Don of a new era in Germany

For Tara, Don 2 is more special than Ra.One, Shah Rukh Khan’s next big release. It was during the shooting of this film that the mother of three endured a minus 9 degrees-chill to hold a poster that read: Alvida chahte hain ke aap humare saath ek group photo lijiye. Pyar se! The minor errors in the request can be forgiven. Hindi, after all, is not her mothertongue , and neither is she Indian. Tara is German — one of the countless SRK devotees who chased the Bollywood star from one location to another, picketing in front of his hotel during six weeks of Don 2’s shooting in Berlin last year. Tara isn’t her real name either. She is Heike V, an educator based in Berlin who acquired this name when she joined an SRK fan club a few years ago. She’s not alone. Germany and neighbouring countries have haddiehard SRK fans for long, especially since 2004 when a German televisionchannel, RTL2 TV, showed Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham dubbed in German for the firsttime. The German interest in Indian cinema is not new. Raj Kapoor,Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen have enthralled niche audiences in the past. Now,though, the fans are even travelling to India and learning Bollywood dancemoves. Often the interest in all things desi goes beyond films. When theanti-corruption crusade was on in India recently, Tara’s Facebook wall hada message that said ‘I support Anna Hazare’ . The Tricolour had beenadded for extra effect. People like Tara are a small but significantcommunity, says Michael Schied, a Berlin-based scholar of South Asian studies.All the while Don 2 was being shot in Berlin, Schied was interviewing SRK fans.“There used to be a group of fans outside his hotel every day. Thegathering got bigger on weekends when fans from other parts of Germany, Austriaand Poland joined in,” he adds. The euphoria was all tooevident. Every move by Shah Rukh at the shoots triggered a roar from the crowdwhich went “Shah Rukh-Shah Rukh” and “Om Shanti Om” .Tara was among those who stood with a cake outside the hotel on his birthday onNovember 2. “The first thing Hrithik Roshan, who makes a specialappearance in the film, asked us when he saw us on that night was what we weredoing on the street at that hour,” says Tara. She was lucky and got tomeet SRK. As for the birthday cake, Tara and her friends ate it as the guardswouldn’t allow them inside the hotel. So besotted are his fansthat SRK’s appearance at the Berlinales 2008 (Berlin Film Festival) was achallenge for the organizers. “Not just traffic jams, people flooded theboulevard in front of the theatre too,” says Maya Kristin Schönfelder, a Berlin-based journalist. “Berlinale staff got so worried that theybriefly considered air-lifting Shah Rukh, but he refused and walked right intothe crowd and spent one full hour with his fans.” No wonder the ticketsfor Om Shanti Om got sold out in less than five minutes. Thisdisplay of open adulation is quite unlike the usually reserved and uptightGerman. In fact, even clapping inside theatres is uncommon. “Bollywoodappeals at a certain emotional level which western films don’t ,”explains Schied as Schönfelder adds: “Hindi movies are liked mostlyby young people who have travelled abroad or are at least aware of it throughinternet and Facebook. This generation is different from the older one and ismuch more emotional and willing to express themselves. Also, unlike Hollywood,Bollywood offer an ideal escape. Everyone knows the stories in these filmsaren’t real.” Bollywood stars and their peculiar pockets ofinfluence Raj Kapoor: He is still remembered fondly in China. Hisunderdog-roles in films like Awara endeared him so much to the Chinese that theystill sway to the tunes of Awara Hoon Rajinikanth: It’s amystery how and why the Japanese fell in love with him. But they did. Muthu wasa huge hit. So was Chadramukhi. Amitabh Bachchan: Indians visitingEgypt are usually greeted with three words: “India! AmitabhBachchan!” When Big B falls sick, his fans there pray as fervently asthose in India. Mithun Chakraborty: He once said, “Whencollege-going girls (in Russia) whisper something in my ears, it’s as iftheir mothers, who have been my fans, passed on the legacy...”Shammi Kapoor: An American reporter of Indian descent was oncespared by an Iraqi militant only after he sang “Yahoo, koi mujhe jungleekahe...” Madhuri Dixit: Her greatest fan in Pakistan isPresident Zardari. Pervez Musharraf once said he heard a group of Pakistanisupporters singing “Madhuri de do, Kashmir le lo”