Scissor hands

AFTER rejection from several producers, struggling actor Anupam Kher lay down one night in his parents8217; house and overheard them talkin...

AFTER rejection from several producers, struggling actor Anupam Kher lay down one night in his parents8217; house and overheard them talking. They discussed how their son was back and wondered what he would do to for a living. Kher, acting out the incident in his autobiographi- cal play Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai, remembers that this spurred him right back to Mumbai for second go at acting.

The same tenacity has seen the actor through nearly 300 films and several plays. Last year, when he gave interviews for his directorial venture Om Jai Jagadish, his constant refrain was that he was bored with the sameness of his roles in Hindi films. Constantly reinventing himself, National School of Drama chairman Kher accepted the Government invitation on Wednesday to head the Censor Board.

Yet one of his first criterion for a good film as chairman was 8216;8216;that your mother should be able to watch it with you8217;8217;. He has already requested for television to be brought under the Cinematographer8217;s Act so that he can snip out those raunchy videos. As for films, 8216;8216;the intention is not to be rigid. I will bring both my understanding of international cinema and Indian ethos. What should apply at home, should apply to the country8217;8217;.

If this latest role had come slightly earlier, Kher would have found reason to laugh at himself again in Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai. The play is at intervals almost embarrassingly self-deprecating, updating it to his debacle as director with Om Jai Jagadish.

Its title seems to cock a snook at fate. Kher, the 8216;8216;small-town boy8217;8217; as he puts it, grew up in Shimla and began acting in college plays. Once he joined the NSD, he left behind his not particularly bright image and immersed himself in books.

But his first role didn8217;t come easy. Still Kher 8212; then in his twenties 8212; did get into the skin of an anguished 60-something father in Saaransh. Soon Bollywood couldn8217;t get enough of him. Kher played anything. The evil mama, Dr Dang, Pooja8217;s whacked-out father in Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahin, Viren8217;s ebullient friend in Lamhe, the tender alcoholic in Daddy or the effeminate uncle in Dulhan Hum Le Jayenge.

Kher kept going back on stage too, travelling the world with his wife Kiron in the play Saalgirah. He branched out to TV, sometimes disastrously Sawaal Dus Crore Ka, sometimes successfully Say Na Something8230; Anupam Uncle.

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Kher8217;s career best brings out his contradictions. He was producer of the sensitive Bariwali. However, when he turned director, he made the poor cousin of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. Kher may play Jassi8217;s soft-spoken father in Bend It Like Beckham, but he can just as easily go overboard as the money-grabber dad in Dil.

Now as both NSD chairman and Censor Board chief, Kher still finds time to do the odd role in films like Bride and Prejudice. But if he does stick to his original stance of not having 8216;8216;personality clashes8217;8217; as chairman, wearing so many hats may not be much of a problem.