“All my kids have got the same kind of training, yet all of them are different,” Salim Khan continues.
Filmmaker Salim Khan on what it’s like being the dad of three famous sons, including superstar Salman Khan
Father to a brood of five — sons Salman, Arbaaz, Sohail and daughters Alvira and Arpita —Salim Khan says, “Children are as much a part of nature as this tree in front of me. Can you plan its growth, its height or direction? You protect it as best as you can and let it grow. Similarly, we give our children care, comfort and basic education, but you cannot dictate the way they live; they chart their own course.”
“All my kids have got the same kind of training, yet all of them are different,” he continues. “One is impulsive, the other is short-tempered...the only thing that they have in common is their love for each other. God forbid if something goes wrong with one, the others rush to help even before the fire brigade arrives. I am happy that they are not mean or selfish. They are generous and forgiving.”
Talk steers to Salman’s recent troubles. “As a father, I was concerned. People asked me what I felt. But would any father ever say that his son has committed a crime? But it is only because of his name and his reputation that Salman gets a far more critical treatment than others would. Yet, all along, I have always had full faith in justice and in the outcome,” he recalls.
Sohail, too, had faced a spot of anxiety in Germany post 9/11, when he had been detained at the airport for eight hours. “When he returned home,” remembers Salim, “Sohail was upset. I asked him one question: ‘Are you blaming the officials, your beard or your surname? He thought for a minute, cooled down and said, ‘No one’.”
Recently, Arbaaz was in the news when a PR exercise majorly backfired. In the aftermath, when his son tried to explain why he had done it, all Salim told him was “You should not have been a party to it.” One hour later, Arbaaz agreed. “They had ignored the risk factor,” Salim puts a full stop to the episode.
And, trust Salim to end in a philosophical mode: “When I became a father, I realised what my parents felt. This is one relationship where there is no competition unless the father is a freak. Every father wants his kids to do better than he did. Luckily, I could give a platform to all my sons, and even my daughter, Alvira who has settled into the industry. Arbaaz and Sohail may not be as successful as Salman, but they are happy. When we are all together, we do not need anyone!”
shraddha_js@dnaindia.net
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