New magic teacher of Bollywood

“I definitely do not agree that the film is based on Harry Potter or any other film,” said an incensed Anupam Kher. In the city to promote his film, Aabra Ka Daabra - The School of Magic, he put his foot down on this being a novel concept with no resemblance to any other project.
“Indians have this bad habit of crediting the West. Magic has been a part of India for centuries, even Ramayana and Mahabharata have elements of magic to them.”
The protagonist of the film is Shanu, played by Master Athit Naik, whose father gets killed while doing a magic trick and is called a fraud by the onlookers. Enraged by the shame brought on his family, Shanu decided to learn magic and enrolls himself in the Aabra Ka Daabra, School of Magic. Here he befriends a magical creature (a thinner variation of Casper with a cape) and encounters adventures with his friends (sounds similar?). There is a part where Shanu and his friends play a match while flying in their playground (similar again?), the children also find themselves before a flying face of sand (miniature mummy).
“Every love story is similar isn’t it? The story is of a student in a magic school and the events that happen there.”
Kher plays a teacher in the magic school who is friendly with the students. He is also a friend of Shanu’s father. He dismisses the point that he has not been seen much in movies off late. “I have done over 200 films by now, and in the recent past I don’t think I have seen a single film and said ‘I should have played that character.’
“I have just completed Tanuja Chandra’s Hope And A Little Sugar and a tele-series for BBC, ER. I was also there in Bride and Prejudice.”
But, he is far from retiring from acting. His latest theatre offering Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai is the story of his own life. “As an actor is was very difficult for me to play my own life before an audience. It is difficult to have people laugh at the mistakes that you made in life. But, it also makes me feel stronger as there is nothing left for people to laugh at me. I have admitted my mistakes.”
Currently his energies are focused on the acting school that he will be inaugurating in January, Actors Prepared.
Being with children is his cherished experiences, he says. “Children are the only source of reality for a grown-up. They have a sense of honesty in them that they lose with age, mainly owing to the way they are brought up.”
Coming to the fact that Aabra Ka Daabra will be the third biggest film made for children in the last few years, the other two being Makdee and 3-D Chota Chetan, he says, “Children’s films need imagination and put across the imagination one needs mind-blowing resources, but at the end of it all, there are very few takers of these films.”
Whether this funny teacher of magic finds a taker or not will be seen this weekend.

Published in Hindustan Times Next on December 20, 2004