SELF-A SOUL SEARCHING EXERCISE

What is there behind all this energy -- a different Shah Rukh Khan?

No. There is only energy. Pure energy. When I have nothing to do, I bathe five times a day.

Do you ever meditate?

No. Though I am sure it helps those who do.

Do you sleep well, or are you driven by the thought that you have to get up and do things and are impatient for the morning to arrive?

I sleep very well and I don’t wake up till I am woken. I believe that unless I am going to do something bigger and better than sleeping after waking up, I would rather continue sleeping. I can sit in bed, watch TV, read, eat chips, play with my son, my dog ... I can relax. So it’s a choice between being totally dormant and totally active.

Why this need to reiterate ‘I am the best’ even via a song?

I don’t sound like it, but I’ve always been very humble. People mistake my confidence for arrogance. But I am also very nervous. I have to keep convincing myself, and not anybody else, that I am the best. Because, if I don’t, I can go into a catatonic stupor and become a manic depressive. I have to get up and tell myself, ‘God, how beautifully I brush my teeth!’. It’s the best thing happening right now in the world because I am doing it.

Do you sometimes wish that you had a few clones so that you could realise all your ambitions?

Gauri rags me a lot about this. Once somebody was talking about stamp collection and Gauri turned to me and asked poker-faced, ‘You would like to be a stamp collector, right?’. Yes, I want to do everything and I don’t need a clone for it. I don’t conform to people’s ideas of doing one thing at a time, I can watch TV, eat and have my bath at the same time.

You expend too much energy in trying to make people laugh, on and off the sets, and your humour sometimes borders on the irreverent. Why this need?

It’s very important for me to make people laugh, even if it is at my expense. The day I get tired of doing that I will be finished as an actor.

And, believe me, I don’t intend to be malicious ever. The problem is, people take themselves too seriously. Finally, we are so unimportant in the scheme of bigger things. And this is Shah Rukh, the most successful man for the last ten years, who has reason enough to believe he is important, saying it. Forget fame and name, even life goes off at the snap of a finger.

Is that why you are trying to pack so much in life?