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The Badshah of Bollywood, the man known as much for his style as for his devotion to wife, Gauri, superstar Shahrukh Khan talks about style, family and being considered a metrosexual man. “I am not very familiar with the term metrosexual. I think it’s just one of the terms being bandied about, by advertisers in general. Talking about myself, yes I love dressing up, I use a lot of beauty products for men; I have no qualms in wearing colours like powder blue. I am not very brand conscious, and I love wearing embroidered kurtas."

I think good grooming is essential in today’s day and age, not only if you are a film star, but in other professions too. In every profession, image counts. But yes, if you happen to be in films you tend to take more care of yourself and the way you look. I have a heightened sense of aesthetics.”

On wife and children:

“I have no problems with my image as a sensitive man, who is devoted to his wife and children. I get hurt when people spread rumours about how faithful, or unfaithful I am to my wife or say that I am shrewd and manipulative. I sometimes do cry, when things hurt and I get depressed easily. I have never hidden my relationship with my wife, in fact I flaunt it. I want to grow old with the woman I have married, and I take my responsibility as a dad very seriously.”

On being a sensitive man:

“There are other sides of me, what my friends call the sensitive side, what people would call my feminine side. I love poetry, and as a teenager I wrote loads of them. I used to write shairi and show it to my father, who was connoisseur of all the good things in life – poetry, literature and cinema.

I am a very communicative person. I can talk about my troubles with my family and friends. I do not bottle things inside me. And I believe in standing by my friends, especially in times of crisis. I think these old fashioned values have been ingrained in most men in India. Love for literature, poetry, the courtesy to be accorded to women, standing by your friends…they are so much a part of our culture. A lot of these values have been ingrained in me right from childhood, from watching my dad.

I do look at myself as quite a tough guy. I have captioned my schools football, hockey and cricket teams. But at the same time I would like to think of myself as a caring, nurturing and open-minded person. I am also quite narcissistic to an extent – I like to look good, dress well, look attractive. I have worked on the way I dress today and look today.

But I am also shocked when I am told that women find me sexy. Whenever I ask my family if they think I am sexy, they either have this funny expression on their face or they just burst out laughing!”

On Style:

“Style is about being true to your own self. I don't intend trying ever to make a fashion statement with what I wear. Sometimes, the style becomes accepted beyond you and that's when, I guess, it becomes a trend. If left to myself, I would be perfectly comfortable choosing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt to go out in every day. I have some good leather jackets.

I have a collection of over a 100 tuxedos in my closet. They’re all double breasted and they’re all black, because I hate any other colour for tuxedos.

Shabina Khan, Karan Johar, and my wife design my clothes. I just talk to them about my character and they decide what to give me. I personally don't have a sense of clothes. Normally, in most of my films I have played either myself of a middle-class character except maybe for films like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai or Dil To Pagal Hai. So clothes haven't been much of a problem.”

On women:

“I'm scared of them! I'm not very comfortable with them, except on a working level. Personally, a beautiful, tall, sexy woman in total command of her self scares me. That does not mean that I like dumb bimbos. Actually I have not been physically attracted to too many women, so I don't really know what physically attracts me about them. I would be comfortable with women who can make me laugh and joke.”

On God:

“I remember a line from one of my films: 'I only trust two people - myself, and the other is not you. It's God.' God means everything that I am today. I have a personal relationship with him. He's someone approachable and likeable, someone with all the time in the world for me. I don't pray to an alien God, but I do my namaz, even say my pooja. And whenever I pray, it more or less works.”

Deepali Nandwani