AAMIR KHAN
Imagine the country’s most serious actor painstakingly sending SMS messages to all his friends from actress Rani Mukerji to cinematographer Baba Azmi on April fool’s day asking them to attend a special screening of his yet-to-be released film, and then not turning up himself, leaving them in the lurch with no film in sight. Khan’s public image-a methodical actor who doesn’t suffer fools gladly or sadly is quite different from the reality of a man who can be as naughty as he is normal. But Khan a star since his first major film in 1988 Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak has been as careful about how he is projected in the media as he is about his movie choices. The caution has worked. Khan will be remembered not only for being the actor who ushered in an era of refreshing romantic young love in Bollywood films, but also for being the filmmaker who showed Bollywood its true global potential. The film with which he did this was Lagaan (Land Tax) released in 2001 and nominated for an Oscar award in the best foreign Language category. It was not the first Indian movie to be so honoured (Mehboob Khan’s Mother India had done so in 1957) but was certainly the most celebrated in recent times. The upstanding Bhuvan, gave Khan’s career until then studded with straight arrow hits featuring him as the conventional pretty boy a long-desired change of directions. As the film’s producerm Khan showed he had the confidence and gift to defy Bollywood’s accepted wisdom Don’t do a period drama rural characters don’t sell, and there must be at least one song short in a beautiful location, preferably foreign, with at least two costume changes. As an actor Khan extended his range. As a Bollywood notable, he showed an understanding of the power of marketing talking about his film at every media outlet he could find. And as a filmmaker he showed he had an unerring instinct for what could cross over to a Western audience a mix of cricket, grand spectacle a colonicl theme and a mammoth musical score.
But Khan’s story does not begin or end with Lagaan. The actor is a Bollywood insider: both his father Tahir Hussain and his Uncle Nasir Hussain were established filmmakers. A student of Bombay Scottish School and a national level tennis player, there was never any doubt that he would be involved with films in some way or the other. from his first major film to a series of big hits. ranging from Dil (The Heart 1990), where he tames a haughty Madhuri Dixit Than the reigning Female No-1, to Dil Hai ki Maanta Nahin (The Heart Refuses to Listen, 1991,) where he played a Desi version of Clark Gable opposite a distinctly less-charming than Claudette colbert Pooja Bhatt in a remake of Hollywood film it Happened One Night Khan has showed tremendous staying power and the ability to reinvent himself. Now forty-two, it is almost as if he lived two lives. It is his second phase, that of an actor who is a perfectionist which has made him a role model as well as a pioneer.
Even when most actors in Bollywood were doing two shifts a day which to the uninitiated means working on two films simultaneously challenging creativity and continuity by going from the sets of one of the other in a single day, Khan was changing his style. The man who gave up the anti-hero role in the film Darr (Fear), because he felt it would adversely affect his image is now one who loves to take risks, He’s been Dil Navaz, the nasty ice cram candy man in the year 1947 in earth (1998(: Mangal Pandey the raging sepoy in the first War of India Independence in Mangal Pandey The rising (2004) DJ a rather mature students of Delhi University and freedom fighter Chandrashekher Azad in Rang De Basanti, (Colour me Yellow/Saffron, 2006), and rehan a committed Kashmiri Terrorist posing as a tour guide in Fanaa (Extinction 2006)
What drives this actor who has studiously kept alive his everyman image despite a divorce in Bollywood notoriously hypocritical industry (extramarital relationships are life but divorces are not) His dream lies in his patent sincerity and dedication to the craft of making films. Here is an actor who will stop at nothing to achieve his goal be it spending months to grow his hair and moustache to an appropriate length for The Rising ow working with a language coach to get his pronunciation right in the Avadhi dialect for his role in Lagaan. One of the few actors who actually researches his parts with his own background reading as much as with inputs from his director he is the ultimate Method Man. He is also a shrewd communicator whether regarding his movies or his own self. A sought after endorsement star, he is also a social recluse avoiding film awards functions and steering clear of concerts for NRIs and showy premieres .He speaks to the media only when he has to promote his film and sometimes not even then. He also stands up for causes as divergent as the state of Muslims in Gujrat and the plight of refugees displaced by the Narmada Dam. Khan has always made directors excel, whether he is playing Munna, the effervescent ruffian in Ram Gopal Verma’s Rangeela (the colourfull 1995) Ghulam (The Slave 1998) Directors have never been able to repeat the excellence of their work with him.He is know to tinker with the script if he feels the film is not delivering what it promised He likes to let his work speak for itself but ensures there is a social message in his films as in his forthcoming debut film as director Taare Zameen Par which takes on the deucation system. Aamir Khan lives a life very different from the other two Khan’s the flamboyant Shah Rukh and the mercurial Salman. But his impact on contemporary Indian cinemas is no less intense and lasting.