Talking to Anupam Kher fills you with hope. That all is not bad with this world. Here is a man who fought facial paralysis with a smile, who played a 68-year-old at the age of 28 and when the industry tried to bracket him, he showed how he could be anything from Daddy to Dr. Dang. As he turns writer, he gives away his mantra in the title itself: “The Best Thing About You Is You”. “Many of us inflict unhappiness on ourselves by trying to be, or behave, like someone else.” Kher says he realised early that he could not be Amitabh Bachchan but also believed that he won’t lead an ordinary life either. But the ailment strikes the conscious as well. One discovers it during a conversation with Kher at the coffee shop of Le Meridien. What was he thinking when he did films like Nigahen? Kher replies with a story. “The only time I gave an audition and didn’t clear it was for the role of Mogambo. I felt bad but when I saw Amrish Puri playing the role I realised my limitations. He was cut out to be larger than life. Some years later when I was offered the sequel of Nagina, I thought in my heart of hearts that this is my chance to match him. We all know the result.”
Kher believes the guts to handle failure come from upbringing. His grandfather once told him a drenched man is not afraid of rain. Kher revisits his Shimla days where as an average student who was happy with 38 percent he learnt the vital lesson of life. In those days, students were allowed to sit in 11th standard before the results of high school were announced.
“It was a crucial period of two months. One day my father turned up in my class and requested my teacher to allow me to leave. He took me to the popular upmarket Alfa restaurant, where we used to go once in two months. As we had visited the place only a few days back, I thought he has got a promotion. But when he asked me what I would like to eat, I was shocked as we had a set menu: mutton samosa, pineapple pastry and espresso coffee. I asked him if had won a jackpot. He said don’t question, just order. I went by the set menu but at the end when he gave the waiter a tip of one rupee against the family norm of 50 paisa, I could not stop myself anymore. At last, he broke the news. Beta, he said, you have failed in high school examination and I have brought you here so that you don’t ever fear failure. Years later when I analysed, this episode surprised me even more because he was just a lower division clerk in the forest department. Such thought was not expected of him. He would be as happy if I ended up as a forest officer. It tells us of the stereotypes we unconsciously make about people around us.”
Pushkar Nath Kher passed away recently and his son observed his death by inviting a music band to play. “He lived a happy life and he wanted to go on a positive note. He would collect each and every clipping of mine and gave me a positive feedback from the time I performed in a play in Vth class to the last film of mine that he watched. When he first sat in an aeroplane, he excitedly told me, beta, there comes a time when the plane stops in the air!” The anecdotes could well take the form of his next book, which will be about what his father taught him. He has said there has been a part of his father in all the good fathers that he has played on screen. “Not just him all my uncles inspired me. In Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, the scene in which I exhort Shah Rukh Khan to bring Kajol home, the photo frames on the wall have photos of my real uncles.”
He has recently shot with Robert De Nero for David O Russell’s The Silver Linings Playbook, which also stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. “After working with Woody Allen, sharing screen space with De Nero was a dream come true. I play a psychoanalyst of Indian-origin. It is a proper role as the film is based on a book.” How did he face him? For this Kher has an analogy. “When I was cast to play Dr. Dang opposite Dilip Kumar, I was equally elated so much so that I could not act. I would keep watching what Dilip sahib was doing. After some time director Subhash Ghai came to me and said you are the main villain of the film. If you keep showing the aadar bhav (respect), my film will go for a toss. That was a learning experience. After that I keep respect off the sets.”
In Delhi to shoot for Neeraj Pandey’s Special Chhabbis, Kher feels these are exciting times for cinema. “I was the one of the rare actors who managed to break the typecasting.” Otherwise, he says, the industry was divided into two worlds. “I fitted in both. In those days you could see the villain from a distance. You can identify what a Dr. Dang would be up to from a kilometre. Interestingly, he was a terrorist. Do you know any terrorist, who wears his identity on his sleeve? Now we have a more realistic view of the world. Now I don’t have to suck a fly (referring to his character in Dil) to prove that I am playing a miser.” However, he insists, theatre has yet to see novelty in writing. “We haven’t seen a worthy playwright in the last 25 years. We are still doing the same old plays of Vijay Tendulkar, Girish Karnad and Mohan Rakesh,” says the NSD graduate.
Of late, he is being considered as rightist in his approach to political issues. “You mean close to BJP,” he cuts out the ambivalence. “See, I have no plans to join politics, at least for the next ten years. As for my stand, I think it has become difficult in our country to be a Hindu and a liberal at the same time. I speak for Kashmiri pundits because injustice has been done to them and the political discourse doesn’t give them enough importance. You can’t have one opinion in the drawing room and another on the street.” But when his wife (Kirron Kher) joined BJP, it created an impression. “She is a different individual and we should respect her choices,” he signs off.
