Actors often try to keep their personal lives away from their work; even then, we see the more human sides of these personalities through some interviews or interactions. Actor Shah Rukh Khan once opened up about his sister Shehnaz Lalarukh Khan and the trauma she faced after the death of their parents. SRK talked about all that his sister has suffered since their parent’s death and how he uses acting and his work to help him not fall into a state of depression himself. Their father, Mir Taj Mohammed Khan, passed away in 1981. Their mother died 10 years later when SRK was at the cusp of starting his career.
During an Airtel event in 2012, Shah Rukh was asked about his family and how they coped with the loss of his father. The actor replied, “I remember my sister standing in front of my father’s dead body. She just looked… she didn’t cry or say anything; she just fell. She hit her head on the ground, and two years after that, she didn’t cry or speak, and she just kept looking into space. It just changed her world. By God’s blessings she is better now.”
He continued, “During the making of my film Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, she was hospitalised, and they said that she will not survive. I took her to Switzerland and got her treated there while I was shooting ‘Tujhe Dekha Toh Yeh’. But she hasn’t ever recovered from the loss of a father, the suddenness of him passing away, and then it got compounded because my mother also expired 10 years later.”
The actor revealed that his sister was very well read and qualified, but for some reason she could never get over the fact that their parents were gone. “So we are what in Muslims are called Yatim and Yasir (fatherless and motherless). When I see her, especially the time period from my father’s death to my mother’s death… She was highly qualified. She has done MA LLB – very intelligent, like my parents wanted her to be, but she could not face the reality of losing her parents,” said Shah Rukh.
He then revealed the reason why he has remained in a better state than his sister and how acting helps him with sadness and pain. He said, “I somehow have developed this sense of detachment, a sense of false bravado, which I show in public… a sense of humour and a lot of things which I do that people think are flamboyant or very Bollywood-like, to cover up the sadness affecting my life. I love my sister and how she is, and she is a much better person than I can ever be. I think she is a child of God, and my kids and wife love her.”
The actor concluded by saying, “But I don’t have the guts to be so simple, so hurt, so disturbed. So a part of me keeps on working around the clock, keeps on being happy in spite of the things that are said about me, makes a joke about the things that I do, but still keeps doing them because if I didn’t do that, I think I would be in the same state of potassium deficiency and depression. So, to avoid depression, I act.”
