There’s more to Emraan Hashmi than just being everyone’s favourite ‘Serial Kisser’. The star of Murder, Gangster, Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai and The Dirty Picture is now playing a different innings — that of an author. Emraan, whose son Ayaan (now six) was diagnosed with a type of kidney cancer called Wilms’ Tumour when he was just three-and-a-half, documents the illness, Ayaan’s fight and his subsequent triumph in the book, The Kiss of Life (Penguin; Rs 259). In Calcutta on Friday to talk about the book — which he has co-authored with Bilal Siddiqui — at ‘Beyond What Meets The Eye’, presented by YFLO at Taj Bengal, Emraan gave t2 a peek into the father behind the star.
How is promoting a book different from publicising a film?
Oh, very different! (Smiles) I have been promoting the book quite a bit. We’ve had three events so far and now we are here to launch it in Calcutta. It’s all very new to me and I am learning the ropes as far as books go. A book has to be pushed every month… it’s not like films where you go for a promotional burst a few weeks before release and it’s done. So every month, you will see my face somewhere or the other pushing the book hard! (Laughs)
The Kiss of Life was launched three months ago. Is the feedback you’ve got so far all that you expected?
I didn’t know what the reception would be like. It was just me putting my thoughts on paper and documenting my journey through Ayaan’s episode and, of course, parts of the book deal with my life, my rise in films and my family. The book has resonated not only with cancer survivors but people in general. A lot of people who don’t watch my films (smiles) have messaged or tweeted to say how reading this book has been such a moving experience. I just feel that if I could touch even one person through the traumatic experience we have had… where those suffering from the disease — especially paediatric cancer — get an idea about the road that lies ahead, then that will be a battle won for our team.
It must not have been easy to go back and relive the trauma all over again...
You know, the first human reaction is to suppress and bottle up anything that tends to give you pain. But, for me, it just kept coming back again and again. When I left my child in Toronto (for treatment) and came back to Bombay to shoot, it just kept haunting me. Even after he came back to Bombay cured, images of the trauma wouldn’t let me sleep at night. By that time, it was all in the newspapers as well. So I felt that if I document this, it might just become a counselling session for me (smiles). I wanted to make my peace with this episode in my life by writing about it.
And then, of course, was getting the message across. One big impediment for me in the initial days of Ayaan’s illness — despite the fact that Parveen (his wife) and I are educated — was the lack of information and the amount of misinformation about cancer that came my way. There are still some sections that think cancer is contagious. I hope the book brings about some level of awareness. We are also going wide next month by releasing it in Hindi.
How much do you think your initiative to talk about the disease will make others come forward and share their cancer stories?
I hope it does. I have close friends who have had it in their families and they don’t even use the word… they call it the ‘C-word’ (shakes his head). I have never really understood that because our family has been very vocal about it from Day One. We had to be because if we wanted to save our child’s life, we had to go out and speak to as many people as we could. That’s how we confronted and fought it. We gathered a lot of opinions and then made a choice as to how to fight it.
How has this episode changed you as a person?
It’s definitely changed my outlook to life, though I don’t know whether it’s changed my behaviour towards others. I am told by many: ‘Oh, you’ve changed’, but I feel I am still the same guy. I think what’s changed is that once you are invaded by cancer, your family starts living a new normal. I learnt to deal with Ayaan’s cancer the way I have dealt with all other problems. At the end of it, you start thinking that if I can deal with this, I can deal with anything.
Has it changed your perspective towards fame and money, success and failure?
Professional successes and failures don’t matter when you are faced with terminal illness in your family. You start cherishing your loved ones more. You value the present a lot more.
I had built a wonderful personal and a successful professional life. I married the woman I loved, we had a beautiful kid together, my films were doing well... and then everything just fell apart one day. But then, we are stronger than ever today.
How’s Ayaan been taking this sudden tryst with the spotlight?
He’s loving it! He’s a fighter… he has a very fiery personality. He knows no fear and rarely do I see that in kids. I hope that temperament continues even into adulthood. I get a lot of inspiration from him. He loves life and I have now learnt that from him.
You’ve been the ‘Serial Kisser’ for your fans for the longest possible time and on the other hand, you are known to be this devoted family man. Which of these contrarian images is carefully cultivated?
Carefully cultivated? (Pauses and thinks) Being a father is the most important role of my life and it’s something that you can’t play-act. It’s not something that I have to pretend to be. The ‘Serial Kisser’ tag was something that was at times thoughtfully and meticulously built and at other times, it was all about taking what came my way and playing along with the industry’s trappings of what was considered successful at that time. I played to that erotic image and it became my identity. I enjoyed it and I reaped its benefits. But I would also curse it often because it got in the way when I wanted to do something different career-wise.
In the future, even as I carry on with my ‘Serial Kisser’ image, I will also be experimenting as I have been doing with films like Shanghai, The Dirty Picture and Ghanchakkar. But I am not running away from being the ‘Serial Kisser’ because that’s something I know the audience will always relate me to.
Azhar didn’t do as well as expected and neither have your last few films. How do you handle failure?
Failures don’t deter me. Some films do well, some don’t. For whatever it’s worth, those who saw Azhar really liked it. The strong opinion that we felt from various quarters was that people just didn’t want to forgive Azhar (former Indian cricket captain Mohd Azharuddin) — they felt he was guilty of match-fixing even after being cleared by the courts. We tried to portray him as the man and the hero he was, but people had already formed an opinion otherwise. And that harmed the performance of the film.
Does September film Raaz Reboot give you the freedom to do something different even in familiar territory?
Some films come with their own trademarks and cliches, simply because the audience likes them. My effort with franchises like Raaz and Murder has to work within the tried-and-tested parameters but also attempt something new. Raaz is a franchise I have been associated with for the longest time. I know I had said earlier that I can’t see Raaz beyond the third film because I see films largely as trilogies, but the script of Raaz Reboot was something I couldn’t refuse. Also, I like the horror genre and the character really appealed. I go by instinct and Raaz brings its own challenges and rewards.
Emraan recommends
“I have 500 horror films on hard disks,” says Emraan, picking two horror films that t2 readers must watch…
The Babadook: It’s an Australian film that has all the familiar horror tropes, but the treatment is spine-chilling. It takes a lot to scare me, but I had a teeny-weeny light on in my room for the next few nights after watching this film.
Sinister: One doesn’t associate Ethan Hawke with horror but this film, in which he chances upon a film projector and some footage in the loft of a house he moves into, is super-scary. I get scared every time I watch it.
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