In Jawan, Shah Rukh Khan’s Sunil passes the big test

I was in my teens, fumbling through the maze of social expectations, when a boy called Sunil stumbled onto the screen. He strummed a broken guitar, flunked his exams for the third time, lied, cheated, cried, and failed, repeatedly. He was a mess. And yet, you couldn’t help but love him. He wasn’t trying to be perfect. In Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, Shah Rukh Khan’s Sunil did the unthinkable.. 

He made failure lovable.

For a teenager struggling to fit into the contours of conformity, this was nothing short of a revelation. The film wasn’t about winning the girl. Frankly, I didn’t care about the girl. It was about learning to live with your flaws. To still smile. To still love. To still dream. The kind of thing that heavy literature wants to tell you in 300 pages, Shah Rukh Khan, as Sunil, said with one quivering half-smile.

Three decades later, as he has just won his first National Film Award for Jawan, and I can't help but think about that scrawny boy from Delhi who taught an entire generation that you don't need to be perfect to succeed.

Shah Rukh Khan never played by the rules. Perhaps he didn’t have the luxury to. In a time when new actors were boxed into either chocolate boys or action men, he entered with Baazigar, Darr and Anjaam, playing psychos, stalkers, killers. They called these characters “anti-hero, but he played those with such a haunting blend of vulnerability and menace that you couldn't help but root for him, even as you questioned your own moral compass. 

Was it courage or desperation that drove him to these choices? Perhaps it doesn’t matter. What matters is that in every frame, you saw a man who believed in himself when nobody else would.

We crib so much about what we don’t have. Shah Rukh Khan taught us to make the most of what we do. We are told later that he wanted to be an action star. But when Aditya Chopra offered him Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) , a film glamorising sanskaari charm, he said yes. And then he built an empire on that yes. The hero who once pushed Shilpa Shetty off a building in Baazigar now bent to touch Amrish Puri’s feet for love. He was playing a hero who served food at wedding functions to win parental approval. Think about that for a moment: a rebel who wants the system’s blessing. It shouldn’t have worked, but it became the longest-running film in Indian cinema history.

Since then, until his triumphant return as an action star in 2023, his romantic heroes, particularly from the YRF stable, didn’t just teach us how to fall in love. They taught us something far more valuable: how to be at peace with our own flaws. Every Raj and Rahul carried within them the DNA of that first Sunil, imperfect, trying too hard, failing often, but never giving up. His characters told us that confidence didn’t require perfection.  That you could be goofy, insecure, broken, and still desirable. Still worthy. Still a hero.

But Shah Rukh’s greatest contribution isn’t romance; it’s the mainstreaming of unapologetic self-confidence. “I'm the best,” he declared, and made a nation believe it. In any other mouth, it would sound like arrogance. From him, it became a battle cry for every outsider who dared to dream. He showed us that confidence isn’t the absence of doubt; it’s the performance of certainty until certainty arrives. “I’m the best” wasn’t a declaration. It was a dare. And he backed it up with relentless hard work and a wicked sense of humour. He could mock himself even while calling himself king. 

What fascinates me most about his romantic heroes is their curious asexuality. Yes, they stalk and pursue with problematic persistence, but there’s always a red line. That line was not about sanskaar, it was about consent. Call it the “Hindustani way” (the famous DDLJ refrain) if you must, but his characters emit a strange innocence. They want to be loved more than they want to possess. It’s why women forgave his characters’ flaws and why men wanted to be him. 

He made vulnerability masculine.

In real life too, he lives with his flaws on full display. That Delhi DNA, sharp, witty, occasionally cutting, surfaces in press conferences and public events. Remember the infamous Wankhede moment? As the country grew intolerant, Shah Rukh grew quieter. The wit became measured, the spontaneity calculated. It's our national loss that we've muted one of our most articulate voices. 

But what remains undimmed is that competitive spirit, that refusal to accept defeat. It’s not about winning 14 Filmfare awards or trying too hard to make his KKR win every IPL. It shows up even in the most inconsequential moments. I remember watching him in a celebrity football match years ago, still charging down the field long after the final whistle, unwilling to accept defeat, even in a game that meant nothing.

Perhaps that’s why the National Award, so long missing from his glittering trophy cabinet, must feel like a final piece of an unfinished puzzle. And yet, people debated if Jawan deserved it. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it did. Critics point to better performances in his oeuvre. I’m no film critic. I watch what entertains me, not what is “good” or “great”.

To me, Shah Rukh Khan is one of the most nuanced actors in Indian cinema, with an undeniably magnetic screen presence. He’s unmatched in his ability to use physical gestures and body language to convey emotion and advance a narrative. In fact, he was one of the first modern Indian actors to seamlessly weave natural, everyday actions into his performances. Think of that scene in DDLJ, where he casually eats a banana while teasing his bua about her sari choice. It looks effortless and becomes so relatable.

Or that biscuit-dunking scene in Chak De! India, where he casually agrees to a match between the men’s and women's teams. Understated, effortless, and yet loaded with impact. Or the way his face tightens, almost imperceptibly, during the climactic speech in Billu, no histrionics, just pure emotion. Even in a fleeting cameo in Shakti, he embodied the street-smart tapori obsessed with Aishwarya Rai, with such conviction that it felt like a full-length role. And then there’s the climax of Chennai Express, where a simple nod to Deepika Padukone’s proposal, paired with that unmistakable glint in his eyes, said more than any dialogue could. Of course, he sometimes overdid it. For instance, in Veer-Zaara the trembling and theatrics felt excessive for the age he was meant to portray. 

On a personal note, as I grow older, I find myself increasingly drawn to the characters he played in films that didn’t set the box office on fire. He may have reinvented himself as an action hero in recent years, but to me, he always seemed most at ease in those earlier, edgier roles, perhaps a reflection of his unmistakable Delhi DNA. Think Ram Jaane, One 2 Ka 4, or Duplicate (where even his comic turn was eclipsed by the sinister flair of the villain). Or Don,Dilwale, Raees, and Ra.One, films that showed his willingness to go off-romance. And for those who say he only played variations of Rahul and Raj, here’s a reminder: he also gave us Koyla, Hey Ram, Josh, Asoka, Devdas, and Paheli. Call them hits or misses, but they were choices beyond Rahul and Raj. 

And if you ask me to pick one performance that defines him, I’d say Asoka. Not because the “king” played a king, but because the character feels closest to who Shah Rukh Khan is in real life, a man driven by an insatiable urge to expand his horizons, relentless in ambition, ruthlessly focused, and fiercely professional. And yet, behind all the spectacle, there’s a curious solitude, a private life that remains oddly unspectacular. People like that can move millions, make them laugh or cry, inspire or infuriate, but rarely form personal bonds demanding reciprocation. They’re too busy conquering the world to linger in the delicate details of friendship.

But destiny has now reciprocated. The boy who once strummed a broken guitar and failed his exams has, at last, aced the biggest test—the national award. Sunil has passed, bathed not just in glory, but in vindication.