Because the ruling party makes a special effort to ignore him, whether at the National Awards or the Goa International Film Festival. Because he is a one-man life jacket for a party that until recently controlled Uttar Pradesh. Because whether it is a wedding or a funeral, Indians cannot have enough of his ideal happy Family No. 1.

Because every ad filmmaker wants to make his first film with him. Because only he could have walked away from the wreckage of Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag with his aura intact. Because no one knows better than him that the troughs of modern celebritydom are as deep as its peaks are high. Because by romancing women decades younger than him, he has spawned an entire stay-young industry for older people. Because he may be bruised but he is still a heritage monument.