K-Jo jeeta wahi Sikandar!

Back when Karan Johar was 15 having just finished his Class X his mother Hiroo received a call from her friend popular television director Aanand Mahendroo Dekh Bhai DekhMahendroo had heard that Hiroorsquos son is ldquoextra plussizerdquo as Karan puts it and asked her if he might want to act in his TV show Thatrsquos the sort of ldquolarge kidrdquo he was looking forKaran was on his summer holidays Hersquod only done schoollevel dramatics But why not He went over from his Malabar Hill home to the far suburbs to meet Mahendroo who wasnrsquot in office He waited for ldquofour hours doing nothingrdquoNext to him also waiting in the same room was a slightly older blokemdashsipping tea engrossed in solving a crossword No chitchat or eyecontact Soon as director Mahendroo entered his office he spoke to this gentleman first That conversation lasted hardly a minuteFilmmaker Karan Johar with middayrsquos entertainment editor Mayank Shekhar at the latest edition of Sit with Hitlist PicsAishwarya DeodharMahendroo offered the person a part in a TV series The gentleman casually shot back ldquoNo I donrsquot want to do TV I liked the tea And stayed to finish my crosswordrdquo And he flipped and left ldquoCrazy You know who he was The actor from Faujirdquo Mahendroo told KaranMeaning Shah Rukh Khan SRK Thatrsquos how Karan met or did not meet SRK first Mahendroo offered Karan the teenaged part that he had in mind for himThis involved shooting for fun during the holidays at RK Studio along with kids his age The show was the muchloved Indradhanush 1989mdashscifi on Sunday Doordarshan about a group of children who discover a time machineThat chubby boy Srikant in the group was how many of a certain vintage wouldrsquove first seen Karan Johar on screen Only they donrsquot remember or realise it Itrsquos a legit trivia question ldquoYeah my acting career essentially started with Indradhanush and ended with Bombay Velvet 2015rdquo Karan 51 mocksighs nowWhile this was a summer activity for him Indradhanush came out only a couple of years later By when he was already in the final year of junior college Class XII Kids randomly started ragging him once he came on TVldquoHello Irsquom your senior whatrsquore you ragging me forrdquo he told them The other person going through a similar experience in the same junior college was Jugal Hansraj popular childactor from Masoom 1983Karan says ldquoJugal had done some ad for MBD Books lsquoFor me for you MBD Booksrsquo Those days if you borrowed a VHS tape yoursquod always see Jugal doing this ad Him and I got ostracised in college togetherrdquoSince wersquore on a trivia trailmdashbesides that theyrsquore friends from college whatrsquos the popculture connect between Jugal and KaranStills from Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem KahaaniThe hook line of the filmrsquos titletrack Kuch Kuch Hota Hai KKHH 1998 Well Jugal Hansraj composed that earworm To the best of our knowledge he hasnrsquot composed anything for public consumption since ldquoHe says he chose to retire at the toprdquo Karan laughsThe lovetriangle KKHH that opened in theatres on October 16 1998 was Karanrsquos directorial debut starring SRK SRK and Karan as is wellknown became friends when the latter 22 then was assisting Aditya Chopra on Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge DDLJ 1995Ever since Karanrsquos done multiple films with SRK in the lead signifying a career combo of sortsmdashKabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham K3G 2001 Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna KANK 2006 My Name is Khan MNIK 2010That number crosses way over a dozen if you factor in coproductions and SRKrsquos cameosmdashincluding Ae Dil Hai Mushkil Ae Dilhellip 2016 or the colossal Brahmstra 2022Stills from Ae Dil Hai MushkilGiven SRK is arguably the highest paid moviestar in India I wonder what he charges when he drops in for a cameo Karan claims not a buck ldquoNot for Ae Dilhellip Nor for Brahmstra for which he shot for 14 days But that is our relationshiprdquoSurely the superstar would have been paid in kind expensive return gifts perhaps A Cadillac maybe None of that or so Karan says ldquoI give him clothes I donrsquot think he has ever asked me for money even for a film that he has done as leadldquoWhatever is given is given Our contracts with Shah Rukh read lsquoIt was a pleasure working with you Thank you so muchrsquo Thatrsquos the contract There is no contractrdquoNo piece of paper ldquoI donrsquot have anything detailed on paper Whether it is with Adi Chopra or Shah RukhmdashI will do anything that is asked of me as well I am here because of them How can I forget that Loyalty is the most required quality in a person and it rarely existsldquoI remember when Shah Rukh was shooting for RAOne 2011 he had a double unit He called me to shoot the second unit for six days because director Anubhav Sinha was doing a big action sequence And he needed simple patchwork kind of scenes shot I flew from