AAALL IS WELL. A
personality we thought was impossible to see in person made his maiden visit to
our country. This is not the first time an international actor has visited our
beautiful land. However, there is something different this time. He came not
with the brand of an actor on holiday but as UNICEF South Asia’s goodwill
Ambassador.
While he came with a cause,
countless Bhutanese fans eagerly waited for an opportunity to meet him. For an
actor rarely making his appearance in the public, expecting his presence among
us at large seemed a vague possibility.
As
you may call it a luck, Aamir was scheduled for an hour long conversation with young
people belonging to various youth group at the Department of Youth and Sports
(DYS) which happened to be his first session in the country and because the
setting was cozy, it added to our (fan) advantage to see him up-close. I had
never seen a crowd in Bhutan before as such. For me to be able to picturesque
in writing, I had only seen such in Korean dramas where fans go crazy,
literally.
I can't really put in
writing the atmosphere in the hall when Aamir entered except that we were told
to maintain silence but the crowd roared. After few protocols, he started the
session and the entire hour consisted of Q&A. No, the topic did not range to child stunting
and the importance of breast feeding as I had expected. It was rather our
chance to know him personally. It was nice.
It began with a question from
a girl in the audience on the emergence of Bollywood in terms of portraying
women where he talked about his latest film Dangal. The film he said is based on true
story about a man who remains unsuccessful in his dream to win gold in
wrestling. Hoping to achieve it through his son, he ends up bearing four
daughters and it is then he starts training his girls for his dream.
I have always thought
there's got to be one thing among many aspects in a film that he looks into
before committing to it. Aamir also touched on this while he encouraged us to
do things we love and said chances are we will be good at it as in Success ke peeche mat bhago. Kabil bano
kabil. Kambyabi sali jhak maar ke peeche ayegi. He shared with the crowed that
he never does a film in the hope for it to be a blockbuster. Instead he said he
should be able to connect to the character he is to play. He should feel him.
When a teacher touched on
education talking about whether we were doing enough with textbooks limited
teaching and learning relating to Taare
Zameen Par, Aamir said living in the digital
age, answer to every question is just a click away. He said as a child he was
never interested in studies and he completed only plus 12. It was only after he
dropped that he was interested to learn and so he read, on many subjects. While
he talked on it, he said it in manner where I felt I was watching a LIVE scene
from Taree Zamin Par as he said we all have different learning abilities
and those who are faster should not force those who aren't to catch their speed.
Did you know he was a state champion in tennis as a young boy? With this Aamir also talked about his mother from whom he learned empathy. He shared incidences where he would come home winning matches and his mother would bring him tea and talk to him and ask about his game. His response would mostly be positive but his mother would worry about the little boy (his opponent) someone she would not even know the name. Aamir tells us it was such a thing for his mother to be able to feel for another unknown person and how this trait is important as a human being.
There were many other discussions being done touching on his life and more to his films which the crowd thoroughly enjoyed. There were more to be asked but the hour flew by in no time and came to an end. While everyone wanted to take a picture with him, he suggested he would make rounds in the crowd and do it. He requested the crowd to cooperate or else his men in black would take him away. He randomly joined the groups and took pictures until all were included. Before leaving, he told us that this was the first successful group pictures ever taken with countless others being an epic fail wherever he suggested the idea.
