The affable Aamir Khan was in one of his candid confession moods. Accompanied by wife Kiran Rao, Khan was attending the live-telecast international premiere screening of the ‘Lagaan-centric’ docu-feature ‘Chale Chalo’ hosted by Zee TV backed Channel '& Pictures'. Es the docu-movie (directed by Satyajit Bhatkal) unfolded on screen at the Yashraj Studios, Aamir recalled a series of startling nostalgic anecdotes during the location shoot of the Ashutosh Gowariker-directed period (Oscar nominated) landmark movie.
‘Lagaan’ ( 2001) was Aamir's first encounter with Kiran Rao, then an assistant director, in the crew of ‘Lagaan’. “When I needed a chunky, metallic pair of ear-rings for my rustic ‘Bhuvan’ character, I had liked what Kiran had worn and borrowed them from her to use it in the movie,” smiled Aamir impishly. Wasn’t it unfair that the media hype declared ‘Chale Chalo’ as Aamir’s “first unreleased movie” when actually it was released in a few theatres many years ago? Clarifies Aamir, “That’s true, it was released, but hardly anyone has watched it. Somehow, Indians generally hate watching documentaries. Out here, we needed to build up this curiosity-teaser hype to get the home-viewers to not only watch our docu-feature ‘Chale Chalo’ which has a gripping story in itself, but also have hi-tech collective ‘live’ telly interactions with me. It’s a major step towards cinema-consciousness.
For that matter, as a cinema-buff, I would be very keen to watch ‘the making of ‘Mughal-e-Aazam’ which took over ten years to make, in the absence of hi-tech communications,” insists Aamir, who has been shooting for his next movie with an intriguing title 'PK' directed by Raju Hirani (of ‘3 Idiots’ and ‘Munnabhai’ fame).
Being a perfectionist, Aamir is known to have backed out from some movies (like 'Darr’) which later emerged as superhits. “Even though such movies may have turned out to be a huge success, I don’t regret not doing any films offered to me.”