And Then One Day: A Memoir (31 page)

Some five years later he reappeared in the green room of a theatre in Boston where I had just performed the part of Mahatma Gandhi in a play, he congratulated me on the progress I had made, and gave me another number on which again I was never able to reach him. But then the ways of guardian angels must never be subjected to human scrutiny, I suppose.

My reputation as a theatre worker and an actor in ‘serious’ movies was growing, though earnings from both were negligible. It was the ‘non-serious’ movies, as I suppose I should call them, which came my way that kept the kitchen fires alight. My bank account was now pretty respectable. I tried very hard to do only one film at a time but without the clout of stardom which makes such conditions acceptable to others and feasible for oneself, I had to give in. What I did manage though was never doing double shifts again and not getting stuck in the same kind of part in movie after movie. Nature played a strong hand in that by not granting me a single box office hit either as hero or as villain or as anything else, so the industry, not knowing where to slot me, continued to offer me roles that no other actor either would or could play.

This part of my plan too was turning out as I had foreseen: I was getting work in films not because I was ‘saleable’ or popular but because it was thought I could deliver the goods; but in ‘story pitcher’ only of course. Hindi cinema, according to its core audience (the stalls), comes in three varieties: the aforementioned ‘story pitcher’, ‘faiting pitcher’ and ‘famly pitcher’. I was never considered for ‘faiting pitchers’, but got more than my due in the other kinds, though none of them made any impression at all, and I thus escaped what I imagine must be the utterly nightmarish situation of losing sleep over next week’s box office collections, which if healthy create the equally traumatic scenario of upping one’s fee for the next project. I never felt any need to do that, I was earning enough to keep me happy; and hell, an alphonso or an ice cream wasn’t going to taste any better if I had a few more zeroes pickling away in the bank. I had always desired only as much money as I would need and that was happening now. Nature perhaps did a favour by saving me from stardom and the kind of pressures those who achieve it have to navigate through, I could not have handled them. Moreover, not being a star allowed me to persevere with the things I always loved or have grown to love doing: acting in the theatre or a film I connect with, workshopping with actors, playing tennis or cricket and watching them on TV, revelling in my children as they grow, going to the movies or simply doing nothing at all. It was very good fortune also that I have never needed to do a film only for the money; though the money was not a small consideration, I did only the films I felt like doing. Sometimes, though, after a few days of shooting, I did wonder WHY I had felt like doing this particular film but since I had chosen to do it of my own free will, and had no one to blame, would hold my peace as long as I could, which according to many was not long at all.

I think I had also unwittingly acquired the reputation of a snob and a troublesome actor, which didn’t bother me unnecessarily. I began to realize that being so appallingly bad in my early commercial movies was not entirely my fault. The only two who could make the schmaltzy Hindi film dialogue and ersatz situations believable were Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan and I was nowhere in their league. Being effective in popular movies requires a certain kind of sensibility and an unshakeable belief in them, neither of which I possessed. While it is true that what I was offered was hardly the cream of the crop—that went to the actors who could ensure bums on seats—it is also true that my reputation as a crabby bitch on the sets was acquired because of my dissatisfaction with what I was asked to do and my futile insistence on trying to do it my way. So I found myself turning increasingly cynical, having to learn to act while ‘facing’, once actually having a director testily tell me, ‘Naseerji this is not an art film, here you have to ACT!’ It was also because of being frustrated in most suggestions I made, about having sometimes to rewrite the unspeakable dialogue I was given and at other times encountering directors who wouldn’t stand even a ‘yes’ being changed to a ‘hmm’, about having to enact totally superfluous scenes of great passion, simply because I supposedly did such scenes well, and invariably finding they had to be left on the editing room floor. Scarcely ever was I convinced, but trying to do the scenes the way I imagined they should be done often meant a total overhaul even of the conception of the scene and resulted in worse confusion. And in any case I was not at all equipped to think in Hindi film terms, so I sometimes suffered silently and sometimes not silently at all.

