Aamir Khan At 60

Aamir Khan rang in his 60^th birthday on March 14 with trademark candidness, revealing to media during an event that he was in a relationship for a year, that they now felt committed and so were secure enough to make it public. This is not how superstars usually operate in Bollywood but Khan has never quite fit the mould. Not because he doesn’t have the success to show for it. Except for a recent blip, his movies have done phenomenally well by any measure. He differs in the public persona or temperament associated with a superstar. There is, for instance, nothing understated about the other two Khans, Salman and Shahrukh. They are not just comfortable but relish their aura.  Aamir seems near reluctant to own it in everything except his work.

Rewind back to his career. He became a star with his first movie, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, in 1988. In the 1990s, film stars used to take on an astonishing number of movies, sometimes 30 or 40 simultaneously. Aamir, after a few years, decided he would do just one movie at a time. The move was unprecedented. He was not just going to earn less but also not have the hedge that comes with numbers, the calculation that if you are doing 30 movies together at least a few will become hits. It only seems like a right course of action in retrospect. Stardom is shaky and a few successive flops would have meant  permanent career damage. He was the first big star to give primacy to job satisfaction then. Another characteristic distinguishing him as a superstar is straightforwardness in public interactions. It will be hard to find a single interview of him that turns combative or where he comes across as angry or slighted by a question, or is talking down to someone  

Then there is the obsessiveness with work and the toll it takes, some of which can  be gleaned from when he used to maintain a blog many years back. And he had a social conscience,  reflected in the television show Satyamev Jayate, at a time when others were doing reality television and quizzes. It has been some time since the Hindi movie audience saw Aamir return to the screen. One wonders whether at the age of 60, he is again trying to discover himself, and if that is so, hopefully he finds it soon. 

Aamir KhanactorBollywoodcinemaSatyamev Jayate