Looking back, it seems providential that Javed Akhtar wrote all the strikingly unusual and vivid lyrics for Aamir Khan’s first home production, Lagaan. Fifteen years earlier, when Aamir was nursing seemingly impossible dreams of becoming a film actor, it was Javed Akhtar who told Aamir’s uncle, the distinguished filmmaker Nasir Husain, “Why’s this boy assisting you? He’s out-and-out hero material.”
Aamir’s Path To Stardom
That’s how Aamir Khan’s career as one of India’s most adventurous and relentlessly searching star-actors began. Of course, he had done a couple of sweet stints as a child in his father Tahir Husain’s Madhosh and his uncle Nasir Husain’s Yaadon Ki Baaraat. But Aamir doesn’t see them as his authentic beginnings as an actor. While Nasir Husain zeroed in on his shy and intense nephew to play the lead in his son Mansoor’s directorial debut, Aamir went ahead and did Ketan Mehta’s Holi (during which Aamir shaved off his head in protest against an unresponsive girlfriend) and Aditya Chopra’s Raakh—two films about the unstoppable angst of the young and the restless, which indicated the direction his career would take.
Aamir’s restless quest for roles that demolish the walls of mainstream entertainment and extend the frontiers of conventional cinema has taken him on celluloid adventures as disparate in content and intent as Dhoom 3, PK, Talaash, and Laal Singh Chaddha.
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A Steady And Satisfying Journey
The journey of that tonsured rebel in Raakh to the role of the mutinous peasant in Lagaan has been long, steady, and deeply satisfying. What makes Aamir the most unique and exciting star-actor of the post-Bachchan era? It’s his penchant for going against the grain and doing what he wants, rather than what the box office dictates. His commitment to seeking out a refined idiom of cinematic expression seldom suffers a setback. This actor knows exactly what he’s doing and where he wants to take his stardom.
Whether it was the hotheaded tourist guide in Raja Hindustani or the ISI-grappling cop in Sarfarosh, in every role Aamir plays, he flirts with hazardous histrionics, tackles challenging emotions and tensions head-on, and emerges unscathed and triumphant.
Commitment To Substance Over Popularity
“Before I agree to be in a project, I have to be comfortable with the director because I have to spend the next year of my life with him,” Aamir once declared about his methods and manoeuvres as an actor in search of substance beyond the shimmering shallowness of the average mainstream film. Whether it’s Ashutosh Gowariker in Lagaan or Farhan Akhtar in Dil Chahta Hai, Aamir’s directors are people who are as consumed by the chimerical idea of flawless filmmaking as Aamir.
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In his 37 years as an actor, Aamir has never done the expected. The admirers of his art do not expect the expected from Aamir Khan. Most of the time, he doesn’t disappoint them.
Today, at 60, Aamir is at the power-peak of his career. He can do anything he likes, play any role he wants. He is now going to play Arjun in his own version of the Mahabharat. Aamir’s fans are already agog.