I had by now quite digested the bitter pill that I was not really cut out for mainstream cinema, but since I was continuously offered work in it, and having always been circumspect about the stock parts that in both Hollywood and Bombay invariably go to ‘respected’ actors from the theatre, I tried to carefully choose the projects I thought might be fun to do. The tragedy of great thespians like Shreeram Lagoo and Nilu Phule being remembered only for their performances in films thoroughly unworthy of them was a guide as to the kind of parts I should definitely avoid. I was grateful I didn’t have to work for the money and I was determined that my career would not meet with such a fate. The happy thought that some of the films I’d already done would surely ensure that was punctured on remembering that both Dr Lagoo and Nilu bhau had done significant work in the serious Marathi cinema as well, yet the rest of the country knew them only as the kind of excessive character actors they were compelled to be in popular Hindi cinema. People unfamiliar with the output of these two theatre giants would be unable to imagine what they were capable of and had done on the stage.

Luckily, as an actor seeking employment I had been at the right place at the right time and been greatly aided by the momentum ofthe other kind ofcinema with which I continued to be identified, and which first gained me something of a reputation. These films seemed to be flourishing and the offers to act in them were plentiful as well, so I now found myself in a whirl of shootings. It seemed I had the best of two worlds and the opportunity to make a mark in both, so despite being chary about my chances I thought I’d continue to have a crack at mainstream movies as well. Earning the kind of money they brought certainly didn’t hurt and how long could the odds continue to be stacked against me? I began to feel I had a good thing going which would take a lot of doing to blow, but I almost managed it.

I
f it is true that ‘an actor’s talent lies in his choices’, I must confess I had absolutely no talent at all. I did not choose to begin my career in art-house films, I was lucky enough to be offered a leading part by a reputed director in a great script, at a time when I would have accepted the part of the third dead body in a film by I. S. Johar. I just happened to be around when actors like me were needed in Shyam’s films and I claim no credit for choosing that kind of cinema—it chose me. But for some reason I could never quite fathom, I continued to be needed in the ‘popular’ films as well, and my choices there were mostly nothing short of disastrous. I turned down some which went on to be huge and chose some that were dogs, including one made by a pair of dilettante brothers, with a small reputation as screenplay writers. The theme of their film, titled
Misaal,
sounded really novel to me, there was tons of the usual masala to balance it, and I thought I’d finally bust the box office with this one. I was to play a meek young man who flees, leaving his girl at the mercy of rapists who always in Hindi films go about their job in the most unlikely spots and with unabashed glee. He later sings a few songs, joins the police force, redeems himself, inspires a younger man, played by one of the director brothers, and they then go about doing the usual heroics. I had done some ‘faiting’ for the first time in a film called
Hum Paanch
and sprained my back on the very first day trying to make it look real. The action choreographer had not been impressed. When Ratna saw the film she pointed out that I seemed to be trying too hard to create the effect of actually being in a brawl when effortless haymakers and an easy attitude of ‘Is that all you got?’ were required of a Hindi film hero. This role seemed like a chance to get that right at last. There was to be ‘lots of faiting’, and I was also tempted by the prospect of being the ‘solo hero’ in a film in which I thought I stood a chance of being noticed and this time I was.

Early in its very brief run I sneaked into a theatre showing it, to see mostly empty seats and the silhouettes of a few heads in the stalls, either unresponsive or hooting derisively every time I appeared on screen. I also discovered that instead of playing the main character, I was in fact part of a subplot, while one of the brothers-duo had promoted himself to central protagonist. In the interval, attempting to sneak out unnoticed, I was accosted by an audience member who slapped me on the back and asked why I’d kept my hair so short in the film, I told him I was playing a police officer and he laughed and said, ‘Chhodo yaar, hero hero jaisa dikhna chahiye. ‘ This was not the first time a script had turned out not at all as narrated nor indeed would it be the last, but seeing this film created in me sufficient suspicion about mainstream cinema to turn me totally paranoid and quite ruin the experience of the next few films I did including one with big-name stars,
Ghulami,
about which, despite for the first time getting paid in six figures, I remained cynical through the shoot. It actually turned out pretty good, a big success at the box office as well, and undid some of the harm inflicted by
Misaal
which had gained me really imaginative profanities wherever I was spotted by the ‘common man’ who blows his precious money every Friday in the hope of being transported to paradise for a few hours.

Unnerving as it was hearing taunts of ‘O bhadwe!’ and much worse at the cinema itself, from passers-by, from beggars at traffic lights in response to what I considered a sincere performance, for the only time in my life I regretted having become an actor when, in a traffic jam under the Khar subway, Ratna and I returning from our wedding celebration and still in our wedding clothes had our car surrounded by a dozen guys who for at least ten minutes filled our ears with the most surreal invective I have ever heard. It was a reminder of how seriously the Hindi film audience takes their dreams, and what piffling dreams these actually are, and how deeply they have bought into the sham world these movies create.

