Anupam Kher always wanted to carve a niche for himself on his signature merit and break away from the moulds of the film and entertainment industry stereotypes. And he did it with élan.

Staging his play Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai in Kolkata recently, the actor slipped into different roles, holding sway with his charismatic presence. “Life is a quirky ballgame. It’s loaded with surprises and unpredictability. Yahan kuch bhi ho sakta hai (Anything can happen here),” declares the critically acclaimed actor. Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai, which revolves around Kher’s own life story, was staged at the Vodafone Kolkata theatrefestival at the G.D. Birla Sabhaghar. “There were writers to script the play under discussion. While Ashok Patolesaab had written the first draft, eminent stage-screen director Feroz Abbas Khan further gave it life with a proper shape and lent it a perfect finishing touch,” says Kher.
“An autobiography is always very difficult to stage, since it involves 100 per cent honesty towards your own self and the rest of the world. There has to be some fairness and integrity attached to the play which deals with a plethora of candid human emotions. Only the live-audience reaction, an unseen bonding and a close connect with their presence from a near distance, keep you going all the way. It eggs you on to tell and reveal more. Whether it is about tumbling the skeletons out of your cupboard or relishing your good old fond memories or to bury the hatchet of some past brawl to kiss and make up gracefully or else to basking in the glory of a sweet-scented feat, life takes away some and returns back with more instalments of interest, without your realisation even,” says the 55-year-old actor.
While narrating one’s own life to the audience, one can’t cook up stories and be fake about it, feels the actor. “My life is an everyman’s tale wherein other people can find glimpses of their lives too. The story navigates hopes, fears, joys, charms, miseries, failures, frustrations and so on. You cannot beat around the bush or conceal anything from the viewers with whom you are interacting on a public platform. The journey of my life has been portrayed with absolute clarity, transparency and untampered truthfulness. It’s been presented on the platter with no strings attached or hidden facts,” says the actor-producer-director. Kher says cinema is a director’s medium and theatre is an actor’s. “The director can take close-ups in films through his camera. However on stage, you can’t apply this technical jugglery. The dynamics of the medium automatically changes to a certain degree. But having said that, I must confirm that human emotions at the end of the day are similar in all given creative spheres,” he says. Come January 29 and Mr and Mrs Kher (Kirron) will take the stage alongwith Rakesh Bedi in the theatrical venture called Mera Woh Matlab Nahin Tha. The couple ties up ages after spelling their magical chemistry in director Feroz Abbas Khan’s play Saalgirah. The piece will be showcased soon. It is written by Bedi himself.
As a student of acting in his drama school, Kher used to gorge on a slew of great achievers’ biographies. “While reading the books, the first half mostly digging into failures, struggles, learning phase, would always inspire me to an infinity than the second half that only ladled out the sugary-savoury fruits of success. If talking of my personal setbacks can motivate others in turn, then nothing can be more satisfying than that. It does make you feel a hell of a lot stronger,” says the actor. Dubbing himself a people-oriented person, Kher says: “Theatre gives me an opportunity to strike a chord with common people, meet different individuals and shake hands with them after a performance ends which is not possible when a movie show culminates at a cinema hall. Being alone in the opposite end to a live audience and under a spotlight can lend you that defining moment of your life.” Life has given Kher a voice and film has given him a face. “It’s a lovely combo,” he says. “I have a moon face and people attentively listen to me while I speak. Theatre provides that synergy of communication therapy between me and the audience. In India, people talk and lend a patient hearing too. We care for our neighbours and share our thoughts plus viewpoints with one another,” he adds.
Ask him to sum up his life and the actor of all seasons says: “One-third consists of my reel-life and the remaining two-third unfolds my real life. It’s been the most liberating experience for me to scoop out and relive those unheard and unnoticed slides of my life. I have enjoyed every bit of it. There have been sufficient highs and lows cramming my life and to pinpoint a few of them was a cumbersome task,” he says. Ask him to pick up his favourite role and he says: “Ask this after 40 years. As of now, the best is yet to come.”