“Leave Aryan Khan Alone”

After Karan Johar’s grand birthday party on May 25  there have been many a snide remark  on  Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan’s sullen look when the paparazzi clicked him at the  venue.

A close friend  of the Khans  spoke  up in young Khan’s defence. “Leave the  boy alone. You first rob him of all happiness. Then  you  expect him to  throw obliging smiles into the camera. This is inhuman. Leave  the kid alone.He is  just  24. He has been  through hell. He is scarred for life.Now  you want him to smile for you. Give the  child a break.”

The Khans’ friend reveals that  Aryan still wakes up  in the middle of the night with nightmares of  the  one month in October 2021 that he spent on jail when he  was  incarcerated  for alleged drug possession.

Says  the friend, “Aryan doesn’t want to attend any parties after what happened. He had attended that decisive  rave party on  a ship on the insistence  of some friends.How  was he  to know it would change his life? Now he is fearful of any social interaction. He doesn’t even  socialize with his  closest friends.”

Apparently  Karan Johar had  to persuade Aryan  to attend the part.

“Aryan didn’t want to go for Karan’s  birthday party. But Karan is close to the entire family. Shah Rukh, his wife Gouri and  Karan  had to  coax  Aryan(to attend the party). In fact  he  was  reluctant to even attend the IPL matches  to support his Dad’s team,” says  the friend.

It would probably be a  very long time before Aryan’s wounds  are healed. What he  needs is empathy and privacy to overcome the demons that have lodged themselves  in his subconscious after he was unjustly punished for a crime  he had  not committed.

Friends say the Khan family is still grappling with the  tragedy.

“They may seem normal. But Aryan’s  time in jail has imprisoned his  entire family  in  a pall of gloom.Their sense  of shared and individual  happiness is for now,gone.So please let them solve their  crisis and please don’t judge Aryan for not smiling. He is  suffering.”