Anupam Kher's autobiography sheds light on the eternal optimist in him, explains his philosophy, politics

“I live my life, I don’t exist in it,” says theatre and film actor Anupam Kher in an interview with Firstpost. Having previously staged his life in the play Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai, he has now penned Lessons Life Taught Me, Unknowingly: An Autobiography, which he launched at the Crosswords Bookstore with director Mahesh Bhatt in Mumbai on 7 November. Aware of and present for every moment of his life, Kher explains the intent behind these highly introspective endeavours. “I can also switch off if I find that somebody is being fake with me,” he says. But for the most part, he’s expending his energy wisely, being aware of each moment of life as it happens around him.

It’s all these observations and lessons learnt in retrospect, captured within the span of a life spread over six decades, which now populate his autobiography. As he details in it, he has an almost perfect, photographic memory, and relives each moment as he writes about it. The book is full of anecdotes, starting from his earliest days in Kashmir, going on to study theatre in Chandigarh first, and then Delhi, before foraying into films in Mumbai. Soon after, he headed westward to make his mark in Hollywood. He carefully recreates the small and big moments of his life, details his philosophy towards life, breaks down his creative process when approaching a new role, and stresses on optimism and empathy as the main pillars of his personality.

Reflecting on his career, Kher pays particular heed to certain roles as his greatest challenges. The first of these was playing BV Pradhan in his debut film Saaransh. After this, he’d established himself and enjoyed a growing career, until eventually, it started feeling old. Every role started feeling the same, he set into a routine, and ennui descended on him. “When you’re competent, you can never be brilliant. I was becoming competent,” says Kher. Soon, interesting roles came his way, in Khosla ka Ghosla and A Wednesday. And then came The Accidental Prime Minister, which, he explains, as his ‘second Saaransh’, feeling equally challenged and again, breaking down his process of preparing for the role. Today, besides theatre and television, Kher has over 500 movies to his credit.

However, having a host of films to his name wasn’t enough for him. At this point in his life, with a comfortable career ahead, he still chose to venture into Hollywood, working to acclimatise himself to a whole new world and way of life. He explains in the book how he needs to wake up early, translate the dialogues to Hindi first in order to understand their feel, and then translate them back to English. Finding himself amidst a grand new challenge is something he considers an essential part of life. “You need to find new horizons, you have to leave your comfort zone,” he says. When you go to a bigger pond, he explains, “two things [can> happen. Either you can learn how to swim faster and deeper, or you can just let go. I won’t let go. Because at a very early age my father rid me of the fear of failure.”

Kher writes in his book about how his father presented failure as an event, celebrating it, but never letting it define him. Besides giving him perspective about failure, his family also greatly impacted his attitude towards life in other ways. “My family never made me feel that we were poor,” he says about his happy and positive childhood. “When you come from a lower middle class family, you discover that any good situation is a good situation. If you earn one rupee, one-and-a-half paisa will be an achievement,” he adds. Because of this, he always observes life with a touch of humour and empathy for the other. “I find any situation in life either funny or positive,” says Kher.

It’s also this perspective that helps him get through the lows of his life, which he also spends time talking about in his autobiography. From roles he didn’t get, to getting facial paralysis and being diagnosed with manic depression, and almost going bankrupt with his studio Anupam Kher Studio Ltd, the artiste has found ways to live through all of it. “I go through it. I go through self-pity, I cry sometimes, I feel depressed, and then I say the only way [out> is to rise.” He also explains that at any given point in time, he can focus on everything going right in his life, or count all the things going wrong, and that it’s a choice. “Happiness is to be practised,” he explains, calling himself an “eternal optimist”. He’s also comfortable failing and making mistakes: “I don’t carry the burden of being Anupam Kher.”

Besides his career and philosophy, what also stands out are the many people around him. From the people in his school and neighbourhood when growing up in Kashmir, to the many friends and colleagues he’s come across in the course of his life, Kher offers insights and observations about each. Full chapters of his autobiography are dedicated to the people in his life, the equation they share, and the impact they’ve had on him. “I notice people, I’m a people’s person,” he says, adding that he wouldn’t be the person he were if it weren’t for them. “I surround myself with positive people. I have no time for people who are negative.” He adds that this rubbing off of other people is possible because he is highly mouldable. “If you’re rigid, then no power on earth can mould you.”

In Lessons Life Taught Me, Unknowingly, Kher also methodically lays down his political views in the section ‘Being Politically [In>Correct,’ where he talks about being the face of the Aam Aadmi Party and unabashedly expounds his support for Modi. ‘India has the ability of becoming a world superpower under his [Narendra Modi’s> leadership,’ Kher states clearly in the book. He’s also outspoken and plainly lays down his point of view about “my people – the Kashmiri Pandits”, in the chapter ‘Exiled in Our Own Land’. Overall, Kher’s opinion is that the world is becoming a better place. “I look at the world with positivity. You see what you want to see. If you want to see negativity, you will see it. I think there are so many wonderful people in the world. And I always feel that there is a possibility of goodness in everybody,” he says again, recalling his positive attitude.

The 64-year-old Kher ends his autobiography with the note that ‘This is not the summary of my life; it is just the interval!’ stressing on his need to always reinvent himself. “I hope it inspires people,” the actor says about his autobiography. “If you don’t have a godfather, if you want to make it, you just have to work hard and be honest. And you will make it.”