Three Khans of Bollywood: What separates them from others?

In the last 25 years, the Hindi Film Industry has gone through a drastic makeover. Genres, Trends, Technologies, Release Plans, Marketing Strategies and box office collections have been completely redefined over the past few years. As the Markets (both Domestic and Global) are expanding exponentially, stakes have become a lot higher and as a result stardom is something that is volatile and cannot be taken for granted.

“Change is the only constant” – Greek philosopher Heraclitus

But one look at the Top 3 male stars makes us wonder, is it really so or change is just a mere illusion? No prize for guessing that we are talking about the mega Khan trio of Bollywood – Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan. They have been successfully ruling the roost for the past 2 decades and have managed to consistently raise their stardom to new heights.

This has never happened in the history of Bollywood that 3 actors have continuously dominated for such a long time. Yes, there are other mainstream actors who have seen periods of super success during this era but it goes without saying that these 3 Khans stand out. Rather than disputing over who is biggest out of these 3, let us try to analyse the major factors which have made them the living legends of Indian Cinema.

Understanding the Audience: All the 3 Khans have to be credited for understanding their audience perfectly. They have packaged themselves smartly and are genius in handling the PR and marketing strategies. While Baadshah Shahrukh enjoys the image of an eternal romantic superstar, Aamir comes across as a no-nonsense Perfectionist who can do nothing wrong. Salman Bhai carries his real life aura of a large hearted Being Human personality. Over a period of time, they have become wise enough to choose projects which leave their trademark stamp on the fans.

Midas-Touch: Head Honchos of two of the biggest production houses of India – Yash Raj Films and Dharma Productions – started their careers with Shah Rukh Khan starrers and reached dizzy heights by continuing to work with him. Farah Khan tried ‘Tees Maar Khan’ without SRK and fell flat on her face. Ashutosh Gowariker, Rakesh Mehra and Vijay Krishna Acharya were flop directors before Aamir green-lighted their projects and made them big. Abhinav Kashyap, who gave one of the most loved entertainers of last decade in ‘Dabangg’, tried the same tricks without Salman and ended up with ‘Besharam’. Arguably one of the biggest directors of this era, Sooraj Barjatya, also failed to repeat his magic when he worked with leading men other than Salman. Now Sooraj is back with his lucky mascot and ‘Prem Ratan Dhan Payo’ is super-hot in the trade.

Trendsetters: Today release date of a movie has become extremely important. But not many years ago, Ramadan was considered a bad period for Hindi movie release. Also, filmmakers used to refrain to release their movies during Christmas because of the extreme cold wave in the North India. We don’t even remember big films awaiting for an Eid or Christmas release 5 years ago. Yes, a national holiday surely does boost the collections of a movie today but the product should have the potential to utilize that benefit as well. Audience want to see Khans on big screens and that is the reason they go out in maximum numbers during the festivals. Coming to Genres, family movies completely ruled in the mid-90s with mega trendsetting films like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge and Raja Hindustani. Then again in the last decade, regular single screen masala has been brought back to the fore with movies like Om Shanti Om, Ghajini, Wanted and Dabangg. Khans set the rules and others follow.

Lovable Personalities on Small Screen: Off the big screen, all the Khans have extremely charming personalities. Salman is super entertaining as the host of ‘Bigg Boss’ and ‘Dus Ka Dum’ on the small screen. Aamir showcased his intellect in Satyamev Jayate and gained further respect. Although Shahrukh has not seen much success as TV serial host, he is easily the most charming and witty anchor of various award functions. Definitely, their craze has grown manifolds due to their stint on television.

Uniqueness: All the three Khans have distinct personalities and varied career graphs from each other. They have not tried to follow the path of other successful actors. SRK started his career with negative roles and then turned a lover boy. Aamir and Salman started their careers with romantic hits. While Aamir did some memorable path breaking movies, Salman became a common man hero with his larger than life screen presence.

The ever-growing charisma of Khans is at its peak now and is sure to continue for at least a few more years. Quite possibly the legends have skipped a generation of next superstars between themselves. They are raising the standards of stardom to a new high making it extremely hard for the younger lot to match up to the level of this long lasting hysteria.

Article by Abhishek Sharma (tweets @abhu_sharma)