Karan Johar Recalls Being Called Feminine and Getting Ragged in School
Karan Johar has always worn his heart on his sleeve. Whether it’s dealing with online criticism or reflecting on his childhood and challenging phases of his life, the filmmaker remains honest. Recently, he opened up in a podcast on YouTube about his feelings from his childhood days and how he was labelled as feminine.
Recalling how he just wanted to ‘belong’, the filmmaker said, “The first thing I wanted to do was just be. I wanted to belong. That’s the first thing I wanted to do. I just felt very different from all the other boys my age, all the other kids my age. I think it was just in those days back in the 80s, I didn’t know how to describe my headspace because I didn’t understand what I was. I felt I was different. I felt I was different from the others, and I wasn’t able to kind of articulate it to myself, and those were not days that you know we could get any kind of counselling, any kind of you know visit to somebody who could guide you, help you nurture you in that way.”
KJo revealed how he was told that he is feminine. Despite getting enough love from his parents, he knew that he was different. “Even your parents were giving you all the love, like I was the only child, so I got a lot of love, but I knew I was very different. I was told I was, you know, more feminine than I should be. I walked differently. I ran differently. I spoke differently. My choices in life, my hobbies in life, were different,” the filmmaker continued.
He also shared how he liked to watch a lot of Hindi movies and dance to Bollywood songs. “I liked to watch a lot of Hindi movies. We grew up in an elite neighbourhood called Malabar Hill. And like nobody watched Hindi cinema at that time, Indian cinema. I was watching all those movies and dancing to those songs in my room. And boys and girls my age were like listening to their parents’ favourites, like Abba, or they were getting to like Wham, George Michael Madonna. It was a breakthrough of like you know, western pop artists, and I was not getting into. I was listening to Lata Mangeshkar and Kishor Kumar and Asha Bhosle and Mohammed Rafi, and everything about me was different.”
Karan further explained that he wanted to play football or cricket with the kids living in his apartment complex, but nobody chose him as he was not good enough or man enough. The filmmaker also shared that he wanted to change schools when he was in the 12th standard, as he felt he was being ragged. “I remember the particular moment when my mother sat me down, and I was 12, because I was going through a rough time. I wanted to change schools. I wanted to because I felt I was being ragged in and around. And I still went back to the same school. I didn’t change schools. And she told me, ‘Look, I want you to be an achiever no matter what you do. I want you to be good at something. Just hold on to what you think you’re good at because I feel like you’re not nurturing, you know, what you’re good at.’ And I was good at elocution and debate, and drama. That’s the first time I took my mom’s advice, and I walked into the interact club and I got the very first year. I started representing my school at debates and executions, and there the confidence started building, so it was something that happened organically. My chat with my mother was very defining, and I don’t think she realises how defining that chat was to me. It made such a big impact.”
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