My childhood was spent in the lanes of Churchgate in Mumbai. Ask any old hand and they will tell you about the Telang Memorial Boy’s Hostel on “C” Road, also known as the 3 hostels road. Our house was bang opposite this hostel. A nondescript, half-rundown place as most boys’ hostels are wont to be, especially in the early ’80s. There is an urban legend re-enforced by that most reliable of all sources, an Indian aunty from my building, who insists that this is the hostel that Shah Rukh Khan used to stay in when he was still a relative nobody in Mumbai known only for his role in the Doordarshan series Fauji and Circus. “Aise hi sadak pe ghoomta tha” were her exact words with the conviction of the Indian aunty who could predict inflation better than the Federal Reserve.
Shah Rukh Khan began his acting career with DD National television shows 'Fauji' and 'Circus' in 1989
I still vaguely remember the scene from Fauji, where a female paratrooper tangles with him and it was a jarring memory to see that scene all over again decades later in a Fauji re-run. A similar jarring re-run was to happen when I came home for summer after my first year in B-school in 2005. A casual look at Telang hostel from my balcony left me taken aback, when I noticed women moving around in the boy’s hostel. My first thought was, “well this country’s finally progressive. Women are now allowed inside”. Imagine my shock on discovering that the boys hostel had now in fact been turned into a girls-only hostel. I should have seen the signs when I realised that the half-broken wall had been fully fortified and now had “faujee”-level barbed wire on top. Its occupants suddenly far more valuable and requiring more security than even Shah Rukh Khan.
Perhaps in some ways, Telang hostel is a metaphor for the rise of Shah Rukh Khan from nondescript beginnings as well. It is an urban legend that when he was still a struggler in Mumbai, he had declared “Kisi din mein ye poore sheher pe raj karoonga” (Someday I will rule this whole city). Well, I guess today that same “Raj” can say not just in Mumbai, but in many cities of the world “Naam toh suna hi hoga”.
I don’t know if SRK stayed at that hostel for certain. But I’d like to imagine he loitered around the hostel right outside our house, who I may have even run into every now and then as a kid while he hung with his buddies at the paan shop that used to be just outside the hostel or perhaps sat on one of the parked cars or did a hostel crawl along that iconic C road because pub crawls were not in existence yet, a child in the shadows of a giant. A Tyrion Lannister, who would grow up to be The Mountain. Perhaps he could even star as himself in this movie “Telang Ka Raj Ban Gaya Gentleman”
I remember whenever a cricket match was on, we never had to follow the match to know if India had taken a wicket. We would hear loud cheers from the boys hostel and rush to the TV to see who Srinath or Venkatesh Prasad had dismissed. The boys who cheered in that boys hostel are now long gone, as are perhaps the cheers from my childhood home. But today, SRK commands even louder cheers. And the crowd outside Mannat would rival the crowds outside the Wankhede stadium on D Road, right next to C Road. That Shah Rukh Khan would find it harder to enter Wankhede Stadium as a superstar than he would if he was indeed a nondescript nobody from Telang Boys Hostel is perhaps material for a stand-up comedy set.
But as India and the world celebrates this superstar’s 57th birthday, perhaps I will always remember him first as the “Fauji” who made it big and lived up to the ethos of this city. My dear SRK and the fictional Raj from Telang Boys Hostel, wishing you a happy birthday. I hope someday a little boy can see you from across his balcony and hope to achieve the same.
The author, Vikram Poddar, is a Marwari investment banker turned corporate comedian. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the website.
