Nviews Amirkhan

VI

My name is

KHANAnd i m not just a STAR

A video still that allegedly shows actress Ranjitha and Swami Nityananda indulging in acts of intimacy.

Born to producer Tahir

Hussain, Aamir Khan's

debut film Qayamat Se

Qayamat Tak

refashioned filmdom's

lingua franca and his

latest 3 Idiots rewrote

the numbers game!

This 22-year journey

has had 32 films in

between -- with almost

a dozen astounding

hits and mind-blowing

performances. The

journey has been an

uncompromising one -

- paced at his will and

whim -- with

controversy, awards,

friends and fights

strewn along the way.

As he turnen 45 on

here's a

look at his best roles

unadulterated.

March 14,

Happy birthday !

He quit studies after Class XIIat Mumbai's N.M. Collegemuch to his parents' horror,choosing to work as anassistant director for four years.After his pin-up worthy debut in1988, he wept every daycoming home from work,convinced that the nine films hehad signed in a rush wouldcrash his career. Then in 2002,after he separated from Reena,his wife of 16 years, he drank abottle of Bacardi every day fora year-and-a-half, except forthe six hours a week and everyalternative weekend he wouldsee his children. Not what youwould call the perfectingredients for success. ButAamir Hussain Khan, all 44years and 5 ft 7 inches of him,his wife's diamond studs

twinkling in ears pierced forLagaan, has always swumagainst the tide.Only now the tide seems tobe swimming with him. He'sjust starred in 3 Idiots, a filmthat has been breaking boxoffice records at home andabroad, making Rs 240 crorein 10 days and still counting.His last four films, releasedover three successive years,Rang De Basanti, Fanaa,

AMir

K HAN

QAYAMAT SE QAYAMAT TAK,

1988

Director: Mansoor Khan

Made at the height of the

disco era, it was a breath of

fresh air, heralding Sooraj

Barjatya's Maine Pyar Kiya

and Aditya Chopra's Dilwale

Dulhania Le Jayenge. "When

we shot it, I was 21 and

when it released, I was 23.

We would wonder who will

watch the film in the

theatres.”

Aamir Khan's effervescent

debut made him an

overnight sensation. His

portrayal of a teenage-lover

was everything giggly girls

wanted to see on-screen.

His dramatisation of 'Raj'

was of the boy-next-door

without cockiness but

charisma, without smarts

but heart and of silence

rather than verbose

dialogue.

RANGEELA, 1995

Director: Ram Gopal Varma

"Ramu had four flops

before this. Urmila

(Matondkar) had eight. The

film had no story," he says.

But his loveable tapori

Munna became the

template for Sanjay Dutt's

Munnabhai.

Aamir Khan's tapori Munna

set off a slew of

characters. Like Aamir

recounts in an interview:

"Ramu had four flops

before this. Urmila

(Matondkar) had eight. The

film had no story."

And yet it spiraled all their

careers into the fast-track!

His street smart tapori's

claim to love and good life

had an unbelievably soppy

Taare Zameen Par and Ghajini, made a collective box officerevenue of over Rs 590 crore. He makes an average of Rs 10crore a year from each of the six brands he endorses. The wayhe marketed Ghajini will now be taught as part of a course infilm marketing at IIM-Ahmedabad. The profit he iscontemplating from 3 Idiots, as a result of a wise decision toforego his fees and split the profit three ways betweenproducer Vidhu Vinod Chopra, director Raju Hirani andhimself, will be over Rs 20 crore. But more than that, his filmshave consistently hit a nerve with audiences, either gettingthem to participate in candlelight vigils inspired by Rang DeBasanti, treat children with greater sensitivity as in TaareZameen Par or even cause them to bulk up their bodies as inGhajini.

