Shahrukh Khan at 58th Berlin film festival.

As German fans dribled over Shah Rukh Khan, the national media shed its perceptions of “bullock cart India” & trained its attention on the Bollywood superstar when he landed here, with one journalist even saying “he is as popular as the Pope”. Shah Rukh was here for the screening of Om Shanti Om at the Berlin Film Festival. Some German television channels suddenly turned their cameras from the Hollywood glitterati to King Khan as excited fans let out loud sounds to greet him at the Berlinale Friday night.

The German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which was highly critical about India & Indians until the mid-1990s, when the world began to notice the South Asian country’s economic and technological prowess, said that many people from all over Europe had descended on Berlin to see their favourite star.

Ekkehard Knoerer in the Berlin tabloid Die Tageszeitung wrote, “He is as popular as the Pope, but Shahrukh khan has more sex appeal”. Shah Rukh Friday also announced that he had plans to direct a film in Berlin, but admitted that he had no concrete dates for the shooting.

A spokesman of Eros Entertainment, a film distribution company which has handled many Bollywood blockbusters in Germany, said that 50 prints of Om Shanti Om, as it is popularly known, would be distributed all over Germany. Spokesman said, “We hope this film will also open the entire European market for us”.

In capital Berlin alone, the number of Indian restaurants has risen sharply from 150 in 2001 to 250 now, according to the Berlin Economic Development Agency. “This increase augurs well for our business,” says an employee of Choudry Food Traders, which supplies all kinds of products to Indian restaurants & also sells them in its own store.