Imran Khan on his baby girl Imara, fatherhood and how it has changed him completely
Sneha Mahadevan (DNA; May 4, 2015)


Let’s talk about Imara.
She is 10 months old. She has started talking and the words she can now say are: hi, bye, mama, and papa. She has started walking, not very well, but just like a few steps. She can stand fine. I think she looks like me. She has very fine hair and light eyes.

Is she a mischievous kid?
She is very sweet, but yes, she has got that little mischievous streak from her mother. She is very friendly with people she knows. She is very curious about things and wants to know everything.

Does she understand Hindi?
We try to speak to her more in Hindi, but she understands English as well. More of her responses are in Hindi. If we ask her ‘Billi kya karti hai?’ she will go ‘Meow’, ‘Doggie kya karta hai?’ she will go ‘Woof, woof’. We are trying to teach her Hindi phrases. She will anyway learn English in school, so I would like for her Hindi base to be stronger.

Must be tough staying away for long periods of time from Imara?
Yes, it’s very difficult to stay away from her for long periods. Until you actually have a child, you don’t get it. I have never been this interested in another human being. You know, in the early stage of romance, you are constantly thinking how beautiful that girl is, but it fades. But in this case, it’s getting stronger. I am sitting on set and pull out my phone and I am looking at her photo with a silly expression on my face. Recently, for a schedule in Gujarat, I was gone for 15 days. That is the longest I have been away from her. I would FaceTime with her. She would see me on screen and then she would grab it, trying to reach out to me.

Did you for once think getting married and having babies would put your career on the backseat?
I am very happy with my life. I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s real life first and foremost. I have always thought of myself as a person first. Actor was by chance. My personal life has always been of a higher priority and that is not the case with everyone. For me, I have always known what I give preference to. Having said that, I am happy to be back at work also. I had started to feel a little stagnated and rusty because I was sitting at home for a year. But I had always planned to take a break.

Let’s talk about your other babies — your pets.
I have dogs and cats, but I think that cats are more interesting in terms of their personalities than dogs. I have seven cats — Biskoot, Billy, Bonny, Jingle, Bighead, Sigmund and Tiki. My dogs are Seema, a white labrador, Emma and a black one, Kajri. When Imara was born, my cats took sometime to adjust. They don’t like change, so for the first six or seven months, they didn’t go near Imara. Biskoot still runs away. Only Sigmund, my cat, is very sweet with her. So when she takes a nap, he curls up on top of her and sleeps. Imara loves him. Her face lights up when she sees him. My mom and I are crazy animal people. The reason I like cats is because I feel like they have got their shit together. Dogs have no dignity. Cats will groom themselves and they’ve got poise. But cats, you have to develop a relationship with them and that is more demanding. It’s a different relationship with dogs.

How did it feel to get back on the set after a break?
I felt recharged, re-energised. I jumped into with the level of enthusiasm that I didn’t have before. The last couple of years especially 2012 and 2013, I was overworking. I was working every single day. There was no downtime at all and I was feeling burnt out, quite honestly. It saps your energy, and it puts you in a place where okay is good enough. In a way the break did me tremendous good. I have always been a believer in recharging batteries. In the early stages of my career, I was better at working and taking time off. Suddenly, I don’t know what happened, but now, I want to go back to doing the same.

But won’t you be taking breaks more often now that you have Imara to run back home to?
I am done with Katti Batti. We have like four-five days of patchwork left but by the end of May I should be done with the film. Then I am not shooting anything until in November.

How did your patch-up with Ekta Kapoor come about?
It wasn’t intentional but I was hearing from people (common friends who knew Ekta and me) that this matter needed to be settled. So, we met in January and we aired it all out. I told her, look these are my issues, this is what I heard, this is what I felt and she did the same. To be fair to her, a lot of the issues that came up were because of intermediaries who were adding their own version to what was being heard and said. I’ve never had any fights in my career. It was whipped out into a fight and it got to a point where we had to fight. Now those layers of intermediaries are gone and when she and I spoke, turns out that she and I were both told a lot of things that were incorrect.

So she offered Milan Talkies (now titled Bhoole Se Naam Na Lo Pyaar Ka) to you again?
Yeah. I know they talked to other actors for that part. I don’t know if they didn’t like someone or whether the actors weren’t interested in the script, I never got into it. I had read the script in 2011. I signed Milan Talkies long before Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Dobaara. But then it fell through. I don’t think they have finalised on a female lead. It’s a beautiful love story set in the town where the romance between the boy and girl kind of develops in the cinema hall (Milan Talkies). They go to watch movies at the cinema hall and the couple have a lot of romantic moments in the projection room. That cinema hall is the anchor of the story.

