And Then One Day: A Memoir (27 page)

In the one day I was in Bombay, barely had I cleared Vinod Chopra’s voice out of my head than I was called to meet with one A. V. Mohan, a B-grade film-maker who had produced various horrors in the past. This time he promised me ‘a trudy fhantaastic fildum and hero rolde saar’ so I went along, my mind jingling to the tune of plenty more change in my pocket and a ‘hero’ role, not the namby-pamby of
Sunaina.
Mr Mohan who, for some reason, prefixed or interspersed anything he said with the words ‘mutlubmutlub’ went straight to the heart of the matter. ‘You know Holdyvud fildum
Jhorba Grik
saar? Mutlubmutlub ve making dat wondly. Amjad bhai pdaying Grik mans you mutlubmutlub pdaying young hero. ‘ Taher was yet to pull his act with Basuda, I had been told I was going to get nothing at all for
Aakrosh,
petrol costs money and the pay packet this time was 30, 000 rupees, so I didn’t take any time at all to say yes.

That being settled, there remained the small matter of the script itself. Imtiyaz Khan, elder brother of Amjad Khan, who was to direct walked in shortly after and proceeded to narrate a script that the final film not only bore absolutely no resemblance to, it was one of the most delightfully entertaining and moving scripts for a popular Hindi film I have heard to date. I went away deliriously deluded that my breakthrough in popular cinema had finally arrived. I now badly wanted a home of my own and this film could start to do that for me. I had loved
Zorba the Greek
anyway, I always enjoyed watching Anthony Quinn; and Amjad Khan, now quite a phenomenon, and I were to co-star and I was to play the Alan Bates part, with the dance on the beach replaced by a fight on the beach, of course.

This film, after a mind-bogglingly disorganized, incompetent, troubled shoot and a half-dozen title changes, disappeared so fast no one took any notice of it, so my career didn’t receive another body blow, but had I had the faintest inkling what I was in for during its making, even the prospect of getting a home to myself would not have made me accept.

The first alarm bell went off when in the middle of the
Aakrosh
schedule Imtiyaz Khan and his entire unit turned up without warning in Alibag, to shoot a song sequence. Since I was supposed to sing some of that damn song and since I was there already, he would need a few hours every day with me to do it, he told me. We were in the midst of shooting the harrowing scenes with Om in the prison, I was stupefied at the man’s presumptuousness, but when he pleaded with Govind that we just had to help him out, that this two-day shoot with me just HAD to be done now—he quoted completion and release dates and the mess he’d be in if he didn’t deliver the film within a month and a half—Govind, probably sympathetic to a fellow film-maker’s plight, gave in. When the schedule of
Aakrosh
got extended by a week, however, and I was required to stay on in Alibag, he was not to receive any reciprocal gesture from Mr Khan who insisted on proceeding with his schedule in Bombay. But he was shooting nights, so in the day I could shoot for Govind. As a result, I got my first taste of shooting double shifts, having to shuttle between Alibag and Film City for seven days in a row, since
Amaan aur Ajab Khan
(as it was first titled, then amended to
Loha aur Lahoo,
then to
Maan Gaye Ustad,
then to
Dushman Dost,
then to something else) couldn’t possibly be held up: release date was already fixed, you see. I made the mistake of taking Imtiyaz Khan seriously, having so far worked only on films where my work and the entire film were completed in one go start to finish. I fully expected the same to happen here, in fact had been assured it would. I was about to get my first taste of this kind of film: the kind that gets made only because a star is doing it a favour by being in it so naturally the whole scheme of things depends on the star’s whims. If he has somewhat reluctantly joined in, real trouble is in store. Thus, after having dutifully driven in from Alibag every evening, I often spent the night sleeping in the green room awaiting my call, and not infrequently being woken in the morning and driving back, not having done a single shot all night.

