Long before Shah Rukh Khan became one of the most celebrated stars in Indian cinema, he was a young actor trying to find his footing in Bollywood. During those early years, he accompanied his ailing mother, Lateef Fatima Khan, to Ajmer Sharif to seek blessings. Decades later, the actor recalled a memorable incident from that visit involving a missing Rs 5,000 and a fakir’s prediction about his future.While promoting ‘Happy New Year’ in 2014, Shah Rukh spoke about the visit and revealed that his mother had entrusted him with Rs 5,000 while they carried a chadar to the shrine.“My mother was very unwell, so I went with her to Ajmer Sharif to pray for her. We were carrying a chadar to offer at the shrine and make a wish. My mother had given me some money to keep safely. It was Rs 5,000,” he said.Shah Rukh later realised that the money was missing and began searching for it. That was when a fakir at the dargah approached him and asked whether he had lost something. When the actor confirmed that he had, the fakir specifically asked if it was Rs 5,000.“I wondered how he knew. He told me, ‘You have come here; you will not leave empty-handed. You have lost Rs 5,000, but you will earn Rs 500 crore,’” Shah Rukh recalled.The actor admitted that he had not always been someone who believed in such predictions, but said the unusual encounter remained with him.“Sometimes I don’t believe in such things. We are all educated and think that these things cannot really happen. But this happened to me. He was right. I have the blessings of Ajmer Sharif upon me,” he said.For Shah Rukh, however, the incident was never simply about the money he eventually earned. He explained that what mattered more was the reason behind that visit and the memories associated with his mother.“It isn’t about the money. I have earned a lot of fame and many good things in life. We had gone there seeking my mother’s prayers. She is no longer with me, but her blessings and the blessings of Ajmer Sharif are still upon me,” he said.The Ajmer Sharif Dargah, dedicated to Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, is among India’s most prominent pilgrimage sites. People from different faiths visit the shrine to offer prayers and chadars and seek blessings.Shah Rukh has returned to the shrine several times over the years, including before some of his film releases. His mother died in 1991, a year before his Bollywood debut ‘Deewana’ released in 1992. The actor has spoken about her death and the impact it had on him on several occasions.In a conversation with Simi Garewal, Shah Rukh once spoke about his desire for his mother to witness the success he hoped to achieve. “I want my mother to see me, 70 mms, a lot bigger than what I am,” he told Simi.Recalling the circumstances surrounding her death, Shah Rukh said he was devastated and unprepared to lose her, despite having already experienced the death of his father from cancer.“I was shooting in Goa, and she had diabetes. When I came back from Goa, she had hurt her foot, and it kept spreading. When she was admitted to the hospital, she contracted septicaemia. I wasn’t prepared, but I had done the same thing for my father. I was in the hospital with him, and slowly he went away,” he said.Shah Rukh also remembered how his mother’s critical condition prompted him to pray for the first time. While she was in the ICU struggling to breathe, he went down to the hospital parking lot and prayed for her recovery.“I was not prepared for her to die. I never used to pray, but when she was in the ICU, and she was getting a breathing attack, I went down to the parking lot of a hospital and for the first time, I prayed. I was told to pray 6000 times, and that she won’t have pain,” he said.He continued, “I did, and the doctor told me that she was going. I have a belief that you die when you are satisfied with life. So I went down and started giving her worries, I said I won’t be happy, and told her that I’ll be a bad person, mistreat her daughter. But she had a beautiful look in her eyes, which said, let me go, I need to rest, and she went.”
