Celebrity column: What do you want to be when you grow up? writes Ayushmann Khurrana

My grandmother once asked me, “Puttar vadde hoke ki banuga?” (What do you want to be when you grow up?) “Actor!” I exclaimed, without even thinking twice. May be It was Madhuri Dixit’s Ek Do Teen song, which I’d seen on the big screen, or was it Aamir Khan’s Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (QSQT), which inspired me to sing Papa Kehte Hain Bada Naam Karega? I always feel happy whenever I make my father proud.

If you’re 30 right now, you belong to that generation where to aspire to be an actor was considered obtuse. When I sang songs on the cricket field, while batting in the middle order, the rival team’s wicketkeeper and the fast bowler started calling me a bhaand (small town artistes who sing and dance for money on streets). That was their way of sledging. We played cricket under the Sun during extreme summers of Indo-Gangetic plains, with temperature averaging 45 degrees. My brother Aparshakti and I would come back dead tired and go to sleep after switching on the over-energetic air cooler sprinkling extra water with the fragrance of khas. Those were the days when our dad didn’t allow us to have an AC in our room. He thought we will get used to the luxuries of life and wouldn’t be able to deal with life’s unpredictabilities. And we would deliberately sleep in our parents’ AC room only to be kicked out later in the middle of the night. So, there was no point. Finally, when we got an AC in our room, during high-school days, we couldn’t sleep because we were so used to the chopper-like loud sound of the air cooler. It sounded like a mini tornado, where you couldn’t talk in a low voice or study or write without keeping a paper weight or your Geometry box on your notebook. Sigh.

Geometry was the only part of Mathematics I ever enjoyed. It was interesting as it had shapes. Rest was Greek to me. Mathematics and I never got along. I flunked in my pre-boards Maths exam. I used to get high fever a night prior to the exam. I never understood numbers. Even in films, I’ve passed some exams and I’ve failed often. I feel the day I’ll understand this number game, I’ll lose the innocence I have for the craft.

Now, every Friday seems like it’s the day of result of the board exam, where my mother and father just give me a warm hug and say, “Beta, we are proud of you and love you even if you fail. Tune toh apna best kiya hai na. Tu achcha actor hai. Picture chale na chale yeh tere haath mein nahi hai.” Sigh. And my Fridays are again around the corner. With two releases coming up back-to-back. No, I will not plug my films. I’ll just plug the feeling of anxiety every actor goes through before the release. It’s nerve wracking. It’s strange that an average performance in a hit film matters more than a great performance in a flop film. Numbers matter. That’s what they say. I wish I’d taken my Maths lessons seriously. Problem sums were always problematic. A plus B whole square is A square plus B square plus 2AB. I knew everything, but I could never put it together. I always mugged up the theorems. But alas, that wasn’t acting.

You can’t improvise in Mathematics. If you can, you are a genius like Euclid. If you can’t, you’re just an artiste with a laid-back left brain. Exam results are coming soon. And yeah, life is the most difficult exam. Many don’t pass as they try to copy others, not realising that everyone has a different question paper. I’m the original me. I’m not the new age Kishore Kumar, who could sing and act. Neither am I this generation’s KL Sehgal. I’m Ayushmann Khurrana. Subtle, simple and very sexy. Let there be noise and chaos of a mini tornado inside us, just like the air cooler in my room, during my childhood days, sprinkling water and khas. Thanks, Papa, for not giving us an air conditioner.