Aamir Bashir is coming off a superb performance in Disney+Hotstar's School of Lies as an abused and abusive teacher in a fictional boarding school set in Panchgani but he hasn't chosen anything new in the past six months. Not for lack of offers. Since his role in Inside Edge on Prime Video, he has been much in demand as the "new daddy in town", but of late, the only parts he is getting are those of a "good Muslim" among a sea of "bad Muslims" in films based on revisionist history. And on principle, now that he sees the impact of a certain kind of cinema on society, he refuses to do such roles. "Being manipulated and used even as a small pawn is not a good feeling," he says. Bashir, a Srinagar-born, St Stephen's educated actor, has also been waiting patiently for his much-awarded film, The Winter Within, in Kashmiri and Urdu, to be released theatrically or on streaming. It won the KB New Currents Audience Award at the Busan International Film Festival, 2022, and the audience award at the Festival of 3 Continents at Nantes, France, 2022, and tells the story of a couple torn apart by the conflict in Kashmir. This is Bashir's second film as a director after the National Award-winning Harud in 2010. Bashir's career as an actor got a boost with OTT, with character actors like him getting an opportunity to showcase their talent. But over the years, they've had to be wary of typecasting. Says Bashir: "After Armaan (2003), everyone wanted to cast me as a doctor. After A Wednesday (2008), I got offers to be a police officer. It just goes on." Coming up for him is a change of pace. He plays a father in Karan Johar's Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani, and praises the director for his "emotional intelligence". "To see him in tears behind the monitor after a scene you've done is an experience. He is almost childlike," he says. For Bashir, this is poetic justice. He was kept waiting for a US visa when he was cast as Shah Rukh Khan's brother in My Name is Khan (2010) and lost the role to Jimmy Shergill. The character of Samuel Singh in School of Lies was unexpected in its complexity and tackled the idea of masculinity formed by bullying and ragging in an all-boys school. Says Bashir: "When we were children, we were just left in a dark hole, especially those who suffered learning difficulties, instead of being protected and nurtured. It's an important story for parents who live in denial."

Aamir Bashir

No Stereotypes Please

The Eternal Autumn of Hope and Waiting