Aamir Khan, an actor par excellence, needs no fresh introduction as far as his repertoire is concerned. He is not known as a perfection personified persona just for nothing. That apart, over the years, he has maintained his own charm and got himself engulfed in a mysterious aura of his own. After all, in all his released films so far he has indeed maintained his box office score card with ‘3 Idiots’ and with the release of ‘PK’ he had his peculiar brand of audiences and his loving fans literally eating out of his hands. So much so that audience & fans are already waiting with batted breath for Aamir’s next movie in line namely ‘Dangal’. Besides he makes a rare public appearance, especially in an award ceremony or a filmy function. And one of those rare exceptional occasion was when he graced the inaugural function of FICCI Frames 2015 in Hotel Renaisance, Powai where he shared the dais in a single frame with Kamal Hassan, another stalwart of the Indian Cinema. Present herewith is the 1st person account of Aamir Khan’s dripping pearls of wisdom which reflected the varied issues that he is concerned with.

First & foremost coming down heavily on the Central Board of Film Certification, which recently stroked controversy by banning some objectionable words, Aamir Khan averred, “I am against banning any kind of material in media or films. I am totally against banning any kind of material. When the Information & Broadcasting Minister spoke to us, he also clarified that actually the ministry has no such list of cuss words. It’s a certification board and not the censor board. It was nice to hear that. Besides there were reports that the recently appointed Central Board Film Certification chairman namely Mr. Pahlaj Nihalani had revived a 2003 order to ban a list of 28 objectionable or cuss words, including Bombay in any movies or documentaries. But following a public outcry, Mr. Nihalani, has however, withdrawn the said list. That’s so nice of Mr. Nihalani. I would also like to state that even if people don’t like a certain content, banning a film cannot be justified, I am referring to the 2013 Kamal Haasan movie, ‘Vishwaroopam’ that had created quite a controversy leading to a ban. I am really, really feeling ashamed that at that time I was lost in my work but as an industry that was the time we had to come together. I apologize to Kamal Hassan publicly that I wasn’t there at that time. I feel bad that we weren’t there with you. Banning a film is not right. Once the film has received the certification, it is the responsibility of the state to make sure that people can watch the film without any fear. I would also like to stress that liking or disliking a film is one’s own prerogative, but stopping somebody from releasing a film is not right, specially after it has been through certification. Even otherwise movie bans are done by taking the law into your own hands, but I think this is really sad & unfortunate.”

As regards the outstanding Box Office collections (Read ‘PK) unlike most of his peers who are driven by the box-office collections, Aamir Khan averred, “Numbers hardly matter to me and it is not a criterion to select a movie based on its potential commercial success.

As I am not someone who talks about my numbers. That is the last thing on my mind when I am selecting a film. The day I start selecting a film on the possible commercial success that will be the end of my creativity. I feel that commercial interest stifles the creative growth.”

And as a parting shot Aamir Khan added just a few nuggets about his forthcoming movie namely ‘Dangal’, “I think rhat it is too early to speak about my forthcoming film ‘Dangal’. But I will just give you a brief insight. ‘Dagal’ will narrate the saga of a middle aged albeit an over weight wrestler. As everyone knows that I just love to experiment with my varied roles I have done so with the enactment of my role in ‘Dangal’ too. First of all I have put on a lot of weight as you can see, I weigh almost 90 kg and I won’t say that the rest you can see on the celluloid silver screen. There is still time for that suffice it to say that I will make more revelation about ‘Dangal’ at the right time and at some other point of time & place.”