The veteran actor reflects on why you are your best asset, his father, and the title for his next book. Veteran Bollywood actor, Anupam Kher, who most recently was seen gracing the Hollywood screen in a supporting role with Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro in Silver Linings Playbook, confesses to having been an accidental writer.
For someone who never scored past 38 in percentile during school, writing was a far-fetched art, more so in English, a language he didn’t speak until he arrived in Bombay with Bollywood dreams gleaming fervently in his ambitious eyes.
‘The Best Thing About You is YOU,’ is his maiden attempt at writing, inspired by the solo one-act play, ‘Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai’ (Anything is Possible),’ which was based heavily on the beaten phase of his personal life—sloppy business deals, unfortunate mishaps, and the falsetto of glamor that drowned him deep into the dark abyss of bankruptcy.
As we walk along the corridor of the hotel lobby and onto the sunny afternoon café by the pier, he opens up with an easy casual-ness, “I wanted to be this tycoon and business magnate in the entertainment business and had no idea of finances. At the same time I had lost a lot of things and suffered facial paralysis.”
The soliloquy became an instant hit with public sensibilities and suddenly he found himself a much sought-after motivation speaker invited to universities like IIT, Cambridge, Kellogg School of Management and Maryland.
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As we look outside the window, there is an ease in the air. Perhaps, it’s the effect of the sea. “It (Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai) touched a lot of people’s hearts,” he continues, “because even though I was performing my life, everyone could identify themselves in it. The play was about hopes, aspirations, failures, dreams, the impact of various things and basically the capability of laughing at life. See, the world tries to frighten you with your shortcomings, but if you speak about it to the world then what do they frighten you with?”
Very soon, he attracted the attention of Hay House publishers who approached Kher to write a book on personal motivation. The proposal gave inspiration for an idea that resulted in “The best Thing About You is YOU.”
“I said, ‘Are you crazy? I’ve never written a book.’ They said, ‘just write whatever comes in your mind.’ So for a year and a half, at airport lounges and in planes, I would write whatever came into my mind. That’s how the book came about, and I think they put it together very well. My publishers have done a great job and they just informed me that they’ve done 11 editions in 12 months. So here I am.”
During the process of writing the book, he lost his father --Pushkar Nath, a clerk in the forest department. An ordinary man. “But an extraordinary person,” he corrects me, secretly hearing my thoughts.
He pulls out his phone. “This is my father.” He points to the screensaver—there’s a picture of a glowing, fair-skinned man with a receded grey hairline and sympathetic eyes. “He was a beautiful looking man,” I say. “He is,” he corrects me, again.
Kher goes on to speak about their relationship in a manner that tells his continued love and affection for his departed father. “He wasn’t a so-called “worldly-wise” father. He never gave me advice. Never. But he became my best friend. To many he came across a foolish man because nothing in life bothered him. He took the fear of failure from me.”
An important childhood story that has affected and remained with him is recalled. “It was 3.30 p.m. and my father picked me early from school and took me to a restaurant called Alpha. It was very upper-end and our family would go there once in 6 months, which used to be a big outing for us. Our menu used to be fixed: Mutton samosa, espresso and pineapple pastry.”
He is smiling, deep in remembrance as he continues, “We had gone there just two months ago and I thought it was not possible we were going there so soon. I was thinking that either he got a promotion or won some lottery. We ordered our fixed menu. He was normal, and asked me about regular things. He would normally leave 50 pence as tips, but left a rupee. I said, ‘what’s the matter, why are you treating me?’ He said, ‘you’ve failed your 10th standard exams. I found out from my friend in the education board.’ I was confused. But he said, ‘I’m celebrating your failure. So if ever in your life you fail, you don’t have to worry about it.’ What can be a bigger education than that at 15 years of age?”
I recognized he was in a space which was almost too sacred to be encroached in a manner unbecoming. Kher was reliving his father’s memory. I enquire gently, almost cautiously, if his father was aware of the book he was writing.
