107The school of hard knocks has perhaps forced Roshan
to open up in ways he might not have otherwise. He
appears eager to go beyond the trappings of celebrity to
spark new connections – by immersing himself in work,
meeting new people, travelling. He seems almost wary
of stardom, conscious of not blurring the lines between
Hrithik the star, whose perfection is meditated upon
and painstakingly constructed, and Hrithik the person.
Not that he feels like a star that often. “I get to live that
life for ten days a year,” he reckons, “when I don’t have
to stand in queues at airports, or when I’m on stage
[for shows], though I rarely do those now. Sometimes,”
he continues, “the contrast between the two lives is so
great, it hovers between comedy and tragedy.”
His biggest indulgence, the thing he “needs to earn
lots of money for”, is travel. This year, he says ruefully,
he’s “living a little less, prioritising work, earning
money so I can spend it next year.” He travels with
his two boys, Hrehaan (13) and Hridhaan (11), who
are the centre of his world. “If there’s heaven on earth,
it’s travelling with my two boys. And we don’t do it as
tourists.” The boys have a floor-to-ceiling map in their
room that spans an entire wall, and the plan is to cover
as much of it as possible.
Once, in Canada, Roshan tells me, beaming, they
spent a day in the wild with naturalist and TEDx
speaker Nikki van Schyndel. “We cooked our own food,
pitched tents. At the end of each day, the three of us
would sit down and write about what we learned in
our journals – we call them Victory Logs.” A thought
occurs to him. “You know, without the responsibility of
being a father, perhaps I would’ve kept thinking that
the world isn’t such a good place. But while trying to
prove to them that it’s a beautiful place for their sake, I
stumbled upon the fact that it really is.”
Roshan himself is an avid journaller; every night,
he runs through the day’s events, and writes about the
moments when he did something new or felt like he
grew from an experience. “I have to. Because one’s brain
- especially my brain, and those of people from my
generation – we’ve been brought up by having our faults
pointed out to us. It’s to help us improve, but it means
that that’s what we learn to focus on.”
Roshan has a clear parenting philosophy, based on
the premise that children are “little human beings
like you and me – they’re not stupid,” and should be
exposed to reality as far as possible. He grew up terribly
cocooned, and insists that he never wants his kids to
feel “bewildered” (the word he uses is hairaan). “They
should be aware of all the events that have, or could
ever, happen in the world. If you don’t have that map
in your head,” he says ruefully, “you find yourself in a
state of shock, and then it’s very difficult to navigate the
world. You’re disconnected, and you just get numb.”W
e’ve been talking for an hour when
Siddharth Anand, the baby-faced
director of the YRF film, comes up to our
table to inform Roshan that his shot is
ready. Before he goes, though, I have one
last question. The trajectory of his life has resembled
the jagged line on an ECG monitor more than anything
salutary. (A quick recap: A debilitating stutter in his
childhood, an extra thumb, a father who was shot
at by the underworld and is currently undergoing
treatment for cancer, brain surgery, professional failure,
allegations of infidelity, a protracted legal battle with
a former co-star, divorce, the current crisis rocking
his family.) What is it then that drives him? “I’m
personally motivated because nothing makes sense,”
he says simply. “Life doesn’t make sense, this world
doesn’t make sense to me, but I feel that if I can push
beyond my boundaries and what I know, then maybe
I’ll understand it all. I want to reach a point where I
can tell my kids that it’s worth it.” He pauses to check
if I understand what he’s saying. “I keep reaching those
points. It comes and goes. So I’ve realised that perhaps
it’s not a point at all; maybe it’s milestones, and you
sporadically keep hitting these notes. You’ve just got to
keep making it worth it.”“ I needed a force that would drive
me to be my best. I was getting
too complacent, and I don't think
any one else could have ignited me
the way Tiger has”