What an uncanny coincidence! Every time a new Aamir Khan film is on release, the limelight is on him for a story that’s completely unrelated to his profession.
Two years ago, Mangal Pandey was the big August release when Aamir Khan’s love child was unveiled by the baby’s unwed mother in London. Stardust timed its ‘scoop’ just when the powerful promos of Mangal Pandey were being telecast. The day the monthly hit the stands, tabloids and television channels grabbed the story and telecast the ‘breaking news’ ad nauseam. One is pretty certain that Aamir himself had no hand in timing the scandal precisely when his film was on release since he has an aversion for scurrilous personal stories.

In any case, a well-timed scoop does not necessarily translate into big box-office returns and that was amply proved when the love child headlines did better business than Mangal Pandey did.

His next big film, Rang De Basanti, rolled into the theatres around the time his second marriage (to Kiran Rao) was eating up newsprint and catching eyeballs on prime time television. Poor guy. He’d even left town and got married in a romantic hill station to keep the ceremony out of public glare. But there it is. A juicy story had to coincide with a fat new film release.

Aamir Khan’s next big controversy erupted just before Fanaa when the actor took his Rang De Basanti role from the celluloid into the real world and got involved with the Narmada Dam imbroglio. If Rang De… ended poorly with the hero (and his mates) paying with their lives for getting embroiled in a political mess, Narendra Modi’s government also made sure that the hero got ‘killed’ in Gujarat for his involvement with the Narmada issue. As we all know, to this day Fanaa (which was a success elsewhere) has not been released in Gujarat.

Today, when Aamir Khan has his first directorial venture, Taare Zameen Par on release, strangely, the focus is on his brother, Faisal Khan’s unfortunate mental condition. If one must get personal it would only be to say that time and again Aamir has proved to be the proverbial bada bhai to Faisal. Otherwise, he would not have agreed to co-star with him in miserable films like Mela. Unfortunately for Aamir, the focus right now is more on the intrigues in his family than on his first officially directed film. The affidavit he filed in court to take care of his brother has revealed all the lurid details of his dad, Tahir Husain’s dalliances as well as his fragile financial condition (Tahirbhai is practically insolvent and neck deep in debt). Just the kind of stuff Aamir would never have wanted to discuss in public. But the affidavit, reproduced faithfully in the papers, is there for the public to read and discuss when the actor, one is sure, would rather have everybody talk about Taare Zameen Par.

That Aamir is a control freak, professionally, is one thing (he did take over the directorial reins from close friend Amol Gupte when TZP didn’t shape out the way the actor wanted it to). But when it comes to Faisal, we are dealing with a mental ailment that needs brotherly supervision. One could ask just one question: what could Aamir’s motive possibly be for controlling Faisal’s life? After all, Aamir is the celebrity, the one who commands crores. So what could he gain by taking over Faisal’s life? He has far more to gain from Taare Zameen Par.
It would be appropriate at this juncture to talk about the cinema-literate Aamir Khan who is a first rate technician. He showed his flair for direction way back during Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke. That was the time Mahesh Bhatt had grabbed so many directorial assignments that he had ended up remote controlling his films. When Aamir saw Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke floundering with a director who was not giving the film the sincerity it deserved, he stepped in and practically sat in the director’s chair. From then on, Aamir has understood the medium better than any of his contemporaries as films like Ghulam (Vikram Bhatt’s best to date) and Lagaan (Ashutosh Gowariker’s finest so far) have proved.

Without the burden of a confused Ketan Mehta (who bungled Mangal Pandey), Aamir on his own will handle Taare Zameen Par with the sensitivity that the simple story of a father and his dyslexic son deserves.

This Friday will see the clash between Om Shanti Om and Saawariya. But don’t be surprised if the year ends with the spotlight on Aamir Khan and his Taare Zameen Par.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of Movie Mag International