Indian Origin status. I enjoy the
odd Bollywood movie and smile when I see
other foreigners arrive in India and throw
themselves into a similar frenzy when they
discover the movies and the stars. I love the
fact that Indian films are becoming popular
amongst international audiences and that
the so-called “new age” Hindi cinema is
being talked about by western columnists in
heavyweight magazines and newspapers,
and I feel proud to be connected, however
distantly, with this world. Although my
fascination with Bollywood has waned over
the years, my obsession with SRK is as
strong as ever, and I still harbour my dream
of meeting him one day.