New Delhi: Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan had quite an eventful wedding. Coming from two different religious backgrounds, SRK and Gauri solemnized their wedding as per religious customs followed by one another. Interestingly, SRK chose a rather amusing name for his wedding. When he tied the knot with Gauri, he christened himself as 'Jeetender Kumar Tulli'- Jeetender taken from the veteran actor, and Tulli being Rajendra Kumar’s real surname.
As per Mushtaq Sheikh's book 'Shah Rukh Can', the megastar chose the name which in a way honoured two veteran actors-Jeetender and Rajendra Kumar. He chose Jeetender because his grandmother thought SRK resembled the yesteryear star. And Tulli because it was actor Rajendra Kumar's real surname.
So while Shah Rukh Khan chose a unique name for his wedding, Gauri too picked a Muslim name 'Ayesha' for their nikah ceremony. We have not told this to many people,” the actor said in the book. Apart from the two wedding functions, the couple also had a court marriage.
Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan's interfaith marriage is one of the most successful marriages in Bollywood. The two have three children who practice both religions and are brought up in a secular manner. The couple got married in 1991 and are parents to Aryan, Suhana and AbRam( who was born through surrogacy).
On many occasions, SRK has also spoken about how Gauri's parents were initially reluctant about him but later were ready for the match. An excerpt in 'Shah Rukh Can' also talks about how her mother had swallowed a handful of sleeping pills, but miraculously survived. The couple later lied to them that they had gotten married, when they had just registered for a court marriage.
In an interview in 2008, Gauri had spoken about the same and said that she was only 21 while SRK was 26. "We were so young and then we decided to get married and to a person who is going to join films, and being from a different religion,” she told Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla on their show First Ladies.
Gauri also recalled that they changed Shah Rukh’s name to Abhinav so the parents could feel that he was Hindu. “We changed his name to Abhinav so they feel he is a Hindu boy but that was really silly and very childish,” she recalled.