Saturday, August 27, 2005 at 8:30am, 20:00hrs & 22:30hrs

Sunday, August 28, 2005 at 16:00hrs and 20:30hrs (Replay)

This weekend on TALK ASIA, Satinder Bindra goes one-on-one with Aamir Khan; one of the most high profile actors in Hindi cinema.

Khan rose to international prominence with the historical crossover film, “Lagaan”. Now he’s set to make waves with his latest movie, The Rising, a historical piece set at a time when the East India Company shaped events on the continent. The actor believes his latest work is more than just a historical narrative, but a movie about the East India Company still has relevance today.

“I found that today that is exactly what America is doing when it enters places like Afghanistan or Iraq. So the concept of a superpower deciding that it wants to move into someplace, rule it, keep peace-keeping forces supposedly in place, [is] exactly what the East India Company did. So I found that it is a really contemporary topic and the film really discusses the concept of freedom and the right of every man to hold his head as high as the next person. So, it’s a film about the concept of freedom. It happens to be set in 1857 in India, but it applies across the world and it’s applicable to anyone or any person at any place,” Khan said.

But no part of Khan’s life has escaped scrutiny; the break up of his marriage has made entertainment news headlines, a fact that has made his life difficult, but not unbearable. “I feel that the press has a job to do. They are supposed to be giving news to people, as far as celebrities are concerned, their personal lives make news. People want to know what is happening, and I would expect the press to report that,” he said.

Khan also shares how his life might have taken a different turn if he had pursued his teenage interest. “I used to play competitive tennis on an amateur level of course; well actually it could probably be called professional because we used to get paid…. At that time I used to fleetingly think of or dream of reaching Wimbledon one day… At that time I guess my parents who got a little worried about, I used to play about three to four hours of tennis a day and they wanted me to concentrate on studies, on my school, and on my education. So, one fine day they said enough of tennis, what are you going to make of your life,” he said.

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Raman Swain
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