In the depths of Covid, Aamir Khan tried walking away from it all. Acting, filmmaking; the business that made him a household name to millions in India and beyond. No more.

The Bollywood megastar, one of India’s highest paid actors, was locked down in 2020 and feeling introspective. “I’d spent all my adult life in this magical world of cinema. And I was so lost in stories and characters and that whole journey that I realized I had not been there for my family,” Khan told CNN during a recent visit to London.

“It was a major moment for me,” he said. “My three kids, two of them already adults, and I pretty much missed their childhoods. All of that really made me feel horrible about myself and how I’d conducted my life.”

“I’m quite an extreme person,” he added, “so I was like, ‘OK, ‘I’m done with films now.’”

Khan still had half a film left to shoot, which had been halted by the pandemic. He told no one of his plans beyond his family, which begs the question: if he kept it secret, did he really retire? “I did,” he insisted. “I used to go to work with my daughter — she runs a nonprofit company working in mental health … Really, I was having a great time.”

Eventually his kids had a quiet word (“We can’t spend 24 hours a day with you, you need to get a life of your own,” as the actor tells it) pushing him back into the arms of Bollywood. And until recently, the rest of the world was none the wiser.

So, though you might not have missed him, Aamir Khan has returned — only this time he’s making sure he’s home for supper.

Khan is busy promoting “Lost Ladies” (“Laapataa Ladies”), which he produced. Directed by Kiran Rao, who is also Khan’s ex-wife, it tells the story of two veiled brides who accidentally go home with the wrong grooms as they travel back from their respective weddings. The light satire, playing on Netflix, is India’s official submission to the Academy Awards and BAFTAs.

The movie features Nitanshi Goel and Pratibha Ranta as brides Phool and Jaya — one young and somewhat naïve, the other ambitious and independent. Phool becomes separated from husband Deepak (Sparsh Shrivastava). He in turn is distraught to learn the other bride Jaya has used the mix-up to flee her own husband, a sinister character who may have killed his first wife, and who refuses to let his second wife further her education.

“The film organically spoke to so many issues that girls go through thanks to deeply entrenched patriarchy and gender roles and the lack of freedoms that women experience in so many parts of the world,” said director Rao.