So, what is the plan ahead? I asked Anupam Kher. “From now on I will do different things and will do it my way.” And how will you juggle your time? “Everything we do, does not require our time. It requires concentration and if your intention is good everything falls into place. There was a time I was shooting 23 films a year. Today, I’m shooting only two and both on start-to-finish schedules. When the mind is peaceful, you are able to divide time between cities and countries”.
What have you learnt from your low phase? “The lows in my career taught me seclusion, I discovered that Hindi cinema functions in camps and people meet only when they are working together. If you are not working together, even if you are friends, you become an outsider. I decided it was time to divert focus, so, I launched my play, wrote a script and built my Acting Studio”
Is it that simple? “See, a new vision calls for a new discipline. It was around this time I adapted the habit of making notes of all I needed to do. I had seen Vijaya Mehta do that during the shooting of Pestonjee, then I noticed that filmmaker Yash Chopra used a planner and even Sam Pitroda made frequent notes on his mobile phone. This was a revelation because I had never done it, I had always worked at random but now I make notes for everything. I am more systematic”.
To be continued