In an industry ripped apart by camps, he is his own institution,working with untested new directors (Farhan Akhtar in DilChahta Hai) and even failed filmmakers (Ashutosh Gowariker,who had two flops behind him, in Lagaan). He's been aproducer for the smash hit Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na whichstarred his nephew and made Rs 115 crore at the box office, adirector for Taare Zameen Par and even the unofficial CEO ofGhajini Inc. He shuns the awards circus and has never beenseen in public performing song and dance routines. Yet hisdecision to act in one movie at a time is now a mass mantraand a sure career cure. His help was sought in resolving thetwo-month stand-off with multiplexes last year. And equally, hismove to not charge a fee for 3 Idiots could set off a trend ofstars putting their talent where their mouth is in these leaner,

times. I'm often thinking of the part and it starts

coming to me. Then I start collecting the information.

Often it's not thought out.""The two mistakes I made

early on was signing nine films within six months of my

debut and giving too much importance to scripts, not

directors."

"A star's dependability is measured by his unsuccessful films. Whatever

business it does is because of him."”I was 16 when I realised I wanted to

be an actor. My school friend Aditya Bhattacharya decided to cast me in

a 40-minute silent film called Paranoia, financed with Rs 8,000 from

actor Shriram Lagoo. Making that film convinced me that this is where I

belonged. Shabana Azmi saw it and told my parents. All hell broke

loose.""Seeing my father go bankrupt when his film Locket was stuck for

eight years taught me to be responsible to the market.""My first

instinct when I go home is to pick up a book, not the remote. I've been

reading since I was six."

"I feel I'm a special

person and if someone

does something to me, I

just remove myself from

that person's life."

"My brain is like a

computer in its memory

for scripts. It just soaks

everything in and then

it's in my head at all

Straight from the heart

GHULAM, 1998

Director: Vikram Bhatt

"It was one of the first films

at that time about

disenchanted youth. This

supposed hero had such

sham bravado. He was a

macho guy who became

almost cerebral." Khan

says it took a little time for

the market to understand

that it would not lose

money on his films.

Yet as he sits folded up in his favourite chair in the projectionroom of his home, two floors below his mother's home wherehe was born and brought up, it is hard to think of the wordsuperstar. He exudes an aura, but the room is more suited tothat of a messy student, with books such as Katherine Frank'sIndira to Abraham Verghese's The Tennis Partner sharingshelf space with PC games and Bob Dylan and Sufi qawwaliCDs. The make-up room is stacked with the tools of his trade,from spare costumes to a wigmaker's dummy. And theterminal above his computer has chronologically labelledscripts. The actor himself is on his fourth coffee, talking abouthow he lost weight for his role of Rancho in 3 Idiots, whichdirector Rajkumar Hirani rewrote for Khan. He speaks of howhe modelled the 17-year-old on the boyish director of Ghajini,A.R. Murugadoss, and his 14-year-old nephew Pablo, whocan never sit still. He jumps up to demonstrate, as he oftendoes in his exuberance, contorting his body like an over-activeteenager. "But Rancho was also dangerous because he iswithout a flaw. The audience's heart doesn't go out to such aguy. So I made him curious rather than cocky," he says.Thinking deeply about his character is something Khan hasdone increasingly, whether it is Bhuvan's stance in Lagaan,with his weight evenly distributed on his legs to suggest innerstrength, or Aakash's darting eyes in Dil Chahta Hai indicatingwhat a shallow layabout he is.

SARFAROSH, 1999

Director: John Mathew

Mathan

Mathan was unknown when

he came to Khan with

Sarfarosh but the movie, with

its tough guy police officer,

ACP Rathore, and anti

terrorist theme "really

shocked people as it came

out of the blue". He says it

marked the turning point for

the trade's belief in his

bankability.

Aamir played an upright cop

ACP Rathore in this

Bollywood drama with a

difference.

With sexy Sonali Bendra in

tow, Aamir combined action,

romance and dialogue in the

seamless way only he can!

The actor lent his ACP

Rathore a suaveness with

gravity! It's not surprising

that Aamir counts this

amongst his favourite films.

