Not craving to get back home to his begum of six months? He replies that while he's looking forward to being with his actress-wife Kareena Kapoor, she is a working woman too. "It's good to be apart for brief periods with other things to do because when you are living together 247 it can lead to one partner imposing unfair demands on the other," he rationalises, pointing out that Kareena and he plan their holidays together and a break in the Maldives is coming up soon.
He reasons that when a man is in a relationship he is usually torn between his love life and his work. "Marriage is a kind of commitment that you make to each other. And even though today that bond is not unbreakable, it still makes the relationship more secure. You can focus on work and making money to secure the future," he avers.
"When you're younger, you fight over anything and everything you don't like about your partner," says Khan, who was earlier married to the actress, Amrita Singh, with whom he has two children. "But today I'm more accepting than expecting. Now I don't over-think or over-react. I balance my time among my wife, mother and children. At work, I'm happy to see that there's a market for 'different' kinds of films too provided you get the budget right. I want to read and write more, understand classical music and play the guitar better. And, yes, improve the mind," he asserts.
On Kids
There's relief mixed with pride because his daughter Sara has been accepted by Columbia University in New York — and Khan is confident Sara's world will open up in a "marvellous way" once she settles down there. Quiz him on the buzz that the pretty teenager had been set on a career in the movies, and he says firmly, "Acting is a wonderful job even though it calls for a lot of hard work and patience. Sara is free to do whatever she wants, but not at the expense of a good education. She has always been more academically inclined and I would want her to focus on a university degree first."
Is that a diktat for his son Ibrahim too? Khan admits that his younger child is not as serious about studies as his daughter. "But Ibrahim's already been lectured extensively on the subject and has promised to focus more on academics. He's a lovely guy," daddy says with a fondness that is not hard to miss.
It's obvious that while on the subject of academics Khan is inflexible, in other ways, he's an indulgent parent who allows his children a long rope when it comes to choices. He admits as much, quoting from Khalil Gibran. "Your children are not your children/they are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself/they come through you but not from you/and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you/you may give them your love but not your thoughts/for they have their own thoughts…"
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