Anupam Kher had a proud moment recently as he won the Best Supporting Actor award at UK Asian Film Festival for his Indo-Canadian film Calorie. For the actor, the victory is a bit personal. The film depicts how a family got affected by the Kanishka Air Tragedy– Air India Flight 182 on the route of Montreal-London-Delhi, known as the Kanishka, was destroyed mid-air by a bomb on June 23, 1985. It exploded over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people on board, including 268 Canadian citizens and 24 Indian nationals. “The story was very personal for our director Eisha Marjara as her mother was on the flight. I had to go beyond the acting skills and craft and feel the emotions for the film,” he shares.
But Anupam Kher is happy with the recognition the role got him. “Achhe roles ko karne ke liye aur zyada mehnat karni padti hai, and when you have done so much work, there is a possibility that you may become competent. I feel competence is the biggest enemy of brilliance. So, I treat every film as my first. In the last decade or so, I have shifted gears to break the monotony. I choose work where I get to dig my teeth a little deeper,” he says.
Even after over four decades in the industry, winning an award still gives Kher butterflies, especially when it’s for India on an international platform. “It may sound dramatic but actors don’t get to officially represent their country globally like how sportspersons do. So, whenever I work abroad, I do say ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ before every work. Though I am not a brand ambassador for the country, I am somewhere representing 1.4 billion Indians,” he insists.
While he is happy with the win, Kher admits that celebrating such wins has become a bit challenging in today’s times. “I was just talking to Anil Kapoor that people have stopped celebrating life and their wins because they think usko bhi log kuch na kuch bol denge. We used to have such amazing Bollywood parties earlier by Yash Chopra or Subhash Ghai, we don’t have them today anymore kyunki logon ko celebrate karne mein darr lagta hai ki kahin na kahin koi kuch galat nikaal lega, and that fear is there rightfully so. We live in such a time and we need to adapt ourselves, but takleef to hoti hai kabhi kabhi.”