Khan thinks in close-up, wide shot and mid-shot, in totalphysicality, says film scholar Nasreen Munni Kabir. He borrowsa lot of his technique from observation--for one scene whereMona Singh slaps him while he is helping her deliver in 3 Idiots,he cheerfully admits to copying from his ex-wife Reena's difficultlabour for their first born. And even more cheerfully says heloves talking to interesting new people. "Sometimes I feel likesucking their brains out.”Khan is a star who doesn't play himself in every film, asAmitabh Bachchan did at the height of his fame or Shah RukhKhan tends to do. He plays the character, which may be why hetends to work with new directors, who help in creating a freshpersona every time. "Audiences now expect an element ofsurprise from him," points out Kabir. "Like a magician, they wanthim to conjure up a new character."

Once he has identified the perfect script, a director whosevision he shares, and a producer who will back it, Khansurrenders himself to the moment. There's no spillover, nohangover. Everything apart from the movie goes into soft focus."When I read a script, it just goes straight to my brain," he says."It's like a computer in its memory. It just soaks everything inand then it's in my head at all times," he adds, even as he actsout the first part he got in a play in Class XII. It was a line as apainter in a Gujarati play, a role he couldn't actually performbecause he was sacked for missing a day of rehearsals. Theline remains etched in his hard drive. He repeats it now: "Bloodyhell, no one marries me. I wish his mother gets married to adog."On the sets, Khan is a trooper. He will hang out evenwhen he doesn't have lines, or just play Scrabble with theassistants. He will promote the film across the country on everymedia he can find. And he will just not want to go home.Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, who directed him in Rang DeBasanti, and has been a friend since, says, "He makes himselfcompletely accessible to the filmmaker." Kunal Kohli, whodirected him in Fanaa, recalls how Khan was apologetic evenasking him for four days off in the middle of the shoot inMumbai in 2005 because he wanted to get married to KiranRao, a highly rated assistant director whose debut featureDhobi Ghat will release this year. "He's there whether it is forreadings or costume trials," adds Kohli. "And he's just incrediblyintelligent. How many people do you know who can solve theRubik's cube with one hand?"Khan calls this quality "obsessive" and regrets that he cannotspend more time with his children, Junaid, 16, and Ira, 11, whenhe is acting in a film. His cousin, Nuzhat Hussain, apsychoanalyst, who lives in the building next door, has beenclose to him since he was 10 and she 15. She says the level ofprofessionalism in his work where each person is given duerespect is reflected in his personal life as well, where he isfastidious about his honesty. He simply cannot tell a lie. "But heis not superhuman. He does make mistakes. He hurts himself.But he is totally open to learning and feeling new things, which Ithink is an act of courage," says Hussain. Khan does have self-doubts. Personally, yes, and also professionally. But he refusesto compromise on his films. He says he learnt that lesson earlyon when he signed a spate of films in a hurry on the basis oftheir scripts and then realised the director's vision wascompletely different from his. He recalls that when he was at hislowest point, having been dismissed as a one film wonder, itwas Mahesh Bhatt who offered him a hand, discussing a scriptwith him, which as luck would have it, he didn't like it.

"He was at the peak of his talent, having just done Saaransh, Arthand Naam and I didn't know how I could tell him I didn't like hisscript. So I bought time, came home and asked Reena. She toldme to follow my heart. I did, telling Bhattsaab that I wanted to doinstead was a remake of one of my favourite films, RomanHoliday, with Sridevi. He listened but then took out a screenplay ofFrank Capra's 1934 film It Happened One Night. Six months later,we would do the film together as Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin." That's alesson of following his happiness that he hasn't forgotten sincethen. It's taught him to do things his way, to go with his gut instincteven when every practical sense is screaming no, as it did whenMehra narrated Rang De Basanti to him, which was coming on theheels of four Bhagat Singh flops. And if he still needs advice, heturns to Hussain, who is producer Nasir Hussain's daughter, andactor Imran Khan's mother. "She's one person I go to when I needto talk about anything," he says warmly. "She's a great thinker."

