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hey is it just me or can y'all also tell I'm running out of newsletter headers

It is 3 a.m. and I am munching on a Snickers bar. It came right out of the fridge, so it’s really tough to bite into. But for some reason, it’s starting to chip. Small bits peeling off for no reason like an Asian Paints ad. It annoyingly sticks to my teeth as I try to devour it and yet I feel like taking another bite. It’s like an emotionally unavailable situationship, making sure I keep coming back even though what lies ahead is just emptiness in the form of a crumpled plastic wrapper. God, it’s just a chocolate bar. Har cheez ko itna deep karne ki zaroorat nahi hai.

Years ago, someone I really admired had once done an Instagram AMA (I know, yahi pe admiration khatam ho jaana chahiye tha) and some dumbass with a fetish for gyaan asked them what the point of life was. And even though it was a random Thursday afternoon dangerously close 4:20 p.m., they answered back to this pretentious question with something I’ll never forget:

Think of it like getting tickets to the greatest concert of all time. Even if you hate the band, you still get to say you were there.

And fuuuuck. That line. That fucking line gets me every single time. I can’t bring myself to forget it, it just stuck to the inside of my head one day and refused to fall off. Like Asian Paints. (They haven’t paid me, I just ran out of metaphors to use. But in case someone from Asian Paints is reading this, hey lol)

Lately, much like someone in their fifties with a fast approaching retirement and no foreseeable pension, I’ve realized that I’m afraid of dying. I know, revolutionary. Maybe not death per se, but that awkward feeling where you’re not really, you know, alive. I’m more afraid of not being able to perceive the things around me. Can you imagine not being able to smell doughnuts anymore? Not being able to touch a geyser switch with half wet hands thinking that you have probably Khatron Ke Khiladi-ed a little too close to the sun? Does that make sense? I better hope it does. And I think the antidote to this whole fear of death drama, is sense. We know we’re dying, and like a fast local to Dadar, while we know this goddamn thing is coming, we have no idea when. So in a half assed attempt to give ourselves some sort of assurance, we use sense. I know, 2 baar italicize kar diya but ab tak metaphor explain nahi kiya. Shush, I’m getting there. We attach meaning to things, we coax them into making sense. Because when something starts making sense it gives us a degree of false assurance that yeah, this was worth it. And we continue doing that with every single thing in our lives thinking that the more we do it, the easier this existence thing is going to get. So like we stack things, on top of each other, until what we have is a supremely wobbly tower of things that we think give our life meaning.

Anyways, I lied. There is no metaphor. I just wanted to waste your time and boom, now we’re both existential on a Sunday afternoon. Enjoy the concert!

Speaking of things that give life meaning, I saw Jawan, first day second show. And I LOVED it. Now yeah, I know what some of you are already thinking. Yes, it’s not a perfect film. Yes, there’s parts where you can’t figure out if you’re watching a 300 crore film or the Vicco Vajradanti ad that plays before it. But also, it’s Shah Rukh. That should be reason enough. In the words of great writer, director and mother Greta Gerwig, He is everything. You can’t help but be charmed and seduced and all those other words that I know started going through your head the moment I mentioned him. When it comes to Him, we’re all simps.

Jawan is, by all means, Shah Rukh's moment. We all saw him suffer a gruesomely publicized trial by fire and we all thought, this is it. You show people that even the one guy in the room everyone thought could not be touched can be touched, nay, pushed around, and suddenly being a rebel against the establishment isn’t sexy anymore. When you make an example out of the King, the subjects will invariably fall in line. And maybe we are all (me especially, more than most) guilty of thinking that this was it. He wasn’t going to say anything, he wasn’t going to fight back. Because unlike most people whose lives are thrown into disarray when they speak up against a regime (I am not specifying which one because I love my parents and I love my house and I have no desire of seeing the insides of Yerwada Centrail Jail. Plus, I don’t even think they have jet sprays in there), Shah Rukh Khan could actually afford to just, forget about it and move on. He had the means, the money and the influence to just go on with his life knowing that like some of his contemporaries if he just shut up and did what the man in the sasta Santa Claus cosplay said, he’d be fine. But because he’s Him, he just didn’t. There was no need for him to come back this way, but he did. One can say that even after all these years, mans still remembers to palat.

Publisher’s Note:

Substack would like to note that in the mere seconds after the last line was written, the author proceeded to punch in the air multiple times, semi-yelling a combination of the words “yaas”, “kween” and “lessgoo” interspersed with various four letter words his parents would disown him for saying. Multiple rounds of imaginary Oscar acceptance speeches were held, following which the author duly returned to his laptop to churn out another unnecessary thing that five people would eventually read.

It's like he'd been waiting for it, waiting to say these things and now he finally got to let it all out. There's a specific moment in Jawan where Shah Rukh takes off all external prosthetics, sits down in front of a camera, and talks. In that moment, there are no Scorpios crashing and explosions going off. It’s just you and him. Him talking, and you listening (I am aware that this is now starting to veer into Wattpad territory and I apologize for the same, just bear with me for a little longer guys). And it's not Azad or Vikram Rathore saying all those words. For that one moment, it is this country's biggest superstar looking its citizens dead in the eye and urging them to wake up and rebel. It's like time slows down, and everything is suspended in mid air. You can do nothing but just sit and listen. It’s like he’s taking out all that frustration of the past couple of years into one incredible monologue that moves you like a goddamn earthquake.

And to experience that, in a mainstream Bollywood movie, on a massive screen in a dark room surrounded by strangers, was GLORIOUS.

And I think I know why. Because despite his stardom, his aura and just the sheer unattainable stature of where his life is right now, there is an entire country that sees some small part of themselves reflected back when they catch a glimpse of Shah Rukh Khan. It’s true. We can lie and laugh it off, but we all see bits and pieces of ourselves in him. No one wants to admit it, but they do. And although I’m only starting to scratch the surface here, I think I’m starting to get why. It’s because when we look at Shah Rukh, beyond all the charm and good looks and that weirdly sharp but also adorable sense of humour, we see something we’ve never seen another celebrity exude before. We see, yearning. He knows how to yearn better than any of us, and he does it on such a molecularly profound level that it is impossible to try and understand how he does it, because really, how the fuck does he do it?? He understands and personifies what it means to be vulnerable, insecure, and just a little bit unhinged in pursuit of the hopes and dreams that we all think will give our lives meaning. We see humanity in him, and maybe that’s what endears him to us. I’ve rambled on a lot about him and if you weren’t paying attention, I don’t always know what I’m talking about so I’m going to let Akhil Katyal’s wonderful poem conclude this random rant.

That’s a great piece of writing and it would be a shame to follow this with a tweet of mine like I usually do, so that is exactly what I’m going to do. It’s like a roulette of intrusive thoughts, you never know what I’m gonna throw at you next. It’s mostly something dumb though. I mean, I’ve already talked about myself in third person once in here today, so it can’t really get any more pretentious than that. This week, I’m gonna need your opinions on something, and this is like, important stuff. All the silliness is gone. It’s time for some serious discourse. This is my SRK breaking the fourth wall moment.

Have a great week!