When Anupam Kher learnt a life lesson in the ninth standard!
Clearly, he has had a rollercoaster of a ride through the 35-year-long journey, since his 1984 breakthrough film, Saaransh. And that’s exactly what Anupam Kher has tried to capture in his new autobiography, Lessons Life Taught Me, Unknowingly. Although the book has him sharing anecdotes and rare nuggets from his life as well as the lessons it taught him, the actor maintains the idea was not to “make it sensational.”
“I strongly believe you have to live the life with your own values and that you should be able to look at yourself in the mirror with pride. So, the book is very funny and has great entertainment, but I have tried not to make it sensational. Though a lot of people asked me about it, that was not my intention. In the book, I have narrated some incidents from my life which needed to be told the way I have mentioned them. But I am very clear that I can’t tell my truth at somebody else’s inconvenience. So, I have changed a few names and also hid their identities,” says the actor.
The Silver Linings Playbook (2012) actor says he has mentioned the names of people who he has dealt with at the professional level, but changed the identities of those he has had rendezvous with in the personal sphere. Ask him what’s been his biggest life lesson till date, and Kher goes back to his school days to recount a story when he was in standard nine.
“I remember
I was in ninth standard, and had taken the report card to my father. He looked at it and told me that my rank was 59. He then asked me about the strength of my class. When I told him it’s 60, I was scared despite the fact that he never hit me physically, ” says the actor, adding that “after taking a pause”, his father gave him a “lesson that he still swears by.”
“He explained to me that the student, who ranked first in the class, would always run the risk of coming second every year and face failure. But someone, who is on the 59th position, can always work hard and reach the 30 or 40th position. My dad said, ‘next time, your rank should be 48 and not 59.’ And that was such a great lesson as I then understood the meaning of failure,” he says.
I strongly believe you have to live the life with your own values and that you should be able to look at yourself in the mirror with pride. ANUPAM KHER, ACTOR