Let’s not drag out the long-exhausted argument that the common man needs these films to get away from his own drudgery etc.; what I find terrifying is the degree of dumbing down of the audience that these films have managed to achieve, I daresay intentionally. A habit for consuming junk has over the years been created in the audience. They are now irrevocably hooked on that taste, they crave it so they swallow anything that comes thus packaged, and ironically they are blamed for having to be pandered to. The films we make reflect no one’s inherent taste but our own. Every few months when some nonsensical multi-starrer flops, everybody assumes the audience has finally come of age but very soon they flock right back to something else equally shallow. It’s impossible to explain.

The incident was also a reminder of how dangerous it can be to take celebrityhood seriously and how utterly disastrous it can be to consider oneself entitled and take it for granted. There are too many stories anyway about the flopping of the ‘don’t you know who I am?’ approach. Film stars, when they thank their fans for making them what they are and for their love, are basically indulging in what a star must do—play to the galleries. Stars who believe that the mobs going ape outside their windows actually love them are in for bruised shins sooner or later. Nature very kindly continued giving me small doses of fame, almost as if testing whether I could take it or not. I decided I had trouble digesting it, not because I dislike being told that my work is good or because my ‘precious privacy’ is being invaded or anything like that—I have been able to guard my privacy without any trouble— but because I am convinced that someone who cares for you would not make himself a nuisance when he can see that you would rather be alone.

It is being considered public property that gets my hackles up, when strangers try to put their arm on my shoulder, when they aggressively approach me for a photograph, when they feel they can disturb my meal. Not having and not desiring the security cordon that now surrounds most Hindi film actors, I am often subjected to looks of ‘What are you doing on our turf?’ or observations in my hearing of ‘Who does he think he is?’ on refusing to oblige autograph hunters while trying to retrieve my luggage at airports. Once, for
Albert Pinto
we were trying with a hidden camera to sneak in a shot of Shabana and me in the midst of the crowd at the Mount Mary fair. Of course she was instantly recognized; much jostling and misbehaviour followed, ending with Shabana spiritedly delivering a roundhouse whack on the face of a guy who was a particular pest. Things immediately got heated, and I had to step into the melee desperately holding on to my temper. In danger of being lynched if I lost it, I attempted reason and was greeted with more jeering and a response that left me dumbfounded, ‘Why she has to come here then?’

I cannot deny the paradox in my behaviour that my motivation for becoming an actor was not to uncover the secrets of the craft or to serve meaningful work or to make my contribution to society but to be noticed. I wanted to be known, I wanted to be rich, I wanted to be looked at, talked about; and when that started to happen in a serious way I found myself shying away. I hated being accosted and treated with familiarity by strangers and I could no longer take compliments seriously—they came to me even for some very inferior work. I had always thought I’d love signing autographs, in fact had dreamed of the day I would and had practised half a dozen different ones when I was in school. But when it started to happen, and I was often handed crumpled scraps of paper extracted from wallets or visiting cards with no space on them or even tissue paper, and not infrequently after signing was asked what my name was, I decided I hated this utterly meaningless exercise. I am still often mistaken for Om Puri or Girish Karnad or Nana Patekar and congratulated on the work they did in their films. Who they get mistaken for, I don’t know. To none of them do I bear the slightest physical resemblance but I suppose many viewers just lump us all into one category and can’t really tell us apart. When people at an airport (I am very good at the blasé flyer act now, by the way) or a restaurant come up and say they like my films, I appreciate it and would appreciate it more if they’d say it and go away because I am never quite sure they didn’t mean
Arth
or
Swami
or
Ankur,
none of which I was in.

It had been about twelve years since I had last seen Heeba, I knew that she was in Iran and one day received a letter from her in Farsi, which I could not decipher and had no one to help in doing so. Fortunately, along with it was a note from Purveen curtly informing me, ‘Your daughter wants to visit you if you will permit it.’ Ammi was staying with me those days so I got her to write a reply in Urdu permitting it. I was intrigued and anxious at the thought of meeting this child I had barely seen and who I knew not at all.

