Bollywood Badshah Shah Rukh Khan, shooting in LA for My Name is Khan, was amazed to find himself counted among the world’s 50 Most Powerful People
in a poll that also lists Sonia Gandhi from India and is topped by President-elect Barack Obama from the US.
What have I done to deserve this,” asked SRK who is placed at No 41, ahead of the Dalai Lama and American TV high priestess Oprah Winfrey. “I am humbled, but at the same time I realise the power of Asians around the world... just by their love for my work they havge changed the perception of an Indian actor. Wow!”
But, the actor truly believed the Dalai Lama and Oprah do a lot more good for people around the world than he does. And he promised to touch more lives in a positive way from now on. “Haule haule ho jayega,” said Shah Rukh. Power to him meant the ability to live a life of happiness on his own terms. “Where honesty and goodness need not be sacrificed to make a livelihood, where you have the freedom to be compassionate to all without worrying how your status will be affected, where you know that you can face your God with head held high.”
He also admitted Sonia Gandhi deserved to be in the power list more than anybody. “A lone woman in an alien land doing so much for the country...” he said. But then Shah Rukh Khan also thought every common man who rides in a bullock-cart, who takes a bus or train to work, who celebrates every festival with so much happiness for so little, deserved to be in the power list. “I think 1.2 billion Indians deserve to be there before me. Perhaps, I stand up for these billion Indians, I’m just the representative of all of us... not actually the powerful one.”