Bombay and did it These are not big dealsrdquoKaranrsquos latest film Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani RARKPK 2023 was his seventh feature after a gap of seven years in his 25th year at the movies as director He says ldquoI keep hearing it as a comeback which makes me sound like Mumtaz who returned after many years in America with David Dhawanrsquos Aandhiyan 1990ldquoI spent three years on Takht a film that didnrsquot work out apparently for financial reasons Maybe three years went on PTSD posttraumatic stress disorderAnother two years on the pandemic But Irsquove always been hererdquoRARKPK is also his first directorial without SRK in any form SRK was coproducer on Student of the Year There are probably also other firstsmdashsuch as his maiden movie shot entirely in India ldquoYesrdquo First directorial thatrsquos actually LOL funny ldquoI think so There were funny moments in all other movies but this one is funny up to a large point and funny even afterrdquobull bull bullEven if yoursquove seen the blockbuster what is RARKPK about Letrsquos step back a bit To start with about a man with an artistic bent born into a business family where hersquos unlikely to succeed as a result The family deals in making and selling sweets in Delhi Thatrsquos Dharmendrarsquos character isnrsquot itOnly that itrsquos evidently inspired by Karanrsquos late father Yash Johar when you consider that young Yash was similarly inclined to the arts ie photographyHis family business was based in Delhi And they made and sold sweets Just that the company wasnrsquot called Dhanlakshmi Karan recalls ldquoI have no clue why our family shop in Delhi was called Nanking which is the name of a Chinese restaurant in every Indian town We sold sweets with that namerdquoA still of Shah Rukh Khan Rani Mukerji and Kajol in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai 1998Upon learning about Yashrsquos evident lack of interest in the family business and an artistic ambition instead his mother as in Karanrsquos grandmommdashldquowe called her Matajirdquomdashasked Yash to head to Bombay Soon as he arrived in Bombay he landed an internship with The Times of India as a photographerldquoThis took him to several sets like MughaleAzam and other filmsrdquo which is the industry he switched to working his way up ldquostarting out as ground manager then production manager and eventually production controllermdashto working for Navketan Films for 12 yearsmdashand being the only production controller to get frontroll creditldquoEverybody in the film industry knew and loved him Dev Anand Vijay Anand Raj Kapoor K Asif Sunil Dutthellip Everybody had worked with himrdquoPerhaps the insecureseasonal nature of films as an industry did not suit Yash after a point Thatrsquos when Karan says Yash took a sabbatical and eventually started an importexport firm named Yash One Exports which in turn became Karanrsquos family businessldquoWe were middle agents for material like wrought iron that would go to a place called Pier Imports in Paris and New York sourced from Faridabad and Saharanpur It was a very stable incomerdquoThe moviebug I suppose is a hard one to swat or suppress for too long Karan says ldquoIt was Ramesh Behl father of Srishti and Goldie Behl of Rose Movies who got my father back into films Thatrsquos how he approached the writers SalimJaved who had a scriptrdquoThus Raj Khoslarsquos Dostana 1980 starring Amitabh Bachchan was born He adds ldquoIronically my mom and Amit uncle had gone to boarding school togethermdashhe was in Sherwood and she was at St Maryrsquos which is the sister schoolrdquoWho funded Yashrsquos maiden production The Hinduja family namely SP Hinduja What was SP Hindujarsquos son called Dharam This is how Dharma Productions gets its name ldquoYup thatrsquos how the journey began 43 years agordquoBy all means a boutique beginning Which is also a fair assessment of how todayrsquos insiders are often if not inevitably yesterdayrsquos outsidersThe insideroutsider debate having hounded Karan over the past few years with extensive trolling online over supposedly favouring film industry kids so to say over a huge horde of aspirants who set foot in Mumbai without any filial connections to assist them in finding the proverbial foot in the filmy doorThis is what got termed the ldquonepotism debaterdquo with Karan allegedly at its fountainhead Later in the conversation he points out ldquoBetween features ad films digital arm and talent management agencymdashat any point in time Dharma has an employer base of 800 to 1000 people And we make sure they are well taken care of Now 98 per cent of them are not from the industryldquoWhy is this data not talked about Why are we talking about that one starindustry kid getting an opportunity What about the other thousand contributing massivelyBut if you want to make a narrative that works negatively you will make any narrative The negativity is on whoever is making the narrative Not on me Honestly I havenrsquot and I will