Ratna and I were also beginning to feel it would be a really good idea to live together now—I wouldn’t have to drop her home every night, for one thing. She was now through with NSD, and with absolutely no accountancy training had single-handedly sorted out the considerable financial mess her father had left behind when he passed away suddenly and much before his time. She spent months poring over accounts, meeting accountants, clearing debts and vainly attempting to collect unpaid dues from some rather big film-industry names. Much before we married, she had also taken over managing my monetary matters and continues to do so, much to my relief. I have only a rough idea how much I earn or how much I pay in taxes and the sight of a balance sheet still unfocuses my eyes, but she knows the numbers. Very quickly I realized my life could do with her kind of balanced approach, it badly needed organizing.

The distinction that I was a slob and she always immaculately turned out apart, we were alike in many ways. I was hot-tempered and impetuous, she was hot-tempered and rational. I found we had similar ideas about what we wanted from life. She made me aware of the worth of family, and her intervention actually brought me closer to Ammi and my brothers with all of whom she formed relationships completely independent of me, and in all of whom I then discovered aspects I had not known before. Besides, not only was she absolutely scrumptious in every way, her calm acceptance of Heeba’s existence testified to her absolutely solid citizen status. I knew I would be safe in her hands and I was right.

Ammi knew how long the relationship had already lasted and had been quite bowled over by the regard and affection with which Ratna always treated her. When I first told her that we were planning to marry she wanted to know if I would ask Ratna to convert to Islam, and when I said I wouldn’t she looked long and hard into my eyes, then nodded once very slowly and ever so faintly. She didn’t say anything but I got the distinct feeling that she didn’t disapprove, and she happily went across to Laxmi Sadan and asked Dina for her daughter’s hand. We didn’t consider any engagement necessary, we had pledged ourselves to each other long ago.

Wedding plans were afoot when nature reiterated, as if reiteration was needed, the absolute truth of how much an actor, to be effective in a film, depends on his performance being orchestrated right by the director. Even though I had managed not to disgrace myself recreating a few Shammi Kapoor songs for a film called
Situm,
it was as obvious as the nose on my face that I was just not the right material for this kind of thing. But there was also the nagging suspicion that I hadn’t yet been cast right. Esmayeel Shroff, who had made some slightly unusual but highly successful films and who had long said he wanted us to work together, offered me the leading part in a film called
Dil Aakhir Dil Hai,
yet another of the kind of romantic films I had always been allergic to. I could not for a second see myself in the part but thinking I had everything to gain—three songs to sing, thus the chance to atone for
Sunaina
—and the fact that I was paired with not one but two gorgeous leading ladies, Rakhee and Parveen Babi, both major-league stars then, made me promptly accept.

Simultaneously a failed actor called Shekhar Kapur, who I had known till then only as Shabana’s boyfriend, came asking if I would act in a film he was planning to make. He said he was adapting the story from a paperback by Erich Segal which he handed me and which I abandoned after Chapter Two, but the premise was interesting and I thought that if well made it had half a chance; besides it was to be shot in the delicious Delhi winter and partly in my old school, St Joseph’s, Nainital. I had begun to enjoy Shekhar’s company and when we discussed the shoot, even though he seemed to know what he was talking about, I went along feeling somewhat uncertain, half fearing this would be another of those annoying family melodramas in which the children could give you diabetes. I have to say I did not entertain the highest hopes for it. A very big lesson was in the offing.

Shekhar said from the start that he didn’t want me to be a ‘character’, he wanted me to be myself, an instruction I found reassuring. I had so far mostly been told what the character is an analogy to, or representative of or a personification of. For the first time since
Sparsh
I was being told that it was my behaviour and my reactions that were needed, not those of an imaginary person. Despite not knowing Shekhar well I immediately felt in a comfort zone with him and, as earlier with Sai, enjoyed the same kind of freedom in revealing myself on camera. I felt trusted and appreciated; the film-maker seemed to know my strengths and weaknesses and would very gently nudge me back on to the right track when needed. It was astonishing sometimes, the way the subtext miraculously appeared in scenes that would be maudlin in the hands of a less perceptive director, and as in
Sparsh
I was helped enormously by a wonderful script. From the moment the first shot was taken it was clear that Shekhar knew his onions and he cared deeply for the performances. I stayed completely stress-free, and apart from giving the production department some anxious moments by developing food poisoning in mid- shoot, I don’t think I gave anyone any trouble at all though at times I did feel like throttling the child lead. Shekhar however was patient and constantly caring, and with unending calm and affection managed to coax out of all of us what I still consider rather good performances.