Imran Khan has just finished his paternity leave and started shooting for Katti Batti, a love story. When he isn't on the set, he's running around the house putting rubber pieces on all the furniture edges to make them child-safe, playing with his daughter Imara, or teaching her to speak in Hindi. The actor, who is back home after finishing the last schedule of the film, remembers the schedule as being "the longest time I've been been away from my daughter". Excerpts from the conversation where he talks pictures, pets and producers. Read on...
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 Amara 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 Ay Time In Mumbai Dobara. 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.
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