not apologise for anything Also I will cast who I feel is right If that person happens to be related to somebody in the industry then so be itrdquoAround 2005 I had asked Karan during an interview why he makes films The answer was along the lines of the usual which is to create worlds tell stories What he didnrsquot get he told me then is why he produces movies And that it can be a really thankless job at times I wonder if he feels the same almost two decades laterHe says ldquoAround then I think we had produced Kaal 2005 Things have changed since Unlike then now we have active producers with credits on the set working on the logistics and tough stuff which is really toughApurva Mehta Dharma CEO of course is in the thick of thingsmdashhe is the fulcrum of the studio I am creatively jamming sitting on rushes final edit all the fun stuff Thatrsquos why Irsquom very happy to produce multiple filmsrdquoNikkhil Advanirsquos Kal Ho Naa Ho KHNH 2003 also an SRK starrer was in fact Karanrsquos first film as producer while he had also written its script Nikkhil had assisted Karan on KKHH and K3G They were also friends from schoolSubsequent to KKHH Nikkhil left Dharma Recently he went on record to suggest how the rather public badblood between them had cost him three years of no workmdashdeemed an industry pariah of sorts thereforeTo which Karan responds ldquoI didnrsquot know if it was a gap of three years that he got no work The fallout is too far gone firstly I attribute my knowledge of cinema and camera grammar to him I was quite clueless on my first film I just knew midshot wideshot and closeup He mentored my techniqueI will be forever grateful to him for that But we are wonderful now when we meetmdashexchanging shared nostalgia and memories We had a creative fallout It was a time that he was hurting I was hurting It was at an unfortunate time because my father was very critical during the making of KKHHrdquobull bull bullBeyond expanding his company Dharma into a legit creative force in Bollywood Karanrsquos contribution on the business side could well be as a casestudy on personal branding After Subhash Ghai in the 1980s I canrsquot think of too many filmmakers altogether behind the camera who became a recognisable face among the publicHow many directors in the world do you know who actively endorse so many products from laptops paint to soups and sunglasses This naturally extends to brand ownerships too Neuma the restaurant that replaced the iconic Indigo in South Bombay is associated with himHe informs he has a jewellery brand Tiyaani ldquoThere are several things Irsquom invested Both with people and products I go by instinctrdquo Hersquos more so a proper popicon to the point that as they said in the good olrsquo Tata Steel commercial from back in the daymdashhe also makes filmsThis publicfacing side he remembers really kickstarted with picking up gongs for KKHH at award shows in 1999 ldquoI was giving these long eloquent speeches that were shown on television Then in February 2001 Pradeep Guha and Khalid Mohamed who worked for The Times of India asked me to host the Filmfare Awards I did it for free because it was I thought a great opportunityrdquoHe hosted the Filmfare Awards for free Surely Filmfare was making enough money from it ldquoWell they didnrsquot pay me in 2001 Subsequently I have been paid by the same organisation and Irsquom very grateful for it2003 onwards for four years in a row I hosted the Zee Awards on primetime And then in 2004 I started the catty chatshow Koffee with Karan on Star World which made me further a recognisable facerdquoKoffee with Karan has had seven seasons on Star network since Strangely Karan doesnrsquot own the intellectual property ldquoIf they want they can have Karan Thapar host it And maybe I could still do Conversations with Karanrdquo Irsquom guessing it could be spelt with a lsquoCrsquo Karanrsquos own numerological fascination with the letter lsquoKrsquo for all his film titles stopped once his production Kurbaan 2009 after Kaal 2005 didnrsquot perform at the boxofficeMy needless peeve with Koffee with Karan though is how it may have ruined interviewing skills of film journalists in particular Wherein they get access to some of the finest talentsminds And they waste that opportunity playing lsquorapid fire roundsrsquo with them rather than actually mining experiences or picking brains This tictac rapidfire stuff is all over my Instagram Reels reallyKaran says ldquoThe other problem is when they have a checklist of 12 questions and I can see them going back to it while you are rambling away The person at the other end just nods lsquoYeah yeah sure surehelliprsquo They just go on to their next question Well an interview is when someone listensrdquoThis hourandhalf long conversation available unedited on YouTube as part of the Sit with Hitlist series with a liveaudience of midday journalists took place about 10 days after the release of RARKPKThe film noticeably being the coolertalk in the office leading