Karan Johar's biography is an invitation for fans to come out

Karan Johar makes everything he does look so easy that it is easy to forget his accomplishments. He has directed six hit films, runs a successful production house which makes interesting movies, is a popular talk show host, has been a reality show judge, and mentor to many talented young people.

His greatest achievement though is that he is a good man, much like his father, and one of the most popular producers in Bollywood.

Which is why An Unsuitable Boy, while being most wrongly titled, is such a joy to read. He has been such a guilty pleasure for so many people — his movies, his talk show, even the AIB roast — that this book will finally give them a chance to come out and declare their love for him.

So, Karan Johar’s closet fans, be prepared to read this and come out of wherever you are hiding, and declare that he exists.

And those who are not fans, well I urge you to read An Unsuitable Boy. Too many words have been spent on criticising him for not declaring his sexuality. And not enough for admitting to things most other memoirs do not — depression, fallouts and weaknesses.

Johar is a remarkably self-aware man and there is much to learn from the way he has confronted his demons. He may not have come to terms with all of them — who does? — but the memoir shows not only a very personal journey through the film industry, from the margins to the centre, but also a recounting of much of the change that he witnessed and participated in.

One of Johar’s defining characteristics is his generosity and when he says he wanted his father’s company — now his — to be affable, amiable and accessible, he may well have been describing himself. The book describes his many battles, with his weight, his sexuality, his perceived effeminate traits, his voice.

Johar has been all too honest about how he’s had to work on all aspects of himself and though he often lapses into self-help speak — I’m love-free, sex-free, completely free he exclaims at one point — he does bare a lot of himself.

One of the many reasons Johar is so successful is that he is authentic, whether he is being ditsy, cowardly, gossipy, self deprecating, or even serious. He is true to himself, even if it only at that moment.

The book charts his journey from being a South Bombay snob who was made to believe by his parents that he was richer than he was to a Hindi film fan who hung out with Aditya Chopra to the bright young director whose first film was the barometre for cool in the '90s to the omnipotent, omnipresent director-producer-mentor-everyone’s best friend that he has now become.

As he writes, “there was a subconscious, hysterical Hindi film fan hidden inside my large body, just waiting to come out.”

He is generous to his friends and mentors. Of Aditya Chopra, who asked him to be his assistant director on the iconic Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, he says: “...even though Adi is such an introvert, he opened the doors of his heart and home to me. I felt very loved’’.

Shah Rukh Khan, who promised he would work in his first film, which he encouraged him to make, is the elder brother he never had. Kareena Kapoor is the woman he might have married.

He is quite candid about many things — his father’s death and how it left him without morings for a time. “My father had always treated me like a star on set. I was like a prince who had been given a kingdom without any of the responsibility. I never had to worry about a single thing.”

He writes about losing his father’s body and his mother’s spirit, how the fun-loving mother he knew is never the same after his father passed away in 2004.

He talks of his experiments with sex, including paying for sex once and now becoming a member of an elite international dating site. He talks of his struggle with anxiety, including going to a psychologist and taking medication as advised.

He also writes of his battles with the way he is perceived — “I’m still associated with popcorn, bubblegum, frivolity, NRIs and rich people,’’ he writes.

And of those who troll him for his sexual orientation, quite comically I have to say.

There’s much to admire in the memoir, mostly of his frank admissions—"I’m so needy that I might become like a completely subservient mad person," he says, if he ever is in a long term relationship.

“My work," he says, "is my biggest orgasm,’’ and there is no tucked or “fucked away” anywhere. “I wish there was.”

There’s no shortage of quotable quotes, hardly surprising given it’s a Karan Johar book. Here are my top five:

1. Death doesn’t scare me, life sometimes does.

2. If you make sadness your friend because it’s part of your life then you’ll be able to deal with it.

3. When you’re a failure, it has slipped out of your hands. So there’s an ease. Success is a huge burden to live with.

4. When you have a sense of low self esteem and when you have achieved success, there’s relief more than arrogance.

5. I’m removing a lot of emotional clutter. There were some people absorbing my life, I don’t want them around any longer. Out. Coming clean is my dynamic.

What’s next? Karan Johar, the self-help pundit? Wait for it!