Shah Rukh Khan, the hero from the north who charmed Madras

A distance of 1,314 kilometers separates Chennai from Mumbai’s iconic old-world theatre. Maratha Temple,the place Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) turned 30 on Monday (October 20, 2025). Whereas the romantic blockbuster is on a seemingly everlasting run, it’s also time to have a look at Shah Rukh’s celluloid hyperlinks with the Madras of the previous.

It’s a bond additional strengthened just lately as Shah Rukh’s maiden nationwide award for greatest actor was garnered for his function in Youngera film directed by Chennai-based Atlee. Again in 1993, Baazigar was fairly the craze in Madras, and the movie catapulted Shah Rukh in the direction of stardom.

He instantly adopted it up with Darrand on this too, the actor donned a task with a adverse shade, and film halls erupted with cheers when he appeared on display screen. There have been some theories concerning the Shah Rukh phenomenon on the Madras field workplace, and inputs have been drawn from the Tamil viewers’s soft-corner for villains-turned-heroes.

Shah Rukh Khan in ‘Darr’

In a few of these options again then, references have been made to the evolution of Rajinikanth and even Sathyaraj — actors who began out because the anti-hero after which grew to become the primary star. Seen in that mild, Shah Rukh’s recognition was not a shock. It additionally fitted into the template of Bollywood actors inflicting a churn each decade within the southern metro’s cinema halls.

Shah Rukh Khan in Younger

Shah Rukh’s success was preceded by what Anil Kapoor (Tezaab) and Jackie Shroff (hero) achieved individually and collectively in Ram LakhanJournal articles delved into the truth that each these stars sported moustaches, in contrast to their different northern counterparts. It was deemed that this attribute discovered a mark within the southern market the place heroes usually had a moustache!

Shah Rukh, although, like Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan, had a clean-shaven look, and it nonetheless labored for him whereas he developed from being a stalker on display screen to somebody oozing love with outstretched arms. Aamir too had a bull run on Mount Highway in 1988 when his From Qayamat to Qayamat Tak Ran lengthy on the Sapphire complicated. And because the Shah Rukh fever took over, corporates did bulk bookings for his or her workers. This was on par with what they did with the flicks of Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan.

A nonetheless from Chennai Categorical

When DDLJ was launched in Madras, crowds thronged, and Shah Rukh’s look was greeted with the identical delirious pleasure typically reserved for home-grown expertise. Within the climax, when Kajol ran in the direction of him, there have been screams of pleasure. It now appears inevitable that sooner or later, he needed to do a film titled Chennai CategoricalAnd as Chennai strikes on, Shah Rukh continues to drag in an viewers, one which has accepted him in all shades of the performing spectrum.