Through this, all I remember doing is waiting endlessly for Amjad bhai who was dealing with a hundred other films and a humongous new-found celebrity status and was always ‘about to arrive’. To his credit he actually did, sometimes. Despite all this industriousness, the shooting of
Pyaara Dost,
as it was finally called, dragged on for the next two years, for reasons too complicated to go into here. That song I enacted in Alibag, seeing before me Om’s disapproving face instead of the heroine’s, was not even used. And Imtiyaz Khan, being strictly a nightbird, made me do the accursed graveyard shift for him along with whatever project I happened to be currently involved in. I swore that in the future whatever the monetary inducement, I would never shoot double shifts again. This particular bum-trip doesn’t merit further mention other than that it was the first of the films I acted in that I never bothered to see. Quite a few more I never ever saw were to follow, though:
Haadsa, Tajurba, Swami Dada, Kanhaiya, Shatrutaa.
My career was barely five years old, and along with some critically acclaimed stuff I also had an impressive roster of truly execrable films.

When Saeed Mirza was making his
Arvind Desai ki Ajeeb Dastan
I was to be in it until I learnt that so was not only Jaspal but AP, the lady from
Manthan,
as well, and we were all to share screen space which would mean spending time together on the sets. I didn’t want to take any more chances and withdrew. But
Arvind Desai
was now history; despite being a quite exquisite piece of work it stayed unreleased, and Saeed now embarked on his next, titled
Albert Pinto ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai
and asked me to play Albert. For such a dynamic title the script seemed strangely somnambulistic to me, but I thought it would be fun playing this Anglo-Indian character whose alienation from the working classes and apathetic attitude to life gradually turn into a growing political awareness. Finally shedding the communal identity about which he is so vain he eventually merges whole-heartedly with the mainstream. The positioning of the minorities in the larger scheme was obviously close to Saeed’s heart; he himself is a Muslim married to a Goan Christian, and this film is his dreamscape about the dawning of a political awareness. Believing that it would be significant and also pretty keen that his work should be seen, and being basically an adman, Saeed was canny enough to ask Shabana if she would play Albert’s girlfriend Stella, not a large part, which she very sportingly accepted even though she wasn’t (if Shabana will forgive me) strictly speaking ideal for it. In fact neither was I, as Shyam reminded me—I had gone all Elvis Presley and James Dean when it was street-cred that was required. Mine is an immature self-adulatory performance but Shabana’s presence added great oomph to the project and certainly was one of the factors that helped make the film widely known, even though there are probably more people who have heard the title than have actually seen the film.

Shabana and I over the decades have worked together in more films than you can shake a script at. Her dramatic abilities are too well documented to need a testimonial from me so I won’t go there, except to say that but for the somewhat smug reverence she has for her own acting and her tendency to perform with background music playing in her head not to mention the eccentric preference for her right profile over her left (or is it the other way around?) I have never found her to be anything but a consummate professional and the most confident, generous, sane and positive female co-actor I have ever worked with in films. Playing off her has always been non-competitive, full of mutual regard and trust and, therefore, a great joy. Our views differ drastically on many subjects but whatever we may think of one another’s opinions and one another as people, I have while working with her always felt safe. Evidently so has she, and on the solitary occasion that we didn’t enjoy working together, it had nothing to do with her! Never once while working have I seen her at the mercy of her moods or indulging in displays of temperament; something I, on the other hand, have often been guilty of. I had looked up to her ever since she had conducted a class in speech in our first year at the Film Institute, and receiving her encouragement and approval now was a great high. Many of my personal favourites among the films I have done are the ones with Shabana; films it was generous of her, a mainstream star, to consent to do with me—a nobody.

I believe it was also not only coincidence that we happened to be paired together so often; I think we carried similar energies and a similar attitude to the table. This helped us both bring out the best in each other. I suppose that’s what ‘good chemistry’ is all about. For whatever they are worth I could not have done those performances without her, I know that for sure. I’d like to believe the reverse is also the case but one never knows.