Stardom sits simply on him. Yes, there are the six bodyguardswho travel everywhere with him. His man Friday Sachin, his girlFriday Sarita, and his manager Binki seem to stay awake all night.There is also the flashy Toyota Landcruiser and the Rs 10-croresprawling house in Panchgani. But Khan is essentially a middle-class man, who thinks nothing of upturning the Body Shop showergel to catch the last drop or blindly trusting his accountant of 20years to invest his money well. It's ingrained in him because hismost formative years, eight to 14, were spent in the shadow of hisfather, producer Tahir Hussain's imminent bankruptcy. "My fatherspent eight years making a film called Locket which was stalledbecause actors wouldn't give him dates," he says now. "For fiveyears, I remember him getting calls from creditors every dayasking him when he would return their money. And my fatherwould always say I'm trying my best. One night, he woke up in themiddle of the night, looking for his graduation certificate so hecould get a job and feed us. Our fees would always be late andour names would be called out in school," he says of himself andhis three siblings, sisters Nikhat and Farhat, and brother Faisal.They survived only because a film their father did in between,Dulha Bikta Hai on dowry, became a surprise hit. That was alsothe time Khan was devoted to tennis, playing five hours a day atthe Khar Gymkhana, travelling all over from Kolhapur to Pune,sharing rooms in lodges with seven other children, becomingMaharashtra No. 1 in boys. But then one day when he was 14, hisfather, something of a tyrant, announced to his mother that Khanshould give up tennis because his marks were falling. "My marksstayed where they were but my tennis stopped," recalls Khan.He learnt two valuable life lessons from his childhood. One washow to tell a story, as he would sit in a corner of his drawing roomlistening fascinatedly to writers and directors pitching theirnarrations to his father. "My father would say things like 'tell methe story in one line please', 'what is your premise' or 'but where'sthe conflict?'," remembers Khan, things he now knows are taughtin film schools. He also learnt the importance of making money forthe producers and distributors of his films."As an actor it is my responsibility to ensure the producer makeshis money back and the audience gets its money worth," he says.It's one reason the cerebral actor, who gets excited by RajmohanGandhi's biography of Gandhi, also proudly admits to readingBollywood trade papers. After all, as a child, his father would makehim write down box office collections of his films on the phonefrom places such as Amravati and Aurangabad.

LAGAAN, 2001

Director: Ashutosh

Gowariker

Khan says, "When I told

the late Jhamu Sughand,

who was a very hardcore

businessman, that I'm

doing this film with

Gowariker and it will cost

a lot of money, he didn't

blink. He never asked me

are you sure? 1893 and

cricket? Sports films

haven't worked in India.

But he didn't question

me.”

Khan set up Aamir Khan

productions for Ashutosh

Gowarikar's Lagaan. The

rest they say is history.

Everything that can be

said about the Oscar-

nominated film has been

said before. Khan states

in an interview with India

Today, of the time he

asked the producer,

Jhamu Sughand for the

money, 'Even when I told

him it will cost a lot of

money, he didn't blink. He

never asked me are you

sure? 1893 and cricket?

As much as he is an individualist, Khan needs his family aroundhim. He's close to his mother, Zeenat, now 74, who lives in Puneand whom he is now persuading to return and live with him. Thereare things she taught him he will never forget. "I remember Iwould come back from my tennis matches and tell her I'd won,and she would congratulate me while making tea for me. And thenask, but what of the boy who lost? His ammi must be very upset.That would be enough to depress me." It taught him empathy andhe started regarding his rival as a human being, whom he wouldshare a cold drink with or an after-match vada pav. There areother things she taught him well--he's probably the only star whoknocks before entering a room in his own home and whoremembers to show visitors the washroom while they wait for himto freshen up.He also seems to be looking better than ever. Khanattributes it to his dietician Vinod Dhurandhar who brought hisweight down to 68 kg while making 3 Idiots. He slept eight hours aday at least and also started playing badminton, sometimes twohours a day, with students at IIM-Bangalore where they shot for 3Idiots for over a month. He drinks four litres of water a day. Andwhile friends say he is not above binge drinking, being able to putaway several Bacardis for four days in a row, he has stoppedsmoking for over a year now."I just went cold turkey," he says. "Irealised this with the three-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week training Idid for Ghajini for over a year. The human mind is a very powerfultool. If it wants something badly, the body will give it. It's like whatyogis say." Yet for such a sober individual, Khan can be a funperson, who enjoys learning skiing with his children in Canada asmuch as he takes pleasure in the piano lessons his wife Kirangives him. He adores Calvin & Hobbes and as is obvious from hiswell aimed barbs at Shah Rukh, he revels in a little light mischief.The best part about him, says long-time friend, ad man PrasoonJoshi who's worked with him on several campaigns and writtensongs for some of his films, he doesn't take himself tooseriously.Amit Khanna, chairman of Reliance Entertainment whichdistributed 3 Idiots, believes Khan is a throwback to the DilipKumar-Raj Kapoor-Dev Anand era when filmmakers lived for

