Quiz shah rukh khan on the image that comes to his mind when someone says Don and there is a moment’s silence. A puff later, he says, “If you ask me now, it’s the dark glasses, head titled on the side and the cloud of smoke.”

Blame it on top of mind awareness but with all due respects to the original Don, New India’s average multiplex goer will echo SRK’s sentiment. While the purists can harp aloud terms like “over-indulgence”, “lack of authenticity” and “mutilated copy of the superior original”, nobody can deny that Farhan Akhtar’s Don Reloaded is taking the box office by storm. Trade guru Amod Mehra says, “Don took a fantastic 85 per cent opening in the pre Diwali days, traditionally not considered good for business. Though the film has dropped in the second week, it’s a safe film. Yet another hit to Shah Rukh Khan’s name.”

The Man in Mannat is delighted. “I feel very thrilled whenever a film does well but this time it’s a little bit more than that,” he confesses. SRK’s latest report card hasn’t been very pretty with two big budget blips in Swades and Paheli. And even though Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (KANK) earned impressive box office returns, his crabby rendition of Dev Saran earned him scathing public opinion.

Today, he can analyse why his loyal fan base started gunning for him after KANK. “The character of KANK did not fail, the actor did,” he confesses with sincerity. He had reservations, he now admits, about the flawed Dev but he felt that he would be able to pull it off. “Maybe I just couldn’t portray him right. I’ve worked enough to tell the difference between good and bad.”

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