Despite spending so much time together, we have somehow escaped becoming close on a personal level, which I am inclined to think is not a bad thing. We do consider each other to be friends, but visit each other’s homes on an average once every two years or so. The roles in our real-life relationship are not at all defined so when we meet there are no expectations, and when we approach two characters at work it’s like drawing those people on a clean slate, the baggage of things personal does not intrude. I believe the danger of that happening is greater in cinema than in the theatre; the camera may not be ‘able to look into your soul’, as they say, but the fact is it can catch you with your metaphorical pants down, and if a personal relationship is involved there are bound to be unguarded moments, which can sometimes embellish, but more often mar, the content of the scenes. That is probably why there have been many legendary husband-wife acting teams in the theatre but not in cinema. In some cases a close personal equation between actors may have resulted in charming or believable behaviour on screen, but only when those actors were playing parts that conformed to their real-life relationship. It is equally true, though, that personal animosity between actors has often been the cause of incurably bad acting. For the avid ‘listener’, the things unspoken between characters in popular cinema are sometimes more audible and engrossing than what is actually being said. In fact, my only reason for watching Hindi potboilers now is to catch the subtexts passing between the actors.

I received an unexpected lesson in the politics of the Hindi film industry in the midst of shooting
Albert.
Called for a meeting by a writer duo of some recent blockbusters, I went to meet them, heart bouncing with joy. These two gentlemen had earlier been extremely warm in their praise of my work, had made many polite noises and the usual vague promises. Now I was being urgently summoned and I had visions of a part like the one a few years ago in which they had seen the potential in an unconventional actor and it had paid off big- time. I learnt later of course that the ‘unconventional actor’ had been their third or fourth choice and he was only cast when the stars they wanted turned down the part. I decided I wouldn’t mind one little bit being the third or fourth choice provided I got a part like that one. Arriving at the plush seaside residence where the meeting was it didn’t take me long to figure that I was dealing with very big brass here. The legendary director, who mostly kept silent or looked suitably harassed, was there, so were the producers with their shiny briefcases and, as was unfailingly mentioned, the ‘stunt coordinators from Hollywood’; also a journalist or two; and everyone got up to greet me.

Polite chat filled the room for a while as I sat there silently squirming, and finally a few subtle signals and quick looks shot around the gathering and one of the writer gentlemen came out with it: prima-donna attitude from one of the stars in the massive film they were shooting at the moment had made them decide to replace the gentleman in question with yours truly, and I should make myself available from next week. I wasn’t asked, I was told. My stunned reply that I was already in the midst of a shoot ending in three weeks was met with an incredulous guffaw. ‘What film yaar? Who is going to see it?’ I desisted from naming it, not wanting to create further merriment, so got bombarded with advice that was not without a certain friendliness: ‘This is the chance of a lifetime for you’, ‘think of your career’, ‘forget that film whatever it is’. I have to say that this carrot-on-a-stick they dangled, far from tempting me, made me wonder what kind of people these were, for whom nothing else mattered except having their way immediately, for whom no other film in the world apart from the one bringing them big bucks quickly was of any importance. I had absolutely no intention of saying yes, there seemed more to this whole thing than met the eye anyway, and secondly, I just didn’t think I’d be right for the part they briefly described—I knew I was no good at this larger- than-life stuff. My temperature was rising but I put a lid on it and continued listening silently. Even though the producers sitting there were itching to instantly hand me a cheque and I was being paid nothing for
Albert,
there was not the slightest dilemma in my mind. I could only stare in disbelief at these rich, arrogant poseurs and wished I could tell them all where they got off; but I only stammered and excused myself, saying I would think about it. That was also greeted with garrulous disbelief and I took my leave. I didn’t bother to re-establish contact. In a day or two the unconfirmed news that I was in the film broke anyway, and in yet another few days the news that I was not, and that all had been amicably settled also appeared and so prima donna and I were both back where we belonged. And fate decreed that this ‘colossal extravaganza’ on which I had missed out sank leaving barely a trace, taking with it some big reputations and at least a couple of fledgling careers (mine without a doubt would have been one) and it now rests secure in the musty pantheon of forgotten biggies while the tiny
Albert Pinto ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai
is still remembered if only for its title.