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Imran Khan, the actor who gave it all up to focus on his mental health, has been quite active on social media for the last couple of years. He has been sharing stories of his life outside the media glare, which revolves around parenting his daughter, Imara. In an appearance on the We Are Yuvaa YouTube channel, Imran spoke about the many facets of parenting, and how aghast he is at the idea of teachers using corporal punishment on children. He also said that today, if he had to engage in a violent scene in a film, he would “think twice” about it.
Asked if films can do away with scenes of sexual violence altogether, Imran responded, “I would certainly think twice about engaging in a scene like that today.” When asked if becoming a parent has influenced his outlook, Imran added, “As you become a parent, you start certainly to consider these things. You start to consider the way that a communication or a message might land with a child. Today, I think, ‘What if my daughter were to watch this scene, how would I feel about it?’ If I am playing a scene with someone, two guys having a ‘boy talk’ or I am playing a scene with a female co-star… what is the feeling my daughter would get from watching this interaction? And, I would hope and I would want for that to be something that I will not be ashamed of.”
Imran separated from his wife Avantika Malik in 2019, after eight years of marriage. The couple have a daughter named Imara. Imran recalled the difficulties he had in fitting into the Indian education system, and how things have changed for his daughter’s generation. He said, “I have been to a number of schools. I started off in Bombay Scottish in Bombay. At that point, they believed that all behaviour could be corrected with caning. So, you wear the wrong colour socks to school? Caning! You forgot to bring a book to school? Caning! You haven’t done your homework? Guess what? Still more caning! The regularity with which the teachers used to beat us had really started to get to me”
The former actor then opened up about how he’d not be able to bear it if a teacher physically assaulted his daughter. He said, “As I think about it today, I was an eight-year-old, nine-year-old kid. Younger than my own daughter. And, if I imagined a teacher today to raise their hand and hit my child, I would see red. I would be driven possibly to commit murder, to witness someone assaulting my child like that. So, yeah, I was not able to manage the school system.”
Imran has been advocating about mental health on social media, and said in the interview that becoming a parent pushed him to take care of himself. “For me, it was driven tremendously from the desire to be the best possible parent that I could. I had the sense that I want to be the best father that I can be. I want to… and in order to do that I have to be strong and capable within myself. If I am not strong and I am not healthy, I cannot be there in all the ways that I want to for my child. I have been an actor for these many years, I am privileged and blessed that I am today financially secure and I don’t have to worry about paying rent. Now my primary role is to be the best father that I can be. That’s what I have been doing these past few years,” he said.
When asked to share the best parenting advice he’s ever received, he said, “The best parenting advice I got, which I try to inculcate in myself, is that we tend to look at children as somehow less than human. We think that because they are small, they don’t understand anything. You ever walk up to a child and go, ‘Oh, you so sweet, cuddly kid’. (They’ll say) ‘I don’t want you pinching my cheeks man, who are you?’ You know, people don’t respect children’s autonomy. You don’t know this uncle, ‘Go hug them, why you not hugging them?’ So yeah, treat a child as you would treat another human being.”
Imran said that he is now actively looking at acting offers, and that he would definitely like to direct one day.
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