I’ve always had a soft corner for Shah Rukh Khan, not because of his passionate role in Fauji or as the stalker of Kiran but because he was a student of the all-boys school St Columbus in New Delhi and I happened to be a student of Convent Of Jesus And Mary, an all-girls school and the parting between our schools was just a hedge and a small gate with the Church in-between. The schools had a love-hate relationship – collectively the boys hated us and we hated them but if we happened to visit each others’ premises there used to be a mutual stampede.

Though like most CJM-ites I didn’t know Shah Rukh Khan but I was tickled pink when he sat just a couple of seats away from me as judge for the St Columbus Drama competition called Curtains. Later on, I was told that the drama CJM had put up was considered to be the worst by Shah Rukh Khan and I had played the part of the waiter in it.

I didn’t hold that against him – he was right - the play sucked, the script was bad and the attempt at comedy puke worthy. CJM went on to win the Curtains competition the following year but that’s another story.

Thing is, I continued to be a Shah Rukh fan as he scaled the heights of his career. He was a typical Columban in my mind - suave, arrogant, well spoken, a thorough gentleman and snotty as hell. He continued to reflect the breeding that the Irish priests and nuns had inculcated in us – strong sense of values, love for home and family, being candid and outspoken and most of being ferociously career-minded.

But today, while watching him gyrate in a song from the soon-to-be-released movie Om Shanti Om, his glam seemed to slip from my eyes. He didn’t seem to be the Shah Rukh I was familiar with. The well-sculpted abs made me choke over my apple soda and the long hair made me want to clip his crow’s nest and rap his knuckles as one of his school priests would have done.

Where was the sturdy, aging with grace Shah Rukh that I had known for over two decades? This new Shah Rukh Khan all of a sudden seemed like a swan that had reverted back to being an ugly duckling in his middling years. Could Shah Rukh be suffering from mid life crisis?

Could this new get up be his last attempts at trying to out-shine the contemporary macho young actors like John Abraham, Ajay Devgan and Vivek Oberoi?

My heart went out to the poor fellow. Could it be that Shah Rukh knows deep within his heart that his time as one of the reigning Pashas of Bollywood will soon be up? Why else would he try to regain his youth?

Remember the time Aamir Khan also decided to bulk up his body to impress the Bollywood directors? Saif Ali Khan too took that route but that was more than five years back.

Why this desperate need to look like Salman Khan all of a sudden? It isn’t as if the Indian women drool over tight pecs and perfect abdomens especially when the guy has hit his 40s. We expect actors to take it easy by then, to take up more mature roles like Naseeruddin Shah or Sanjeev Kumar did; not hit the gym and hang out with young un’s trying to be part of the new iPod generation.

Shah Rukh Khan was never a good actor. Apart from his role in Dil Wale Dulhaniya Lejayenge, I never identified with the characters he played, better still, over-played.

My love for Shah Rukh was nostalgic. He was a good Delhi boy who had come up the hard way, married his young love, had a beautiful family, loved to play on his XBox and didn’t give a rat’s ass about the Bachchan and Rai families.

But today I could no longer identify with this new stranger. I still have to watch Chak De India and Om Shanti Om but I don’t know whether my broken heart can bear another stake.