Hum Aapke Hain Koun, the iconic Sooraj Barjatya film, completed 30 years of its release on August 5. During the film’s shoot, Anupam Kher, who played Madhuri Dixit and Renuka Shahane’s father in the family drama, suffered from facial paralysis. However, Salman Khan and Madhuri Dixit thought the senior actor was only making faces to add a comic element to the scenes.
When Kher was to begin shooting his portion in Hum Aapke Hain Koun, he was struggling with facial paralysis, which led to the left side of his face being deformed. Instead of informing Barjatya about his health crisis, Kher showed up on set.
“It was also the first day of the antakshari scene (the pillow game sequence followed by songs) in Hum Aapke Hain Koun. I was returning from the doctor’s appointment and thought to myself, ‘If I go home today and take rest for two months, I will stay in fear my entire life. For years to come, I will think that leaving work is the only solution when I’m ill,'” the actor recalled during his appearance on Aap Ki Adalat.
He added that his co-actors in the film, Madhuri and Salman, mistook his deformed face for comical expressions.
“For a long time, Madhuri and Salman thought I was enacting a comic scene. After a while, I gathered everyone and told them that my left side was paralyzed, but I was willing to shoot. If you look at the scene closely, you’ll notice that there was a close-up shot, and they changed the sequence and gave me Dharmendra’s Sholay sequence, where I had to recreate his iconic drunk scene and call out ‘Mausi ji’ with a twisted face,” Anupam Kher shared.
The actor had also talked about his facial paralysis at the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2012 and said, “If you look closely, the movie (a particular song sequence) does not include any of my close-up shots. The movie became very successful… if you tell your shortcomings and problems, it helps sometimes.”
Kher also recalled the first time he realised something was wrong with his health. “Ek din main apne dost, Anil Kapoor ke ghar pe khana kha raha tha tabhi unki wife Sunita ne kaha, ‘Anupam, tum ek aankh se blink nahin kar rahe’ (One day, I was at my friend Anil Kapoor’s house when his wife Sunita told me, ‘Anupam, you are not blinking your one eye’). I thought I may have been tired,” Kher narrated on Aap Ki Adalat.
The next day, while brushing his teeth, water came out of Kher’s mouth without him realising it, and that is when the actor realised the gravity of the situation. He went to filmmaker Yash Chopra and told him about his condition. Yash advised him to consult a doctor. The doctor told Kher to relax at home. “He told me to take the medicine as I was in very bad shape,” Kher remembered.
Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!, which released in 1994, became the first Indian film to cross the Rs 1 billion mark. It is still a favourite among Hindi cinema fans, and its songs are still played at Indian weddings.
Source Agencies
