How Aamir Khan impressed Ketan Mehta and bagged his 2nd directorial 'Holi'

Mumbai, Sep 11
Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan is one of the most bankable stars in the country and is known for his keen eye with regard to path-breaking stories. The actor has grown up on the screen as he started his journey as a child artist in ‘Yaadon Ki Baaraat’. Aamir, who is the son of producer Tahir Hussain, always had a knack for off-beat stories and this is evident in his choice of films that he took up at a very tender age.

The actor, having seen the adversities in his life as his producer father incurred many losses, always believed in quality over quantity. He entered the profession of acting with films that can be best described as completely different from what all was going on around that time. The Hindi cinema of the 80s saw its quality getting plummeted and also the lost interest of the audience because of VCR.

When the Hindi cinema was looking south, bringing in the themes and stories from Tamil cinema and repurposing them with garish production design and loud costumes, Aamir was silently charting his own course as he worked in documentaries by students of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII).

Filmmaker Ketan Mehta, who made his directorial debut with ‘Bhavni Bhavai’ in 1980, made his second film with Aamir after he noticed the actor in documentaries directed by the students of the FTII. He then offered him a role in the low-budget experimental film ‘Holi’ which was released in 1984.

The film follows the story of students who are in a tussle with the college authorities after the latter refuse to grant them a holiday on the occasion of Holi. Things soon escalate and spiral out of control for the students, and results in the suicide of a fellow student. This changes the course of life for the boys completely as they’re arrested for abetment of suicide.