Aamir Khan / X/ AKPPL_Official

As Aamir Khan turned 60, here's looking at yesterday, today and tomorrow with the visionary actor-filmmaker

Aamir's father and uncle didn't want him to be an actor

Aamir Khan's uncle, Nasir Hussain, was a writer, producer and director who turned around Shammi Kapoor’s career with films like Tumsa Nahin Dekha, Dil Deke Dekho and Teesri Manzil. He continued to set new trends in Pyar Ka Mausam and Caravan. He co-produced the latter with his brother, Tahir Hussain, who also featured in Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai and Pyar Ka Mausam, and went on to make his own films, including Zakhmee, Locket and Tum Mere Ho. Tum Mere Ho starred his star son Aamir, who at the age of eight had debuted in his uncle's Yaadon Ki Baraat.

Given his family background, one would have expected Aamir, and his cousin Mansoor, to naturally follow in the footsteps of their fathers. But knowing how insecure this profession was, with fortunes changing every Friday, neither Nasir nor Tahir Hussain wanted their boys to go through the struggles they had faced and insisted on a sound education for them.

Rising from the ashes

Mansoor went to IIT Bombay, Cornwell University and MIT. Tahir Hussain had his heart set on Aamir becoming a doctor or an engineer too and had discontinued his son's tennis lessons even though he was a sub-junior champ when he flunked in two subjects. But after clearing his 12th standard with 60 per cent, Aamir finally worked up the courage to tell his disappointed father that he wanted to join the industry too. 

With no training or godfather, the 16-year-old aspirant collaborated with National Award-winning filmmaker Basu Bhattacharya's son, Aditya, whom he had befriended in Bombay Scottish School, on a 40-minute experimental silent film titled Paranoia. He then went on to play the lead in Aditya's next project, a dark crime thriller, Raakh, which was completed before Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, but released only in 1989. He plays a 21-year-old boy from a privileged background who picks up the gun after the woman he is obsessed with is sexually assaulted by a local gang lord. A re-edited version of the film, Raakh Redux, premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2011.

Interestingly, another film from the early '80s, Subah Subah, which Aamir had done when only 18, also premiered 31 years later, on Zee TV's channel, &Pictures. That's star power!

From bad omen to blockbuster

The film that made him a star even before the premiere show ended was, of course, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. Produced by his uncle, Nasir Hussain, and directed by his cousin Mansoor, the first day's shoot in Ooty was washed out by fog. Worried, Aamir wondered if this was a bad omen, but QSQT, which opened on April 29, 1988, was a blockbuster.
It bagged the National Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. It also picked up eight Filmfare Awards, including Best Debutant for Aamir. But the debutant admitted frankly that he was disappointed by the consolation prize. He had expected to win the Best Actor Award which went to Anil Kapoor that year for Tezaab.

Aamir won his first Best Actor Award only a decade later in 1996, for Raja Hindustani even though no one saw one of his best scenes in the film. It comes just before Raja abducts his son, fearing he will never see the boy again. He learnt of the child's existence when he forced his way into his wife's maternal home in Palankhet when Aarti was away. Beaten up and thrown into a gutter on the instructions of her stepmother, he had resolved to take their child away from his wife, believing that she had deliberately kept him in the dark.

This sequence was sacrificed while editing the almost three-hour-long (177 minutes) film. Yet, even after a quarter of a century, Raja Hindustani is among the top grossers of Hindi cinema and after its release, there was no looking back for Aamir Khan.

Taxing Times

As the world stepped into the 21st century, Aamir turned producer with Lagaan. Writer-director Ashutosh Gowariker had first taken his audacious idea of a motley bunch of villagers coming together to play a game of cricket against their British oppressors with the understanding that should they pull off an unlikely victory, they would not have to pay crippling lagaan (tax) for three years, to Shah Rukh Khan who turned him down flat.

Even Aamir had told Ashutosh to work on something safer and more conventional when he had been briefed, but after listening to the complete narration after a few months, he was hooked. Since no one was interested in investing in a film set in a village in pre-Independent India, with Aamir in a dhoti, playing bat and ball with a cast of little-known character artistes, he joined hands with wife Reena Dutta and screenplay writer Sanjay Dayma to produce the film himself with the director who had previously made two flop films.

Lagaan was perhaps one of his life's biggest-gamble, and at INR 25 crore (approx $3M) making it the most expensive Hindi film then. But it paid off despite coming up against Sunny Deol's blockbuster Gadar. It won eight National Awards which is still a record, and almost an Oscar. It was re-released recently across India as part of the Aamir Khan Film Festival in celebration of his 60th birthday, along with Rang De Basanti, Sarfarosh, Dil Chahta Hai, Ghajini. Talaash, 3 Idiots, PK and Dangal, each film a cult classic today.

War and peace

The senior citizen is not ready to retire. In 2007, Aamir made his directorial debut with Taare Zameen Par, playing an art teacher who helps an eight-year-old dyslexic child cope with studies while raising awareness of a disease that few had heard of earlier. He is currently putting the finishing touches to its spiritual sequel, Sitaare Zameen Par, which has 10 people with challenges helping him, a supposedly normal person. Directed by RS Prasanna, the film has its muse in the 2018 Spanish film Champions.

He was also instrumental in reuniting director Raj Kumar Santoshi and his Ghayal, Ghatak, Damini hero Sunny Deol, bringing them together for a period drama. He himself is producing Lahore 1947 with Preity Zinta returning from a seven-year hiatus to play Sunny Deol's wife. They are a Muslim couple who migrate from Lucknow to Lahore, and in newly-founded Pakistan, are allotted a haveli whose original owners supposedly fled across the border following the Partition. But they soon discover that an elderly Hindu lady (played by Shabana Azmi) who was waiting for her son to come along with a vehicle is still living there and they end up sharing a roof with her. The film is targeting a June release, and Javed Akhtar, who has penned the lyrics, is confident the film will be a huge hit in both the masses and in multiplexes.

Meanwhile, Aamir has begun work on another epic project, Mahabharat, with plans of wrapping it up over the next five years. It's an arduous journey, but he's not alone. On the eve of his birthday, the twice-married-and-separated actor-filmmaker surprised everyone by introducing his partner of 18 months, Gauri Spratt. Love is ageless and can win any Mahabharat.