“He was thrilled about the book, although he said something very interesting: ‘If God is merciful, then even an idiot can gain happiness.’ For months before his death, he stopped eating and drinking. He got paranoid about that. It was because of the antibiotics. He almost sort of fasted to death. But in those four months, I spent a lot of time with him. We don’t do that as children. We don’t spend time with our parents. One day they go away and we mourn.”
He goes on to reveal that the months spent closely with his ailing father have helped sow the seeds for his next book. “I have put down my thoughts about it, but someone needs to be after my life to get me to complete it. But I’ve got the title of the book—‘Lessons my father taught me unknowingly…’”
I ask if it’s a rather long title for a book, but he disagrees. “I don’t know what I will write but I just want to talk about how he treated life. His last words were “live life.” We give too much importance to ourselves. We’re always unhappy with ourselves and want to be somebody else. He liberated me from my pretentious possibilities. I am myself now. I don’t have the burden of being somebody. I don’t even have the burden of being Anupam Kher.”
“You once said in an interview, ‘If you are living hand to mouth then the only thing you can have is happiness.’ I think it’s just a way of pitiful consolation.”
A waitress finally approaches us. It’s strange how we were left unattended throughout the length of our large conversation. Perhaps, she also felt the static hanging thick in the air. Of memories. They’re like that.
“Do you have ginger tea, with honey on the side?” he asks her. She nods enthusiastically. ‘What would you have?’
I had had enough caffeine to last me the next couple of hours. I plainly refuse.
“See when you’re living hand to mouth,” he remembers to answer me, “you don’t have the luxury of saying, ‘I’m sad today’. You don’t have the time to even notice sadness. My parents…even though we were not well to do, we were happy.”
We move to the subject of his book. “Who do you think is the ideal reader of “The best Thing About You is YOU?”
“Anybody. If you feel angry, you should read the book, if you feel depressed you should read the book, if you feel happy you should read the book. The success of the book is in that you can identify with it immediately. I have written things that the reader already knows.”
In a moment of sheer randomness, I ask if he is a much happier man today.
“I am,” he says. “Happiness is a state you have to decide to be in, and then you have to practice it. And then, it becomes a habit. To me, the only way to live is to live happily. It doesn’t mean that I don’t get angry or get depressed. I don’t take myself too seriously. It’s nice to be introduced as the best selling author, it gives me a sense of self-importance, but then again I’ll have to look very intelligent right?”
He coughs. I look at him warily. “But we largely want to accomplish things to feed our egos no matter how much we deny it,” I opine rather boldly.
“Look, I turned 58 yesterday. I am very ambitious even now. Yes, ofcourse, I want to be the best. I was 28 when I played a 65 year-old man. All this stems out of wanting to make a difference in your own life. We all do things for ourselves. And only when I’m kind to myself can I be kind to you. When you’re wanting to impress, you’re not being yourself, and when you’re not being yourself, you’re comical. Why do you like certain people? It’s because they are themselves. They are attractive and they don’t have to look a certain way. In fact people who are good looking, it’s a curse.”
The waitress finally arrives with the tea. We both enquire and stress over a strange looking condiment on the side.
“She said this is honey, right?”
“Yes, that’s what I heard…but it doesn’t look like it,” I say.
“It looks like an alien.”
“I think it’s a cake,” I laugh at the silliness of it.
“Oh yes, it is,” he coughs again.
I discreetly push my copy of his book for an author’s sign. As he begins to scrawl across the page, I find it strange that he’s the first person who’s got my name right. But I don’t say.
“Your chat with me is an inspiration. Your questions are inspiring me, because you somewhere are looking for your answers, and the conversation you’re trying to have with me is giving you clarity in your thought process, because you are on a path and you’re confused whether the path is right or wrong. Today is your day of clarity.”
Here’s to The Best Thing About You is YOU.
