HarperCollins is delighted to announce the acquisition of a pathbreaking book that uses Shah Rukh fandom to explore the struggles of Indian women as they work, worship and wed: Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh by Shrayana Bhattacharya

‘How many books do you know that effortlessly navigate Shahrukh Khan’s movies, recent economic theories, data on jobs, juicy gossip about the peculiarities of Delhi playboys, sociological narratives and a deep dive into the love-lives of young Indian women? This intelligent, charming and quirky book, an illuminating portrait of the dire state of gender relations in contemporary India, does all that and more. Read it.’ – Abhijit Banerjee

Koi na koi chahiye, pyaar karne wala. (Deewana, 1992, Shah Rukh Khan’s first Hindi film release)This unusual work of non-fiction travels from the drawing rooms of Jor Bagh to the forests of Jharkhand, across classes and communities. It poignantly reveals how Shah Rukh Khan appears as a recourse in many a teary-eyed moment triggered by the drudgery and ignominy of being a woman in modern India. While his image may serve as a means of escape in the plush homes of Lutyens, indulging in fandom becomes a form of protest amongst poor and working-class women. The ability to watch his films independent of the family is a freedom bestowed by employment. Espousing the virtues of Shah Rukh gives voice to women’s frustrated desires for independence and intimacy, their hopes for a friendlier masculinity in Indian men. Daydreams, posters and cinema tickets signal hidden peeves and protestations.

Through fifteen long years, talking to women across India as she researched the alarming decline in female employment, Shrayana Bhattacharya pieced together a fan club which turns to Shah Rukh in times of turbulence and heartache. None of the club’s members know one another, they’ll never meet. But this book tells its fascinating story.

Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh isn’t about Shah Rukh Khan, or at least, isn’t just about Shah Rukh Khan. Rather, it is a book about how generations of women have taken Shah Rukh to heart. The stories illustrate how Shah Rukh’s films, songs, interviews and characters – the stalkers and the lovers alike – are invoked to frame a feminine conversation on inequality within families, workplaces and modern romances.

Shrayana sheds light on the trajectories of the lives of a few Indian women as they travelled from the 1990s into the 2020s, with the ups and downs of a film star’s career graph for companionship. These journeys are as removed from feminist principles as Shah Rukh’s films are. Their politics may not live up to progressive ideals. But the messy beliefs on display serve as important guides to understand the lived experiences of Indian women who don’t have active Twitter handles, who are considered too ordinary to find mention in the news.

Keenly insightful, rigorously well-researched and deeply empathetic, and rife with references to the SRK films that have become such a key part of popular culture, Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh is a remarkable book that celebrates the actor’s extraordinary thirty-year career in Bollywood, and documents the decades of everyday struggles faced by the women who love him.

 

‘Since 2006, through various research projects, I’ve met and interviewed working women across India. Because these women would find my questions about salaries, wages and working conditions too boring, we would take breaks and talk about our favourite film stars. This recess from research introduced me to Shah Rukh fangirls from diverse communities and taught me more about women’s experiences of the economy than any statistics ever could. I decided to collect stories of how all these women struggled to find free time and money to indulge themselves and their fandom. By following the lives of several such fangirls for more than a decade, I realized that each one of us was using Shah Rukh Khan’s icon to talk openly and thoughtfully about ourselves and our struggles with real-life men, our homes and our workplaces. I am indebted first, of course, to the SRK films, songs and scenes that allowed these stories to surface. I am especially grateful to Shruti Debi for encouraging and supporting this project. Finally, I am thrilled to find a wonderful home for this book at HarperCollins and express my deepest thanks to Udayan Mitra and Ananth Padmanabhan for championing these stories of ordinary women.’ – Shrayana Bhattacharya, Author

 

‘In 2022, it will be thirty years since Shah Rukh Khan marked his arrival on the Hindi film scene, going on to become the biggest Bollywood star of our times. Over the decades, audiences have taken the SRK icon to heart, with his films, the storylines, characters, scenes, dialogues, mannerisms, songs – all speaking strongly to millions of people. Shrayana Bhattacharya’s extraordinary book explores, through a series of oral narratives, how a group of women – unknown to each other, united only by their love for Shah Rukh – look at themselves, their lives, their relationships, the world around them, their challenges and ambitions, through the lens of the screen personality of their favourite actor. This is an intriguing and revealing way of looking at the stories of several women in India today, their identities, struggles and aspirations, and Shrayana’s research and documentation is significant from a social, economic, as well as a cultural point of view. Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh makes for fascinating reading, and we at HarperCollins India are thrilled to be publishing this remarkable book later this year.’ – Udayan Mitra, Publisher-Literary- HarperCollins India

 About the author

Shrayana Bhattacharya trained in development economics at Delhi University and Harvard University. Since 2014, in her role as an economist at a multilateral development bank, she has focused on issues related to social policy and jobs. Prior to this, she worked on research projects with the Centre for Policy Research, SEWA Union and Institute of Social Studies Trust. Her writing has appeared in the Indian Express, the Hindustan Times, EPW, Indian Quarterly and The Caravan.  She lives in New Delhi.

About HarperCollins Publishers India:

HarperCollins Publishers India is a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers. HarperCollins India publishes some of the finest writers from the Indian Subcontinent and around the world, publishing approximately 200 new books every year, with a print and digital catalogue of more than 2,000 titles across 10 imprints. Its authors have won almost every major literary award including the Man Booker Prize, JCB Prize, DSC Prize, New India Foundation Award, Atta Galatta Prize, Shakti Bhatt Prize, Gourmand Cookbook Award, Publishing Next Award, Tata Literature Live Award, Gaja Capital Business Book Prize, BICW Award, Sushila Devi Award, Prabha Khaitan Woman’s Voice Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and the Crossword Book Award. HarperCollins India has been awarded the Publisher of the Year Award three times: at Publishing Next in 2015, and at Tata Literature Live! in 2016 and 2018.  HarperCollins India also represents some of the finest publishers in the world including Egmont, Oneworld, Harvard University Press, Bonnier Zaffre, Usborne, Dover and Lonely Planet.

For more information please write to

jaseya.fazili@harpercollins.co.in