Kher is currently touring the U.S performing his new play “Mera Woh Matlab Nahi Tha.”
UN Women’s global campaign for gender equality, HeForShe, invited Bollywood legend Anupam Kher to take a stand against the inequalities faced by women and girls. During a ceremony at the United Nations, Kher was pinned as a HeForShe Champion. He’s said the recognition is a tremendous honor for him. He humbly expressed his honor by saying “I am honored to be here and you don’t have to thank me for being here. Officially I am now bound to do what I was doing unofficially”. At the event, Kher reflected on his humble beginnings that helped instill these notions of equality, saying “So, I come from a family which was poor, but completely believed in gender equality…when you’re born in a small town, you don’t really discover so much of a disparity between men and women”.
Kher went on to recall a chance encounter that encouraged him to do something about gender inequality. He said, “Once I was traveling, I kept telling my driver make the AC a little more colder, make it colder. The car stopped at a signal and a girl beggar, maybe five years old, came to ask me for money and she put her cheek on this cold window of my car. She felt good and she fell off to sleep there. It was all fine, she just fell off to sleep. So, I opened the window and asked her, ‘Why are you begging, beta?’ She said, ‘Because my father asked me to do that.’ I said, ‘Do you have anybody in the family?’ She said, ‘Yes, my brother is there.’ I said, ‘Where is your brother?’ She said, ‘He goes to school.’ So they had made a choice, that the girl will go and beg … Then I, in one second, my world, pumped feeling of importance went down the drain. Thank God that day happened. I started noticing, and I started talking about it”. He still dedicates a lot of time in his very busy schedule to public service.
His foundation, the Anupam Kher Foundation, looks to help children from less privileged backgrounds by encouraging good quality education.