cinema and believed it hada higher social purposebeyond making money. "Yethe's as savvy as the newkids on the block, up tospeed with Facebook andblogging." Khan doesn'tquite put it so grandly."Money doesn't excite me. Itgives me comfort but it's notwhat makes me tick. Neitherdoes throwing my weightaround, or making a noisyentry or making a scene.Give me a great book or agreat script any day." Givenhis anointment as the newbox office guru of gyaan,there should be no shortageof the latter.

RANG DE BASANTI, 2006

Director: Rakeysh

Omprakash Mehra

"I told my sister, who is in

New York, that I was

making the fifth remake of

Bhagat Singh. The first

four had flopped. She told

me you've got to be

kidding." The film's

nihilism set off debates

and its emotional

activism sparked

candlelight marches but

Khan's flashy DJ was

memorable. To use his

words, "so nice".

TAARE ZAMEEN PAR, 2007

Director: Aamir Khan

It was written by Amole

Gupte who directed it for a

week, until Khan, the

producer, took over from

him. He made a simple

story of a dyslexic child

into a timely movie

questioning the

education system, which

turned out to be a

surprise hit.

"I would be heartbroken if

Taare Zameen Par doesn't

work."

That's what Aamir Khan

stated in an interview of

his simple story of a

dyslexic child, and one

which questioned the

education system.

Direction was always on

Aamir Khan's radar and it

was always as he stated

on many occasions, a

matter of when than why!

Playing art-school

teacher Ram Shankar

Nikhumb, he highlighted

in the second half of the

film, what a great school

teacher can do for a

student.

The film was racked with

controversy especially

when writer Amol Gupte

raised questions about

who really directed the

film.

Coming soon

This year Khan intends to

focus onhis three home

productions

It's his wife Kiran Rao's first

feature film, based on her

script, with multiple

concurrent stories, all set

in Mumbai. Khan plays a

divorced painter while

Prateik Babbar is the

protagonist.

A comic view of a farmer's

life directed by former

journalist Anusha Rizvi,

based on her own script. It's

one of the first films from

India to be selected in the

competitive section of the

Sundance Film Festival.

Khan has high hopes from

it.

An urban comedy about

three strugglers, starring

Imran Khan, stand up

comics Vir Das and Kunal

Roy Kapoor. Is directed by

ad filmmaker Abhinay Deo.

Khan will be sitting in on its

post-production and will

then plan the marketing.

DHOBI GHAT

PEEPLI LIVE

DELHI BELLY

3 IDIOTS, 2009

Director: Rajkumar Hirani

"My character Rancho was

written in a dangerous way.

He had no flaws. Your heart

doesn't go out to him. It's

the flaws that make you

loveable. When I realised

that very early on, I told

Hirani I don't want to play it

in a heroic manner as he

will get on people's nerves.

I didn't want to play it smart

but naturally curious." The

role required him to lose 10

kg, act like a 17-year-old,

terrorise a principal,

deliver a baby, and break

off an engagement.

Amir turns older

GURU KHAN