NOT AN ACTOR ON HOLIDAY

 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.