Anupam Kher is not a small name in the Indian film industry. Beginning his career in the early 1980s, he has delivered very versatile roles that has left a huge impression on the audience. With such a successful career, failure is not something one associates with him. However, on the contrary, Anupam Kher says that it was the failures in his life that taught him to never give up.
“You’ll must have received more than 90 percent in your school exams or at least 70 percent but still you are sitting down and I am standing on the stage. I have done something good that you educated people are sitting down and I am sitting on the stage. I didn’t receive more than 38 percent in my school days. I was not even good at sports. One day, my PT teacher saw me running and told me to stop. ‘If you run alone, you will still come second’, he said. I didn’t have any speciality according to which I can say after 50 years I will be taking a masterclass on the stage of IFFI where I will be talking about ‘Power of Failure’ with those people who are more educated than me but I had the power to dream,” says Anupam Kher.
Born and brought up in a small city in a joint family, Anupam always dreamt of being different from the rest. He still remembers the incidents that took place in the small house, “I used to think how can I be noticed so I started copying my principal, teachers, my father and uncles. My Dadaji was poor and my father was just a clerk in the forest department. He took away the fear of failure from me when I was in 9th standard. I used to see this opportunity to get a my report card signed by my father when he was in a hurry. Once he saw my report card and asked my rank. I was 59th in a class of 60. After a long pause, he told me whoever comes first, he is always worried that he has to come first even if he comes second. He feels demotivated. But the one who comes 59th can next time come 48th, 37th, 24th, so next time come 48th. Then he said a beautiful line, ‘Remember failure is an event, never a person’. If a 14 year old hears his own father reveal this fear, then no one can defeat him. But that’s not the case in today’s time, parents panic the most with failure. I have lived that life, I am a sub-total of my failures,” explains Anupam.
After his first experience of acting as a fifth grader was a major disaster, it was again his motivating father that built his confidence on stage. “I was very sad. When you live in a joint family, and if a child encounters a failure, then the rest of the people don’t look at him. Because they don’t want to embarrass him. After a while, my father, came with a bunch of yellow wild flowers. He gave it to me and said, ‘son, this is not because you lost, but because you tried. So I said, this is the best award that my father could give me. I keep giving examples of failure so that you get this out of your system, that remember, failure is an event, never a person. We are too scared of failure today’s times,” he said.