Shahrukh Khan was born to Muslim parents of Pathan ethnicity in New Delhi, India. His father, Taj Mohammed Khan was a freedom fighter from Peshawar, Pakistan. His mother Lateef Fatima was the adopted daughter of Major General Shah Nawaz Khan of the Janjua Rajput clan, who served as a General in the Indian National Army of Subash Chandra Bose.
Khan's father came to New Delhi from Qissa Khawani Bazaar in Peshawar before the Partition of India, while his mother's family came from Rawalpindi, also in present-day Pakistan. Khan has an elder sister named Shehnaz. He attended St. Columba's School where he was accomplished in sports, drama and academics. He won the Sword of Honour, an annual award bequeathed to the student who embodies most the spirit of the school. He later attended the Hansraj College (1985-1988) to earn an Honors degree in Economics. Though he studied for a Masters Degree in Mass Communications at Jamia Millia Islamia, he later opted out to make his career in Bollywood.
After the death of his parents, Khan moved to Mumbai in 1991. In that same year, before any of his film releases, he married Gauri Khan (who is a Hindu) in a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony on 25 October 1991. They have two children, son Aryan Khan (b. 1997) and daughter Suhana (b. 2000). According to Khan, while he strongly believes in Allah, he also values his wife's religion. At home, his children follow both religions, with the Qur'an being situated next to the Hindu gods.
In 2005, Nasreen Munni Kabir produced a two-part documentary on Khan, titled The Inner and Outer World of Shah Rukh Khan. Featuring his 2004 Temptations concert tour, the film contrasted Khan's inner world of family and daily life with the outer world of his work. The book Still Reading Khan, which details his family life, was released in 2006. Another book by Anupama Chopra, "King of Bollywood: Shahrukh Khan and the seductive world of Indian cinema", was released in 2007. This book described the world of Bollywood through Khan's life.
Khan's life-size wax statue is on display at the Madame Tussauds wax museum, London, installed in April 2007. Khan has been accorded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of the Arts and Literature) award by the French government for his “exceptional career”. In October 2008, he had been conferred the Darjah Mulia Seri Melaka which carries the honorific Datuk (in similar fashion to "Sir" in British knighthood), by the Yang di-Pertua Negeri Tun Mohd Khalil Yaakob, the head of state of Malacca in Malaysia, despite an outcry among the Malaysian public and local artistes who question his contribution to the country, other than "promoting tourism in Malacca" by filming One Two Ka Four there in 2001.
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