30 Years of SRK - When audiences went to watch Deewana for Rishi Kapoor and Divya Bharti, and fell in love with Shah Rukh Khan

An autographed photo of Shah Rukh Khan. (Image credit: Twitter @AshwDeshpande)

March 1992 - It was an exciting month for me. I was happy to be wrapping up my class 10th board exams, and was looking forward to end the suffering due to being away from the movies for long. There was a long list of pending movies that I wanted to cover: Vishwatma (the unofficial remake/sequel of Tridev), Shola aur Shabnam (Govinda rocks), Suryavanshi (the Salman Khan one!) and Jaan Tere Naam (what amazing songs it had), each one of which had released in January-February, that dreadful time for any student sitting for the boards then.

The list was in place for forthcoming films too, with Khuda Gawah (Amitabh Bachchan, Sridevi - enough said), Zindagi Ek Juaa (Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit never fail), Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander (every high school student sighed at 'Pehla Nasha') and Khiladi (Akshay Kumar and Ayesha Jhulka's "Khud Ko Kya Samajhti Hai" was a rage already).

That's it, that was the whole list. Deewana was set for release as well on June 25, but it was not on my list.

Rishi Kapoor, great actor that he was, was doing his last set of films as a leading man (his Bol Radha Bol came in the same year) and I wondered how his 'jodi' with Divya Bharti, who was amazing in Shola aur Shabnam earlier that year, would look. Moreover, it seemed like a quintessential old-fashioned romantic tale and I wasn't excited about it. Then news started the making rounds that a young boy from TV, Shah Rukh Khan, was making his debut with this film.

Who Shah Rukh Khan?

Shah Rukh Khan had done Circus in the past, and Fauji too. But I hadn't seen these on TV. And among the newer faces, I was more keen then to check out Ronit Roy [Jaan Tere Naam] and Akshay Kumar [Khiladi]. Shah Rukh Khan could wait!

That's when promos of the young actor atop a bike, going full throttle to 'Koi Na Koi Chahiye' started doing the rounds. In the boisterous voice of Vinod Rathod, Shah Rukh Khan started making his presence felt. Yes, there were many other chartbuster songs already gaining popularity much before the release. After all, Rishi Kapoor had already done what he did best, that is woo his heroine, with Nadeem Shravan's melodies that were well penned by Sameer in the form of 'Sochenge Tumhe Pyar', 'Teri Umeed Tera Intezar' and 'Payaliya'. All that Shah Rukh Khan had to do was take forward the magic.

Bets were still not being placed on 'some new guy from TV'. There was no proper launchpad for him like it had happened for Salman Khan (Maine Pyaar Kiya), Aamir Khan (Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak) or Ajay Devgn (Phool aur Kaante). He was an 'outsider', a word that is more common today than it was three decades back, and had to make his way in. He had to deliver it all on the screen, and then let audiences check him out for themselves.

Well, check out they did! They went in to watch Rishi Kapoor and Divya Bharti on the big screen and came back falling in love with Shah Rukh Khan. He didn't turn out to be a first show or a first week phenomenon; he grew on us slowly and steadily, making a place in the hearts of the audiences. By the time they saw him with Divya Bharti in 'Aisi Deewangi', they knew that he had a spark. It wasn't about a debutant been presented stylishly by his first-time director Raj Kanwar.

It was about making far deeper - and lasting - inroads into Bollywood.