Aamir Khan: On the actor’s birthday, a look at his top 5 favourite books from Mahabharata to Bill Bryson’s novels

Aamir Khan turns 57 today and once he announces a project, he will leave no stone unturned. But once he’s done, he will go back to his world of reading and seclusion.

Khan started his journey into our hearts with a tragic romantic tale of love, Qayamat se Qayamat Tak in 1988 and since then he ruled the world of Indian cinema with his irrefutable charm and exceptionally distinct flair of choosing path-breaking storylines.

He made his directorial debut with a rather unusual and delicate drama based on the subject of dyslexia, Taare Zameen Par in 2007, in which he also played a supporting role. He played Arun, a reclusive painter in Dhobi Ghat, a film which he also produced. He roped in Academy Award-winning music producer Gustavo Santaolalla to produce the musical score.

Khan was constantly breaking away from the stereotypical Hindi Movie hero image. He was toying with various contexts and was developing a niche and diverse portfolio under his belt. It’s an attempt to draw vague similarities between his favourite books and the roles he selected.

Here are five of his favourite books:

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America

Author- Bill Bryson

Originally Published on August 1989

Bill Bryson is an American author who moved to Britain during the ’70s and at the age of 36, he revisits America and observes a lot of the things that have changed. In this travelogue, he talks about annoying accents of Americans down south, cringy tourist traps and his arguments with waitresses. While writing the book the author was not concerned about offending the people he was describing and he ended up delivering a witty commentary about his journey.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Author- Bill Bryson

Originally Published on 4th Feb 2003

It's a quirky, energetic and highly entertaining history of science that will give out an astonishing amount of information about the world we live in and beyond. While speaking at a conference the author mentioned, “I once had this feeling that Science had to be more interesting than it seemed at school so this book is Science for all the rest of us who couldn’t plug in early.”

This approach to science reminds you of Ram Shankar Nikumbh, that loveable, friendly art teacher from Taare Zameen Par. The notion of similarity might appear far-fetched yet the fanboy within wishes it to be true.

Lustrum

Author- Robert Harris

Originally Published on 8th Oct 2009

Author Robert Harris conjured up the darkening atmosphere of Rome during 63 BC and creates a historical fiction that is often political and even horrifying at times. The book wears the historical research lightly and offers great insight into the complicated world of political calculations.

A Confederacy of Dunces

Author- John Kennedy Toole

Originally Published on 1980

This book was published 11 years after the author’s death and earned a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981. The plot revolves around a 33-year-old overweight and unemployed protagonist who lives with his mother. He gets involved in a casual brawl with an officer of law which escalates into a mutiny and in an attempt to evade the officer his drunk mother crashes their car. Now for the first time in his life, he has to work to pay for the damages. What follows is a series of funny misadventures as he moves from job to job. It’s a grand comic masterpiece indeed.

Mahabharata

Khan has a long-standing dream of turning the epic saga into a grand film. SS Rajamouli was delegated with the task of converting his dream into reality but the project was scrapped due to several reasons. Initially, it was proposed as a movie however it was later turned into a web series. Being a perfectionist, Khan was ready to invest 5 years for the entire process but according to the reports later he backed out because “timing” is not right. We hope to witness this magnum opus come into life someday soon.

People in general never take interest in arcane areas of knowledge and nobody ever asks the scientists stupid and basic questions about the origin or basic method. A paleontologist would show you a display of a decade-old moss and you might end up asking about a completely different aspect of the exhibit. Without the basis of knowledge, we can’t construct a question or an opinion and that’s the whole point of education or information.

Apart from reading his scripts and listening to narrations Khan dedicates a great deal of his precious time reading. And we wish Khan, an observant and inspiring bibliophile, a very happy birthday.