up to this chat Given that itrsquos a newsroom one of the things loudly discussed was how Karan has portrayed his lead character Rani Alia Bhatt a journalist herself dressed in the fanciest sarees in the film Who wears that to work He points to three women inthe roomThe other time hersquos had a journalist in the lead was Rani Mukerji playing a newspaper editor in the short filmsrsquo anthology Bombay Talkies 2013 Was the Rani of Rocky Aur Rani named after this Rani by the wayldquoNo But this Rani and that Rani are both derived from a member of the media called Poonam Saxena Shersquos always in a saree and I found that wonderful I love the saree per serdquoDelhibased journalist Poonam Saxena incidentally also cowrote Karanrsquos memoir An Unsuitable Boy My instant memory from that 2016 book is Karan writing candidly about his dating life or lack thereof in terms of how difficult it is to be richfamous and meet new people And that he hired a professional agency based in London to suitably match him with potential dates across the worldldquoThat process is still on It has been a couple of years I have been on telephonic dates Zoom dates during the pandemic and some dates physically in person Because the people are all over the world so you meet when you land up being in the same city It hasnrsquot landed anywhererdquoThe reason it appears is professional ldquoWe live in a worldmdashand I can speak for myselfmdashthat is impossible for people who arenrsquot in it to understand I love my work so much The rest of the time I devote to my children and mum I donrsquot know wherersquos the place to find for another person And I donrsquot want an unequal relationship where the other person is just following my diaryrdquoThis I can vouch for Karan despite his multiple professional forays There are only two people in Hindi cinema Irsquove known over years who are likely to respond to a work text in this case by a journalist almost soon as yoursquove sent itmdashone is Amitabh Bachchan the other Karan Surely there are others too but none likely to be half as busy as both ldquoI have what you callmessage reply anxietyrdquo Karan saysThat said hersquos himself been in an unequal relationship or unrequited love as it were And that he got his ldquomost personal and angsty filmrdquo out of Ae Dilhellip I wonder if the person he based that ldquoek tarfa pyarrdquo picture on actually saw it And what did he say ldquoYeah It was initially awkward because his character Anushka Sharma also dies in the endrdquoThis onesided relationship lasted about eight years for Karan It taught him never to get into one ldquoLove can make you and break you It can tear you apart The pain is physical not symbolicrdquo The said person is very part of his ldquoecosystem but thankfully not from the film industry otherwise it would be too messyldquoThere was a polarised opinion on the last act of Ae Dilhellip But the GenZ got it Because theyrsquore going through this intense crazy mad love I just found it in my late 30s that carried on till the 40srdquoRanbir Kapoor played lsquoKaran Joharrsquo in Ae Dil The character is diametrically opposite to Rockstar Ranveer Singh aka Rocky RandhawamdashldquoWest Delhi guy who wears his heart and Gucci on his sleevesrdquomdashin RARKPK As actors too apart from similar sounding names Karan reckons Ranveer and Ranbir two of Bollywoodrsquos best have nothing in common besides geniuslevel talentldquoRanbir is a producerrsquos delight He can be on the set for 16 years straight He feeds off the director Ranveer feeds off the world For Rocky he spent days in Delhi interacting with local influencers including hanging out at a West Delhi partyrdquoThatrsquos fine but really what nectar of life is Ranveer inhaling to be turbocharged 24x7 ldquoIrsquom surprised hersquos not a Gemini There are two people living inside him The second person you will never seemdashhe barely hangs out Hersquos conserving his energy to explode once he is out with his characters and at eventsrdquoNot to forget his onscreen partner Alia Bhatt RARKPK was their second film after Zoya Akhtarrsquos Gully Boy 2019 The alchemy is insane ldquoWell that comes from familiarity Theyrsquore genuine friends which make for great onscreen chemistry like Shah Rukh and Kajol Unlike actual couples who are so comfy with each other that they have to conceal it on the screenrdquobull bull bullBefore the release of RARKPK Karan confesses he was a nervous wreck in a way that hersquos never been before His therapist diagnosed this could be late reaction to traumatic events One of which of course was the merciless trolling he went through especially after actor Sushant Singh Rajputrsquos death in June 2020Karan quit X formerly known as Twitter in October 2022 ldquoWhen I read abuses against my children that was it And who all do you speak among faceless nameless people and some with strange names toordquoThe ldquobig ball of anxietyrdquo also had to do with film RARKPK itself ldquoItrsquod taken me back to the syntax