Early life and family
Khan with his wife Gauri Khanat a party in 2012
Khan was born on 2 November 1965 in a Muslim family in New Delhi.[2] He spent the first five years of his life in Mangalore, where his maternal grandfather, Ifthikar Ahmed, served as the chief engineer of the port in the 1960s.[8][9][b] According to Khan, his paternal grandfather, Jan Muhammad, an ethnic Pathan was from Afghanistan.[11][12] Khan's father, Meer Taj Mohammed Khan, was an Indian independence activist in Peshawar, British India (present-day Pakistan). As of 2010, Khan's paternal family was still living in Shah Wali Qataal area of Peshawar's Qissa Khawani Bazaar.[11] Meer was a follower of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan,[13] and affiliated with the All Indian National Congress.[11] He moved to New Delhi in 1948 after the partition of India.[14] Khan's mother, Lateef Fatima, was the daughter of a senior government engineer.[15][c] His parents were married in 1959.[18] Khan described himself on Twitter as "half Hyderabadi (mother), half Pathan (father), [and] some Kashmiri(grandmother)".[19] His paternal cousins in Peshawar claim that the family is of Hindkowan origin from Kashmir, not Pashtun, and also contradict the claim that his grandfather was from Afghanistan.[11][20]
Khan grew up in the Rajendra Nagarneighbourhood of Delhi.[21] His father had several business ventures including a restaurant, and the family lived a middle-class life in rented apartments.[22] Khan attended St. Columba's School in central Delhi where he excelled in his studies and in sports such as hockey and football,[23] and received the school's highest award, the Sword of Honour.[22] In his youth, he acted in stage plays and received praise for his imitations of Bollywood actors, of which his favourites were Dilip Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan and Mumtaz.[24] One of his childhood friends and acting partners was Amrita Singh, who became a Bollywood actress.[25] Khan enrolled at Hansraj College (1985–88) to earn his bachelor's degree in Economics, but spent much of his time at Delhi's Theatre Action Group (TAG),[26] where he studied acting under the mentorship of theatre director Barry John.[27] After Hansraj, he began studying for a master's degree in Mass Communicationsat Jamia Millia Islamia, but left to pursue his acting career.[28] He also attended the National School of Drama in Delhi during his early career in Bollywood.[29] His father died of cancer in 1981,[d] and his mother died in 1991 from complications of diabetes.[32] After the death of their parents, his older sister, Shahnaz Lalarukh, born in 1960,[33] fell into a depressed state and Khan took on the responsibility of caring for her.[30][34] Shahnaz continues to live with her brother and his family in their Mumbai mansion.[35]
Although Khan was given the birth name Shahrukh Khan, he prefers his name to be written as Shah Rukh Khan, and is commonly referred to by the acronym SRK.[1] He married Gauri Chibber, a Punjabi Hindu, in a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony on 25 October 1991, after a six-year courtship.[36][37] They have a son Aryan (born 1997) and a daughter Suhana (born 2000).[28] In 2013, they became parents of a third child named AbRam,[38] who was born through a surrogate mother.[39]According to Khan, while he strongly believes in Islam, he also values his wife's religion. His children follow both religions; at home the Qur'an is situated next to the Hindu deities.[40]
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