Faissal Khan set for comeback: Aamir Khan's brother may not be as successful, but he is brave
Despite repeated failures and a very public, very ugly spat with his brother, Faissal is still fighting.
Faissal Khan, the younger brother of actor Aamir Khan, is all set to try his luck in Bollywood yet again, with a new project titled Factory. According to reports, apart from playing the lead, Faissal will also sing in the movie.
Having to live under the colossal shadow of ‘Mr Perfectionist’ Aamir Khan would not have been easy. Along with that, Faissal also had to battle mental illness and a family discord that played out very publicly.
Yet, he has chosen to embrace the limelight and the movie world once again — a brave step.
Faissal is best remembered for the 2000 movie Mela, in which he starred with his brother — but few know that his first Bollywood appearance was in 1969 at the age of three, when he played a young Shashi Kapoor in his uncle Nasir Hussain’s movie, Pyar Ka Mausam.
Faissal also made a brief appearance in Aamir’s blockbuster Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, though his formal debut was with Vikram Bhatt’s Madhosh in 1994. The movie bombed, as did Mela and then Chand Bujh Gaya in 2005.
It was from here that things started going downhill for Faissal.
His marriage to Samia Kamruddin, a handbag designer in London, had already ended in divorce. In 2007, reports surfaced that he had gone missing. While he was soon traced to Pune, the disappearance forced Faissal’s reported mental illness, and an apparently strained relationship with Aamir, into the public glare.
While Aamir claimed that his brother had paranoid schizophrenia and was not taking his medicines, Faissal accused Aamir of ‘keeping him confined and forcing medicines upon him’ even though ‘nothing was wrong with him’. Family sources, however, said that Faissal was indeed unwell, and while he would take his medication as long as he was supervised, he had started going out of Mumbai frequently to set up a goat farm, and would miss his medicines during these visits.
Aamir and his father Tahir Hussain later fought for Faissal’s custody in court. Faissal told the court he was ‘scared of Aamir’s name, fame and power’. “I don’t want to live with him, but with my father because he is a nice man," he said. The court eventually awarded his custody to Tahir.
However, the very next year, Tahir reportedly told the court he was financially incapable of looking after Faissal, and the court allowed him to stay alone.
The two brothers shared the screen in Mela. (Photo: YouTube)
Faissal later said: “He [Aamir] was against my father's decision of second marriage. Even I was but.. whatever happened.. he did not leave our mother. He took care of both his wives. He has always been attached to our mother, emotionally and financially. And I want to know if Aamir is such a nice person, why did his first wife leave him?”
He even accused Aamir of trying to sabotage his career. “We did Mela together but there too he played dirty games. Producer Ratan Jain wanted to complete the film in one and a half years but Aamir didn't give the dates…it took five long years to complete. I lost out on the most precious years of my life.”
However, a few years later, Faissal gathered himself and appeared in another movie, Chinar Daastaan-E-Ishq. Interestingly, the director of this film, Sharique Minhaj, is also helming Factory and was the director of Chand Bujh Gaya.
By 2015, Faissal had matured and refrained from making any negative remarks about Aamir. When asked why Aamir was not promoting his film, he said: “Aamir is too busy with Dangal and he is tied up with that. Also he is not in Mumbai.”
He didn’t blame his family either for not helping him in his career. “My family is full of people like Aamir Khan, Naser Hussain, Tahir Hussain and Mansoor Khan who have never seen failures like I have. If you haven’t gone through a particular path, how will you guide others on the same? So, they will evaluate everything from their perspective. They won’t be able to relate to failure. Hence I chose to do smaller films without any help,” he said.
Chinar didn’t work either, and for four years, Faissal stayed away from the limelight.
Now, as he makes another bid at success, we wish him all the best.