Aamir Khan has confirmed that he has been approached by Percept Pictures to play the role of Kishore Kumar in a biopic of the actor/singer. “I have been approached by Percept Pictures for the film on Kishore Kumar,” he says, “They’ve offered me the role of Kishore Kumar. But I still haven’t finished reading the script. If it appears to me that it is current and interesting, I don’t see any reason to refuse. I’m a big fan of Kishore Kumar. I like him as much as a singer as an actor.”
The eccentric Kishore Kumar was one of Bollywood’s leading playback singers for nearly thirty years. He was a constant ball of frenetic energy, often accused of having ants in his pants. He started his career, however, as an actor making a number of madcap comedies in the anarchic tradition. He married four times and was the brother of Ashok Kumar. The great love of his life was Madhubala, his second wife. He converted to Islam in order to marry her in 1960. She was already desperately ill at this stage but the marriage lasted for nine years until her death in 1969. Kishore was paranoid about being paid for his work, often insisting it should be paid in cash before he appeared on set – this led to one or two scuffles with the tax authorities during his life. He died in October, 1989.
Aamir, currently finishing off his work on Ghajini, recently had a bad encounter with ants – as he elaborates on his blog: “After a long day at work, I went to bed at around 3 am. A couple of hours later, deep in sleep, I had this vague feeling of being bitten on my ear. Gradually I was being bitten on my stomach, legs, and neck. I was so sleepy that I just kept cursing, scratching, turning and tossing. Finally it got really unbearable, and I kind of woke up to see my bed filled with ants. There were hundreds of them! Crawling all over and giving me hell. I had to jump under the shower and then went and crashed on my couch.”