Ankur Pathak (MUMBAI MIRROR; June 17, 2014)

Imran Khan, who became a proud father of baby girl Imara on June 9, had gone on paternity leave as soon as wife Avantika's pregnancy was confirmed last December. Now, the actor will return to work on August 30.

Mirror has learnt that Nikhil Advani, who is currently giving the final touches to his Sooraj Pancholi-Athiya Shetty Hero remake, will start rolling with his next, Katti Batti, starring Imran and Ileana D'Cruz, in two months time.

Revealed a source, "The pre-production of the film is already underway and Imran is attending workshops with Nikhil. Since the birth of his daughter, Imran is on seventh heaven but at the same time, he's really excited about returning to the sets."

Confirming the same, Nikhil said: "Yes, we will start shooting in the last week of August. Katti Batti is an edgy rom-com. Imran plays a jilted lover who is an architect. We go on floors on August 30."

But wasn't the film previously called Saali Kuttiya? What prompted this sudden change in the title? "I think the new title has a universal appeal. Moreover, the previous one was a tad risky to go ahead with," admitted the filmmaker.

Since Imran's last three films- Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mandola, Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Dobaara and Gori Tere Pyaar Main -- haven't done well commercially, is he apprehensive about his leading man's box-office viability? "No, ever since I came up with the story idea, I could visualise just Imran in the part," asserted Nikhil.

However, Imran wasn't up for the project then. "He just wouldn't agree to do my film. I gave him the narration late last year, but he had certain reservations at the time. It was my sheer determination that helped to get him on board," said Nikhil. "I wouldn't have gone ahead with the film with anybody else."

Meena Iyer (BOMBAY TIMES; June 16, 2014)

Imran Khan's bundle of joy is six-days old. And the actor's already obsessing about his little girl. Avantika and he have named the child Imara Malik Khan. “It is Swahili and it means strong and resolute,“ explains the light-eyed actor, adding, “It's a dumdaar name.“

Recalling the moment he first set eyes on his baby , he says, “Friends and family tell you that when you become a parent your world changes. It is one of those things that people keep telling you about, but until you hold the baby in your arms, you are never really prepared for it." He adds, “The last phase of Avantika's pregnancy was very hard for her. She is petite. With the baby growing inside her, she would get breathless sometimes; there were acidity and other issues as well. Physically, she was quite uncomfortable in the last couple of months. This phase was a little tricky, a little hard. However our world changed on June 9. The baby was born at 9.14 am on a Monday morning and when they handed her over to me at 9.15, a switch went off in my head. It is clichéd, but my world has changed."

He tells us how his family made the hospital a Mad Hatter's zone on that day. Imran says, “Mansoor mamu is not here, but Aamir mamu and Kiran came to the hospital. My family is nuts. We had booked an extra room for the family, right next to Avantika and the baby, but we fell short of space because 10 members arrived together. Before long we had to request the hospital for one more room to accommodate our relatives. And there was a nice family outing happening with everyone ordering French fries, cheese toast and nimbu-paani.
Hospital rules allow only two persons to visit the patient at a time. So people took turns to see the baby and meet my wife. They would then go back to the next room and stay put. It was a nice family outing."

The actor is also an expert at changing diapers. No, he hadn't enrolled in any classes, but he has hands-on experience of changing nappies and bottle-feeding Mansoor and Aamir's kids while he was growing up. “All this is coming in handy," he laughs. Of course, in the case of Imara, everything he does is magnified because he is obsessed with his new-born. The baby room is manned by a camera, which is accessible from anywhere in the world.

“Wherever I am, whatever I am doing, I can access her room on my phone,'' says he, showing us the cot where she sleeps. He even points out a slight resemblance that she bears to Aamir's son Azad and to himself. “If I had had a boy I would have some semblance of dignity. But since it's a girl, I will be on my knees for the rest of my life. My daughter can twist me around her little finger," he adds.

When we point out the skin that has peeled on his hands, Imran says, “I have bought a 24-pack of hand sanitizers. I have sanitized my hands 30 times in a record of 24 hours. Each time I go up to my baby, I want to ensure my hands are clean. That's how my skin has started to peel. My mother has now warned me to go easy on that stuff, so today I have only used the sanitizer twice.'' A huge pink cake arrives from Sonam Kapoor with whom Imara shares her birthday. And when he picks up the phone to thank his I Hate Luv Storys co-actor for the indulgence, one cannot help but smile.

Father's Day truly has a new significance for Imran this year. 

Hiren Kotwani (BOMBAY TIMES; June 10, 2014)