and DNA of what I began filmmaking with For some reason my confidence was at an alltime low When K3G came out the same year as Gadar Lagaan Dil Chahta Hai there were some saying that people have moved on I didnrsquot want that to happenrdquoOpinions certainly matter to Karan ldquoIf we donrsquot get validation from the people that surround us we will feel alienatedrdquo The night before the release once positive texts from the press show began pouring into his WhatsApp inbox he felt mighty relieved even surprisedFor he believes ldquoMy reputation precedes memdashthis guy dancing on reality shows hosting talk shows wearing motherrsquos clothes canrsquot make a good film We did a deep dive on the Internet for the trolling I get These were the things that came out Am I going to change for it Be someone else No Critics will turn aroundrdquoOn the sly Karan is pretty much a film critic himselfmdashalthough only over a restricted WhatsApp group of eight film folkmdashldquoitrsquos an eclectic blendrdquo he clarifiesHe posts lengthydetailed reviews of every films he watchesmdashldquoI write the best in that group What we share there is sacrosanct It canrsquot be forwarded And the reviews can go from love to WTF Irsquove even reviewed my own film production oncerdquoSpeaking of preopening jitters actually the saddest WTF moment for Karan may have well been 10 days before the release of Ae Dilhellip He dropped what looked like a hostage video apologising for casting Pakistani star Fawad Khan in his film Given the timing in the wake of Uri attacks and hostile IndoPak relationsHe admits ldquoAnything for a filmmaker outside of the film right before its release is hurtful There was pain I really donrsquot want to get into the politics and optics of it But even seven years later I carry the baggage of that situation When I go back in time I feel disturbed The same thing happened around MyName is KhanrdquoThat there were no extraneous issues to firefight before RARKPK Karan feels mustrsquove given him time to take on a more real pressure ldquoWeirdly Irsquove had a tough time during my directorial releases Dad passed away during KHNH Yash Chopra passed away the same week as Student of the YearhelliprdquoWersquove saved the most chilling account for the last Consider the release of his debut filmmdash25 years of which he celebrates in October 2023 As in the premiegravere of KKHH Which was held where Liberty Cinema Thatrsquos how he wanted itmdashboth DDLJ and Dil To Pagal Hai 1997 had similarly opened first at the South Bombay theatreWhere was Karan during his own premiere Locked up in a room in the theatre while the screening was on and his assistants Nikkhil and Tarun Mansukhani took turns to update him on audiencersquos reactionsShortly before the release of KKHH the underworld had called his father to stall the filmrsquos release The police offering protection had promised that the show must go on Given the threat Karan was kept away from the premiere screening itselfPost the show the party moved to Khyber restaurant nearby ldquoThere they said we have a tallied guest list But six uninvited people have entered the venue Now it could have been just six gatecrashers But that night my father said we are leaving the country At 4 am my mum dad and I three scared people left for LondonldquoFirst we settled into a tiny apartment in a discreet location My mother somewhere secretly was hoping that if this film is not a big hit You know itrsquosfinerdquo Better not to call attention with successKaran watched KKHH first with the public at a large London singlescreen cinema where he saw ldquo300 people leaving during the intervalrdquo His heart sankldquoMy mother mentioned the audiences have left maybe with a tinge of some happiness My father said thatrsquos not possible He walked outside and there was a huge line in the ladiesrsquo washroom He asked why there was such a crowd They said lsquoCanrsquot you see our mascara is off We have cried so muchrsquordquoThe following Tuesday from a London phone booth Karan found the courage to call up Aditya Chopra whose Yash Raj Films was distributing KKHH ldquoAdi asked me what is the most expensive thing you want to buy I said I want to move to a bigger house with mom and dad He said So come back to Bombay and buy the biggest housemdashyour movie is a blockbusterrdquoSensational And since this is Karanrsquos silver jubilee script from his own life should it not star SRK in the lead He adds ldquoThere was an actual dream I would always have of the great Shammi Kapoor emerging in a Mercedes at my moviersquos premiegravere Which actually happened at the Liberty Cinema with KKHHShah Rukh knew about this dream of mine The moment Shammi Kapoor came in he went inside the theatre and brought me out of the secluded room into the foyer So I saw that happenI had tears in my eyes because it was literally my dream getting realised Shah Rukh said lsquoYou stand here You watch this moment Nothing will happen I will take the bullet for yoursquordquo