I’ll Do It My Way The incredible journey of Aamir Khan

Book Review of I'll Do It My Way: The Incredible Journey of Aamir Khan by Christina Daniels

For some reason unknown to myself I avoid reading biographies. I still don’t know what made me download I’ll Do It My Way: The incredible journey of Aamir Khan by Christina Daniels. I think it was because first, it was about Aamir Khan. Though I am not a big fan or anything, I like his unconventional methods. He is always experimenting with film-making.  That is kind of inspiring. Secondly, and most importantly the book was available under Kindle Unlimited. So I could download it for free.

But then as I started reading it, I was surprised at the depth that could only be acquired by a penetrating research. I also wondered what tremendous amount of time and effort made this book possible. I’d like to thank Ms Christina Daniels on that. In Bollywood people write their own stories – autobiographies – that are also sold well. Perhaps this wasn’t possible for Aamir Khan who’s reluctant to say anything about himself. He just does what he does. It is humility, I suppose. Or, may be he’s too occupied in his work. But we are grateful that he at least let other do it.

I’ll Do It My Way: The Incredible Journey of Aamir Khan accounted Aamir’s life starting from his early childhood till the making of 3 Idiots. The journey was long and the book describes it in details without ever being tedious. I consider this an excellent sample of how non-fiction books should be. The book leaves out movies like PK and Dangal because it was written before those films were released.

In her book however, Christina Daniels reproduced verbatim the interviews and opinions of people who were/are associated with Aamir Khan. These interviews are often repetitive and lengthy whereas short excerpts could do just fine.

He had something that trained actors don’t have, which is a certain kind of vulnerability.

Aditya Bhattacharya says. Then he continues dwelling on the word ‘vulnerability’ till the reader feels drowsy. I totally understand that this is not something the author could control. These things could have been avoided by including only the gist of the interview. But then when we select certain portions from a speech, the risk always remains that the words are taken out of context and therefore interpreted wrongly.

The book I’ll Do It My Way: The Incredible Journey of Aamir Khan, unlike most of the biographies, doesn’t go ecstatic over Aamir’s achievements. Christina Daniels, rather tells the facts as they are and let readers make their own judgements. This particularly I liked about the book – the unbiased journalism. Not only does it highlights the successes but also scrutinizes failures.

Dil was the last of a series of films that Aamir signed after Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. But not all these films lived up to the promise of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. Love Love Love and Awwal Number bombed in quick succession, as did Deewana Mujh Sa Nahin and Jawani Zindabad. The subsequent failure of films like Afsana Pyar Ka and Daulat Ki Jung also returned to haunt him. In fact, it was also only in these years that the misses outnumbered the hits.

Christina Daniels also touches a very sensitive subject of remake. This is a common practice among Bollywood filmmakers. I find it really disturbing. I am, under no circumstances, ready to believe that there’s a scarcity of good writers in India. The reason why these people still copy plots from Hollywood is beyond my understanding. After reading how Mahesh Bhatt justifies this in one of the interviews, I was rather shocked and ashamed. Regarding the movie Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin he says,

On criticism for Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin as a ‘remake’, I have no quarrel with it. There are people who like to cut it down and deny the film its place in the consciousness of the nation. But they can play only gate-keepers when it comes to allowing that film to get into a privileged section of so called ‘greats’ decided by a handful of critics. Films find immortality in their viewers’ memories. That is where they finally resonate and live.

Don’t know about you Mr. Bhatt but films like these only prove our incompetence. A film Memento is made in Hollywood. Somebody copies it in South India (Surya acts in it) then somebody copies it again in Hindi and names it Ghajni. Should that, as an Indian, make me proud? Why don’t you just put subtitles or simply dub it in different languages? Wouldn’t that be more cost-effective and less shameful? I don’t know.

Now back to I’ll Do It My Way: The Incredible Journey of Aamir Khan. The book not only tells us about his professional life, but also tells you the incidents in his personal life that had direct or indirect impact on his work. It tells you about his love of animals, about his love of reading and also about his painful divorce with Reena. In a professional sphere Aamir has always been bit obsessed about perfection. He had an eye for details. Perhaps that resulted in a rumour about his interference.  

Aamir is a very hard working boy, though you may have your differences with his obsession with perfection.

Says Mahesh Bhatt. But Aamir’s obsession with perfection comes out of his unconditional love and devotion to film-making. In this book Christina Daniels cited numerous examples of that. Here is one.

During shooting, Aamir’s dedication to a perfect performance was total. In one particular legendary instance on the set, the team was shooting a massacre scene that ended with Aamir contemplating a pile of corpses, against the setting of a burning village. The crew noticed a snake moving right towards Aamir. But Aamir remained immobile and deep in thought. In reality, he had noticed the snake, but he did not move because the huts behind him had already been torched for the scene and Ketan had still not called a ‘cut’. By the time the snake was pulled out, it was already beneath Aamir’s legs. The spell-bound audience applauded long and hard.

Now, that’s Aamir Khan for you. Such obsession with work, such saintly dedication and detachment! Is it not only natural that he’ll be misunderstood?

To find answers to questions like ‘Why Aamir Khan doesn’t participate in award ceremonies?’ or ‘What was his stand in Narmada Bachao movement?’ one has to read the book. The book ends with a detailed filmography. There’s also a list of awards won by him. As a bonus, there’s also a list of musical hits from his films. I thoroughly enjoyed reading I’ll Do It My Way: The Incredible Journey of Aamir Khan by Christina Daniels and will also look forward to reading her future publications.

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