Having barreled through the waiting-for-Bachchan tale by Jessica Hines, I’ve just picked up film journalist Anupama Chopra’s soon-to-be released King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema.
Chopra has written about the film industry for India Today for over a decade, and also writes for The New York Times and hosts a weekly programme on NDTV called Picture This. Her mother wrote screenplays for the film industry in Bombay, and it seems like none of the three siblings could escape the siren call of the biz: sister Tanuja Chandra is a filmmaker, brother Vikram Chandra (whose mahanovel Sacred Games will keep me entertained for a while still) has also done his filmi duty as co-author of Mission Kashmir. Oh yes, and not that I think a woman is uniquely defined by her husband, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the “Chopra” part of her name comes as the result of having tied the knot with Srinagar’s native son, filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra.
In the book, while Chopra examines Khan’s career and rise in the film industry, she also uses the subject as a springboard to take a wider look at the business as a whole. Previously, she has written about Sholay and DDLJ.
You can pre-order the book on Amazon right now, for delivery on August 27 August 2.
Watch here for more on both the book and Anupama Chopra over the summer.
Salut Yves,
Absolutely! Guys would find it interesting too, as a biography of the actor, and also for the background and perspective on the Hindi film industry.
On the versification, it primarily means the enjoyment of the poetry by the individuals listed. There’s one or two poems by them that I have played with translating, but not for publication, just trying to see how to make sense of the original into English. And no, I haven’t written any poetry in a long time, and that’s a good thing. 🙂
Hi girls,
Do you think the book would hold as much interest for guys??? Only people I’ve seen to have it are girls. I’m beginning to wonder!
By the way, Maria, I saw in your “about me” section that you enjoy “versification”: does that just mean poetry, or do you actually write poems, or translate poems?
Got mine yesterday! I haven’t started yet but it looks great 🙂
Maria
I am LOVING this book. The best thing about it is that Chopra places Khan in a context of contemporary India at various times in his life.
The book is really great and I highly highly recommend it.
For example, did you know that SRK and Arundhati Roy have a decades-old rivalry? I had no idea.
I have read a lot of these so-called Bollywood exposes and usually the author sticks him/herself into the proceedings in a most intrusive and annoying way.
But Chopra doesn’t.
I do have some questions for her, such as, why are there no direct quotes from SRK in the book — but otherwise it is a FABULOUS book for any filmlover.