Piyush Roy
Aamir Khan turned 50 this March. In Bollywood’s ‘Khan Triumvirate’, he thus is a few months elder to Shah Rukh and Salman Khan, who too will turn 50 by the end of 2015. Today, he is generally acknowledged as – ‘the most daring actor’ – among the trio!Choosy and hard to please, may be his reputation in terms of his choice of films, but once convinced, he literally lives, breathes and participates in his every film’s making, often giving his 100 per cent to every major filmmaking discipline beyond his own acting brief. Making a habit of pushing his limits, even in his most forgettable films has deservedly earned Aamir Khan the industry nickname of the ‘perfectionist.’
Commemorative lists have been shared and celebrated to mark Aamir’s 50th birthday. If Dil, Raja Hindustani, Fanaa, Ghajini, Dhoom 3 and PKare must haves in every listing of his career’s biggest blockbusters, no list of his most memorable parts is complete without Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, Rangeela, Dil Chahta Hai, Lagaanand Rang De Basanti. Between them, the above titles also make up for any listing of the ‘Best 10 Films of Aamir’. Hence today, I will rather talk about five of his most underrated,and some even ‘forgotten’ acts, that may not have become commercial successes or ‘top of the recall’roles, but they remain important milestones in Aamir Khan’s personal growth as an actor…
Raakh (1989)
This dark, gritty urban revenge saga by Aditya Bhattacharya (son of director Basu Bhattacharya) evocatively captures the moral churn in the life of a rich, sensitive boy who is consumed by the fire of his own revenge against the rapists of his elderly lady friend. Unable to prevent her outrage he teams up with an alcoholic inspector on a personal mission to settle score with the offenders to dispense justice outside the law. Sharing screen space with the talented Pankaj Kapur and Supriya Pathak, Aamir’s rude overturning of his popular chocolate boy image immediately after Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988) didn’t go well with the audience. A flop at the time of its release, Raakh remains one of Aamir’s least viewed acts in spite of getting him a special jury award at India’s National Film Awards.
Akele Hum Akele Tum (1995)
Rohit Kumar (Aamir Khan) is an aspirant playback singer while Kiran (Manisha Koirala) is a classical singer-in-training. They meet, relate to each other’s aspirations and fall in love. However post marriage; Kiran’s ambitions take a back seat as she feels suppressed by her household responsibilities burdened by the responsibilities of looking after an unplanned child. Time fails to abate Kiran’s frustrations until she decides to leave Rohit and start afresh. Now-a-loner, Rohit is forced to look after his son and mend his crumbling career alone. But just when he’s carved a workable world of his own with his son, Kiran a huge film star comes calling for her kid’s custody on the promise of her financial ability to give him a better life. Irrespective of powerhouse performances by Aamir and Manisha, Mansoor Khan’s third directorial outing, in spite of being a heartwarming dramatic tearjerker failed at the box-office.
1947-Earth (1998)
The movie opens in pre-independence Lahore of 1947 depicting the camaraderie between working class friends from different religions. The drama picks up when it starts chronicling the changing equations within this group amidst the maddening religious clashes that sweep the city post the Indian subcontinent’s partition. Aamir in an author backed role, in his first villainous character on-screen, smolders as a man scorned in love, who uses the collapsing social order to wreak havoc in the lives of his object of interest, a Hindu maid, played by Nandita Das. Directed by the internationally acclaimed Deepa Mehta, Earth was the first Aamir Khan starrer to be India’s official entry for the Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Film category, before Lagaan (2001).
Dhobi Ghat (2011)
The lives of four different people in the city of Mumbai – an investment banker with a penchant for photography, a lonesome painter, a dhobi who aspires to become an actor and an outsider who cans her Mumbai experiences in her camcorder for her brother – get entwined by fate and luck. The film follows how their lives are changed by the presence of one another. Kiran Rao’s researched, yet sensitive; confident, yet searching debut film gives producer-actor and husband, Aamir (who plays the painter), a challengingly evasive part that shares a unique relationship with the film’s fifth and most influential character, the city of Mumbai. Needless to add, Aamir does it well and how… right from the moment his beautifully brooding gloomy artist strikes a conversation with his viewers calling Mumbai, “My muse, my whore, my beloved…”
Thanda Matlab Coca Cola (2002)
This isn’t a feature film, but one could view it as a series of shorts. Coming close on the heels of the super success of Lagaan, and made by its director Ashutosh Gowariker, these ‘cheeky and fun’ advertisements had Aamir play a gamut of ‘aam-aadmis’ from different parts of India. Gowariker in an interview to me had shared, “I knew of Aamir’s zest, interest, joy and talent to attempt different characters. He can go to any extent to achieve what is required of a character. So right after Lagaan, when I got to make few commercials for Coca Cola in the ‘Thanda Matlab…’ series, I cast him in each as different characters – a Mumbai Tapori, an Irani restaurant-wala, a Punjabi farmer, a sarkari official from UP, and a Nepali guide – and he played each one of them with super finesse. It won’t be long when going by his experiments, Aamir will be known as ‘the man with a thousand faces’.”
