I don’t know if many know here that I am not a graduate myself. But I do strongly believe in education. I may not have been to a formal college, but I did strongly believe in educating myself. When I actually stopped my formal education, I remember there was a big ruckus at home when I told my parents that I want to start learning about cinema and films. I remember I was 16 and by then I was pretty clear this is the field I want to be in. This is the world I belong to – of stories, of characters, of being part of storytelling, of touching people’s hearts, make them smile, cry and affecting them in different ways – and that excited me. So it was then that I decided that I want to learn about cinema and films. At that time there was FTII and there were film schools elsewhere in the world, but I couldn’t afford any film school. My parents weren’t that well-off. It was very difficult to get into FTII as it had limited seats, plus you had to be a graduate to be in FTII, which I wasn’t. So what was left for me to learn about cinema and filmmaking was learning at work – and which is why I decided to start working as an Assistant Director in films. This was in 1983. I remember when I even suggested this there was such a big ruckus, my entire family was like are you mad, you have to be a graduate, no matter what! None of them wanted me to be in films, though my father was a producer and my uncle was a director and producer. I had to fight tooth and nail, I was stubborn and finally, I did what I wanted, and they couldn’t stop me.

I went my route and I worked as an Assistant Director for four years. Those were my learning years, and that’s when I realised that whenever I am interested in something and I want to understand it, it is up to me to learn it on my own. Thereafter, all the subjects in school that I was not interested in – History, Social Sciences, Philosophy, Physics, all these I read and learnt on my own and it’s been beautiful because I am interested in them. And I think that is the key, when you are interested in something, when you love something, when you want to learn, there is a thirst and a desire to learn, that’s when you learn the best.

One thing I want to say to all of you as you are about to start your lives – the most that I have ever learned in life is by going deeper into my own country. That has been my own learning. I have told my own kids this and every young kid who wants to have some advice from me, take one year off from your life. Just travel from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Take a bunch of friends and be safe. The amount you will learn in that one year will be priceless, you will go to towns, villages, meet people.

One of my biggest learning in life has been when I was doing Satyamev Jayate, because I have lived a very sheltered life. You live in Mumbai, you don’t come to know what’s happening at the grassroots. When I did Satyamev Jayate, I got to know so many things about my life, country, society, challenges we face, and the kind of courage we have as people. I got to learn so much about my own country. I wish I had thought of this idea when I was 18 or 19.

I always like to share this story with people and some of you may have heard it earlier. When I was a kid, I used to play a lot of tennis. I was Maharashtra number one for a brief period, in sub-juniors. My mother used to keep some newspaper cuttings. Toh Times of India mein aata tha, you know, ‘Aamir Hussain upsets top seed’. My full name is Aamir Hussain Khan. At that time, we had dropped the Khan, it was too long — Aamir Hussain. And then when I became an actor, we dropped Hussain, then again, Aamir Hussain Khan was too long.

I am very close to my mother, and she is a big influence on me. She would wait for me to come home after tennis and ask me if I won or lost. One day, I came home and she, as usual, asked me the same and I told her I had won. A little later, while we were having tea, she was introspecting, and said: ‘The boy who lost to you, he must also have reached home by now, and his mother would have asked him the same thing, and she would be feeling bad that her son lost’. I was shocked, I had not thought of that! She was able to feel what that boy’s mother would have felt at that time. That had a deep impact on me. That made me realise that my mother is able to care, and think, and be sensitive to what others are feeling. Since then, I felt that one should never hurt someone or make someone upset, no matter what profession you get into, the ability to be sensitive to other people’s feeling is a quality that is rare and special to have. It is an important emotion. So go out there, have a great life, have a great time, but see if you can make others happy and be sensitive towards others.

I often make a blasphemous error even today, where I assume in my head that I am still 18 or 21 (laughs!). When I meet people, toh mujhe lagta hai main 18 ka hoon aur ye aunty hai. Toh mai aunty aur uncle bolta hoon — and then I realise that they are sometimes younger than me now!

But coming to how I played an 18-year-old at 44: When Raju first came to me with the script of 3 Idiots, I loved the script. But I asked him, why are you thinking of me? I am 44 and your role is of a young kid, who is 18 to 21, he is going to graduate. Why do you want me in this film? I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he wanted me. He kept saying, ‘No, because these lines are very important, and when you say them, I believe them’. Basically, what he was trying to say was that the core thought of the film is don’t chase success, just chase excellence — and when you chase excellence, success comes chasing after you. Raju said that ‘Yaar, you have lived by this principle. Your choice of films, your career, you have done Taare Zameen Par (TZP), Lagaan, you have done films that were, on the face of them, like when you signed them, not supposed to be successful. So clearly, you were the one person who was not chasing success. You were trying to do whatever you felt like and trying to do the best you can. As a result, success came chasing after you because you are not chasing it.’ Clearly, I wasn’t — somebody up there loves me! And then Raju said that ‘When you say that line — yaar kamyabi ke peeche mat daudo, kabil bano, kamyabi khud tumhare peeche aayegi, yeh line jab aap bologe toh audience ko believe karna hai. Audience aapse believe karegi kyunki aapki life aise aap jee chuke ho.’ I said woh sab toh theek hai Raju, par jab main 18 saal ka dikhunga nahi toh phir hum kya karenge, matlab main aise classroom mein book pakad ke ghus raha hoon 40 saal ka ajeeb lagega, people will laugh at us.

I really respect Raju as a director and so I kept telling myself that yeh kuch dekh raha hai jo main nahi dekh pa raha hoon. It was one of those rare occasions when I decided to trust somebody else and say okay, I am trusting his judgment over mine. I had seen two of his films by then, and they were both really amazing, and I thought there is something in this guy, he is seeing something which I am not seeing. So I am going to trust his instinct. And that’s why I did the film.

I believe that it is the creative community which brings grace to society. If we so choose to, we do have the opportunity to try and build the social fabric of society, we can inspire people, we can bring hope to people. We can create heroes and icons that people like to emulate. So we can make people sensitive towards things. When I say creative community, I don’t mean actors alone, I mean writers, poets, lyric writers, painters, actors, dancers — these are all creative people. I believe that it is very important for creative people to understand, and whenever possible, use that ability to bring grace to society, to try and build the social fabric, whenever they can. I am not judgmental towards people who just make entertaining films because that is your primary responsibility. If you are just entertaining, that is good enough, if you are giving people a good time that is good enough — but along with that if you can tell something which makes them think, which makes them ponder, which sensitises them, that’s great.

My first film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was a big success, I became an overnight star. Then I signed a bunch of eight or nine films, but these films started bombing and I was being called one-film wonder. I used to be very unhappy with the work I was doing. I used to come home and cry. At that time, I swore to myself that no matter what happens I am not ever going to sign another film that I am not happy about, even if it means my career is going to end.