Aamir Khan The Child Specialist

Ali Peter John

His uncle, Nasir Hussain was shooting for the multi-starrer, “Yaadon Ki Baaraat" with the younger parts of the three brothers who were to grow up as Dharmendra, Vijay Arora and Tariq Khan. He was shooting the title song and needed a child artist to play the little Tariq Khan and when the little Aamir, the son of Nasir's brother, Tahir Hussain came to know of the role, he pestered his uncle film till he got the role. That was however not the end of the story. The little Aamir had to play a toy guitar and worried his uncle and the entire unit till he got his finger movements on the the strings of the toy guitar matching with the music of R.D Burman playing the background. Little did anyone know that this Aamir was going to grow up as an actor and a defacto director, especially when it would come to handling child actors in the films he worked in.

In the early eighties, he was the hero of a film called “Hum Hai Rahi Pyar Ke" which was to be directed by Mahesh Bhatt for his father Tahir Hussain. It was a fun film with Juhi Chawla and a number of children in key roles, with Kunal Khemu playing one of the leading child characters. I used to visit the sets of the film quite often and whenever there were major scenes with the lead pair and the children, I could see Aamir taking charge of the situation and literally directing the scenes. On one occasion, he even asked Mahesh Bhatt to go home and picturised the song on him, Juhi and the children himself. If you happen to see the film, look at the scenes where the children are involved and you must know that there is the hand of Aamir behind all their natural performances. It is not for nothing that Kunal Khemu ended up being a strong leading man in films like  “Traffic Signal" and “Kalyug" among others and even ended up marrying Soha Ali Khan.

It is true that Aamir and Manisha Koirala were the main characters in Mansoor Khan's “Akele Hum Akele Tum", but the film which was one more version of the cult film,“Man Woman and Child" would not have been what it was if Aamir had not handled child and the scenes with him.

But, if there is one film which will always be considered a cult film,it is “Taare Zameen Par". The film was about the sensitive relationship between Aamir and an autistic child played by Darshan Safary. It was based on a subject by Amol Gupte who was also to direct the film for Aamir. All was well till Aamir, the child specialist felt that the things were not going right and after a frank and friendly discussion with Amol, Aamir took over the direction and made “Taare Zameen Par" what it will always be remembered as.

To think of it, the powerful and sensitive hand and mind of Aamir can also be seen in the performances of the younger actors in “Dangal" and “Secret Superstar", which are films, I think films totally inspired by Aamir.

And I will not be surprised if there are some child actors in Aamir's next film, “Lal Singh Chaddha" which is inspired by or an adaptation of Tom Hank's “Forrest Gump" and is planned as a Christmas release, which is all the more reasons to hope that it will have a child or two playing key roles.

Piece has been triggered off after watching Aamir interacting with a group of boys and girls, all under ten and talking to them on his very popular and powerful reality show, “Satyamev Jayate", where he talks to them about sexual problems faced by them at their age.

And the way this child specialist has been dealing the children in films, I think he would make one of the best chairpersons of the almost dead, dying or soon to be defunct Children Film Society where grandfathers and grandmothers take decision for children who they say are the future of this country.

For more Bollywood updates, follow Bollyy!

Tags: Bollywood, Bollywood News, Bollywood Updates, Television, Telly News, Aamir Khan, Bollywood