Mumbai: Aryan Khan’s maiden directorial work ‘The Ba***d Boys of Bollywood’ might have done exceptionally well on OTT platform Netflix, but Shah Rukh Khan’s close friend Viveck Vaswani is disappointed with the show.
Vaswani said during a recent interview that when Shah Rukh was warmly welcomed in the industry despite being an outsider, why did his son Aryan show ‘Bollywood as a gutter’ in the web series.
“What I felt was that when Shah Rukh came into the industry, the amount of love and respect that Aziz Mirza and Nirmala gave him, and that me and my mother gave him, and Saeed Mirza gave him… all of them gave him so much love, so much affection. So, when did he come to the conclusion that Bollywood is a gutter and everyone in it is bad people? He is the one person who was treated with kid gloves as a rank outsider,” Vaswani shared while speaking to Radio Nasha Official.
Recalling how warmly Shah Rukh was embraced by those around him when he first arrived in Mumbai, Vaswani said: “Not once did he struggle from the road. He was living in Cuffe Parade. And then after he got married, when he couldn’t stay in my house, Aziz gave him a house to stay in Bandra. Haroon treated him like a brother, Aziz’s son. Raheela treated him like a brother, Aziz’s daughter. I treated him like a brother. I gave everything I could to him. Everyone treated him so well, so warmly, without a single rift. So for me, and maybe I am the only one in this whole country who may have felt like this, but I am also the only one in the country whose house he lived in for two years. Toh haq banta hai to say: Why did you think we were a bad industry? Why did you personally think that everyone was bad? I can understand you showing whatever you showed. But why was there not one redeeming character in the show? Someone who says: Yes, maybe everything is bad, but there are also some good, decent human beings here. And he is living proof of that.”
Admitting that the tone of Aryan’s show made him wonder if he had unknowingly done something wrong to see such a portrayal, Vaswani said, “So I just thought, did I do something wrong? Am I to blame? Did I say something wrong or hurt him enough for him to think that Bollywood is such a bad, such an evil place? I don’t think so. That was the thought I had. Because when a boy has been given VIP treatment by the industry, being a non–nepo kid, being a newcomer from Delhi, everyone gave him work, everyone gave him respect. Whether it was Rakesh Rajiv Mehra, Eagle Films, they all gave him films. He didn’t let them down either. He worked very hard. But why such a… you know… such a portrayal? I mean, this is my industry. If India is my janam-bhoomi, then Bollywood is my karam-bhoomi. But then it is Shah Rukh’s karam-bhoomi as well.”
Vaswani went on, “So to show karam-bhoomi in that way, I thought that was a little sad for me. That was the only thing. And everyone has loved the show. Nobody will agree with my point of view. Shah Rukh will not agree with my point of view. But you asked me for the truth. And I felt a little sad. So that’s all I felt when I saw it. I binge-watched it. I enjoyed watching the show. I thought the cameos were fabulous. I thought Emraan Hashmi was absolutely superb. And I am very pleasantly surprised by the kind of performance Bobby Deol has given.”
When Shah Rukh was a newcomer in Mumbai, actor, writer and producer Vaswani had offered him a helping hand.
On the work front, Shah Rukh is currently gearing up for Siddharth Anand’s ‘King’, which also stars his daughter Suhana Khan.
