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http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=67808

Aamir Khan, Actor

‘(After Gujarat) I think I grew as a human being, as I grew from
being a child to an adult’

Padma Bhushan awardee Aamir Khan is recognised for his sensitive and intelligent performances. Lagaan (2001) consolidated his reputation, a film he produced and starred in, which was nominated for the Oscar. Khan is an actor with a conscience, touring Pakistan to raise money for Imran Khan’s cancer hospital and raising his voice against the Gujarat riots. He tells Shekhar Gupta, Editor-In-Chief of The Indian Express in NDTV24 X 7’s Walk The Talk that he identifies most with characters who are not afraid to fight againt unjust regimes

Aamir, talking about your life, one thing about you is your elusive nature. You don’t party, we don’t know who your friends are, you don’t land up at most film events except the few you choose. Now we see you coming out a little bit, signing this document on Narendra Modi and things like that. What events deserve Aamir Khan? How do you decide what deserves Aamir Khan?

You are making me out to be some complex person. I’m sure I’m as complex as the next person. Well, public events, I’m careful about going to because I feel that I want to go places that I enjoy going to and I feel comfortable going to. There are places where I specifically don’t want to go to because I am trying to make a point, things I don’t want to support, people perhaps I don’t want to support. So there are places I don’t go to for particular reasons.

What is this new thing about Narendra Modi? I was reading some piece that during the Bombay riots you called Prahlad Kakkar and the two of you went out to rescue your driver from the slums. Has Gujarat sort of strengthened that?

I think I grew as a human being, as I grew from being a child to an adult. I realised that there is a lot of poison that can be spread in peoples’ minds. For example, what happened in Gujarat is really appalling. According to me, somebody like Modi is there, I mean there were Indians killed over there, innocent Indians killed over there. It is completely irrelevant whether they were Hindus or Muslims or Christians or Parsis or Sikhs. They were Indians being killed by a leader who was supposedly a leader, and he is responsible. He and his party, he and his people are responsible for the killings and trauma of thousands of Indians. And, in my opinion the person and the people who do this, indulge in this kind of things, are most unpatriotic. It’s a completely anti-Indian thing that has been done.

Because they damage the idea of India.

They damage the idea of humanity first of all. They damage the idea of a good healthy society and nothing has been done about it or very little has been done about it. Certainly, there are people who are raising their voices and it is good to see that. But I have complete faith.

In the system.

Not in the system, in the people of India. And I feel that at the end of the day, the people of India are people with a lot of warmth and they eventually do come through. They might get misguided for some time.

I am sure you saying this will get them inspired and that will make a difference.

I don’t know, but I hope so.

Do we expect that one of your future films will be more contemporary, dealing with some of these problems?

In one way or the other, a number of my films are dealing with similar problems. Sarfarosh... I don’t know whether you saw that. It dealt with this issue. You know nowadays, you have this thing, the US rejecting the visa for Mr Modi and that has become a thing of national honour now. I don’t see it that way.

For me it is not that. I have own views with the US and I have a lot of problems with George Bush. They are not few in number. But I have a problem with our reaction.

Our reaction is over the top.

First of all, we should say here, we didn’t penalise a person who’s been killing innocent people. Somebody else is raising a voice. That voice may be America, it may be, I don’t care who it is. We should have taken cognisance of this much earlier and since we haven’t, let’s take cognisance of this now.