'Failure is an event, never a person': Veteran actor Anupam Kher at IFFI 2024

Students and delegates were enthralled by a hypnotic masterclass by one of the finest actors in Indian Cinema, Anupam Kher in Kala Academy, Panaji, on Day 4 of the 55th International Film Festival of India (IFFI).

Kher started the session on the topic ‘Power of Failure’ by revealing, “I think I am the success story of my own failures.”

The entire session was indeed a masterclass on Life lessons, packed with numerous stories from his personal life adorned by his characteristic wit.

Anupam Kher said his story began in Shimla where a joint family of fourteen members spent their life in a single room with his father being the only earning member.

In his words, they were poor, but surprisingly happy with his grandfather remarking that, “When people are too poor, the cheapest thing to them becomes happiness.”

Image courtesy: PIB

The enormously experienced actor recollected the first time he acted a part in a school play while in class 5 saying he was miserable when he failed to secure even a consolation prize.

“‘Failure is an event, never a Person’, my father taught me that day.” In his next outing, the budding actor made 27 mistakes in 2 lines of dialogue assigned to him in the play ‘Merchant of Venice’ by William Shakespeare!

Cut to the time when the National School of Drama (NSD) Gold Medal-winning young actor came to Mumbai for the first time.

Kher said, “I had the confidence to conquer the City of Dreams at the very first chance since I was already an NSD Gold Medallist.”

But within a couple of months, he had to shift to Bandra East Railway station to live for 27 days.

But after many ups and downs, Kher was rewarded with the movie ‘Saaransh’.

Kher fondly remembered it was in 1984 when he first visited IFFI for that film in Delhi.

This year with this masterclass it has been 40 years since his first visit to IFFI.

Life continued to be a rollercoaster ride for Anupam Kher.

But in every downfall, be it the time when he met with facial paralysis during the shooting of ‘Hum Aapke Hain Koun’, or when he became nearly bankrupt in 2004; each time, he adhered to the lessons he derived from his father and grandfather.

The audience was lost for words listening to Kher's turbulent life journey.

But with his magnetic personality, deliberation and acting, the sixty-eight-year-old veteran actor, effortlessly administered the entire audience with the tonic of his life philosophy, ‘Never Give Up’!