Shah Rukh: ‘K. Asif sacked dad on ‘Mughal e Azam’ sets; told him to produce actor!’

The ordinary dad of a mega icon was sacked after a day’s work as an actor…and was told to go home and give birth to a superstar.

Case in point: Taj Mohammed Khan, SRK’s father.

By SRK’s admission, his father had worked in ‘Mughal e Azam’ for a single day and was thrown out of the magnum opus by K. Asif.

“My father was selected for a Pathan’s role and he performed so badly that Asifsaab threw him out of the film. My father would say to me when I was small that Asifsaab told him to go back home and give birth to an actor,” says SRK in a media byte.

The memory made SRK emotionally attached to the film, apart from inspiring awe from a moviemaker who did not compromise on the quality of his craft though he experienced several hurdles.

Recently, Shah Rukh flew down from Malaysia, where he was filming for ‘Don 2′ to unveil the 40 minute documentary produced by Red Chillies Entertainment.

When queried about whether K.Asif’s cinematic masterpiece ought to be remade or not, SRK states,”‘Mughal e Azam is the mother of all films. Mothers cannot be remade and if you’re asking me which role I would have liked to play in it, you should ask this to the filmmaker who would dare to take the risk of remaking it.”

Adds SRK, “This documentary was made to inspire people in showbiz about the need to preserve classics which are part of history.” The documentary contains interviews with the family of K Asif and their efforts to keep the film alive by colouring the movie, preserving the prints and asking painter M F Husain to make the film his muse and bring it on canvas. It also carries interviews with Aamir Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Ranbir Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapur and Amitabh Bachchan, with SRK being the narrator.

When prodded about which of his own flicks could be documented in the manner that ‘Mughal e Azam’ had been done, SRK opined that it could be ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenege’, after a period of 15 to 20 years.