"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.”