Dear Karan Johar, Welcome to Lullaby Land

Which star wife is going to design the kids’ rooms, we wonder!

Karan Johar is now a father. (Photo courtesy: Facebook/ pourfemmeinda)

Having known Karan Johar for nearly two decades, I am sure he is currently preparing his playlist of lullabies for his twins. He must have also ordered the designer clothes from every international kiddie label, each in pink and blue.

And I hear there is a clamour of Karan’s female friends from the film industry desirous of doing up the kids’ room. Would the privilege go to Karan’s best friend Twinkle Khanna, or his second best friend’s wife Gauri Khan? Or best friend’s current neighbour’s ex-wife Sussanne Khan?

The clock is ticking away.

Yes, Karan Johar is exceedingly well-liked by his fraternity. In fact the only person in the film industry who was as popular as Karan was his father Yash Johar whose kindness, generosity and benevolence were legendary.

I remember meeting Yashji a few months before he passed away at their residence (Karan has moved since then). Yashji was upbeat and filled with positive thoughts for the future.

“I will be okay soon. I am getting better,” he said as he sat perched up against pillows in his bed with medicines lined up his bedside. Then Yashaji said, “I worry about Karan. He is too young, too innocent. He needs people to love him.”

Today if Karan’s father was alive he would be the happiest and most relieved to see that his son has filled that vacuum for love in his life with two children that he can call his own. Last year Karan had “adopted” a canine who was proudly given the family name. The little pet was named Nobu Johar.

Nobu now has company.

The Johar household is bustling and brimming over with activity. Karan’s mother, I am told, is bursting with joy. “I’ve wanted this for Karan for a very long time,” Mrs Hiroo Johar confided in a friend.

Karan Johar with his mother Hiroo. (Photo courtesy: Facebook/ karanyashjohar)

Karan too has wanted this for himself for the longest time. I remember during one of my visits to his office, he heaped me with sandwiches and brownies and just sat staring at me eating. (Karan did that every time. He takes great joy in watching his friends eat while he… smiles and stares). While I nibbled uncomfortably (it isn’t easy eating while someone stares at you), Karan said something that I will never forget.

I spend as much time as possible in this office. Here is where all my dreams come true, all the ideas for the big movies are conceived, I come alive here. Once I am home there is only me and my loneliness.

Karan Johar

Yash and Roohi are not Karan’s first tryst with parenthood. He has nurtured many “children” through his production house.

Some of these have maliciously been termed closet-lovers by homophobic elements in the film industry (this breed includes a male superstar who remains single at 50-plus but insists that married men with children are gay, and a young superstar from a film family who loves to gossip and chuckle viciously over all those who make the mistake of confiding in him).

To be fair, this line of homoerotic thought has also been encouraged by Karan himself. Once a few years ago when I had called him to wish him on his birthday in New York, I asked him how he was bringing in his birthday.

“I am in bed…with…,” and he named a young director.

I hope fatherhood will peel off those layers of facetiousness from Karan’s quip-filled conversations. I hope, in fact I am sure, parenthood will sober him down, take away that anxiety to be loved by everyone, which makes him poke fun at himself and say bitchy things about everyone including his best friends. That’s how he lost Kajol.

Karan doesn’t need to buy friendship and love in a hamper any more.

The cradle will rock his life.

(The love of Lata Mangeshkar 's voice and Hindi movies - in that order - has propelled Subhash K Jha to the pursuit of journalism for over 30 years.)