Who is not a shoemaker???

Dev.D

Yes, I wasn’t in the movie. Yes, I had nothing to do with the production of it in any way, but, it was a big deal for me. No. And the director in question is no shoemaker!

Why?

College was over. I had stopped working with Nadira Babbar’s Ekjute Theatre Group and joined Barry John. Under his direction, we commenced work on a play called Baghdad ka Ghulam. I was excited to know that sometime in the 80s, King Khan himself had played the title role under Barry Sir’s direction.

Barry John's Baghdad ka Ghulam.  I, in orange.

My desire to become an actor was well-known among my peers by now. Someone suggested I go to audition for an Anurag Kashyap film. I greedily agreed!

Aram Nagar is a legendary place. Spotted with Beverly-Hills-like palm trees, it’s a magical place where in the abundant nearby coffee shops, creative people meet. Much in the nature of a marriage consummating, an idea for a film is conceived at every table, and while most such films have a limited release on that very table, some masterpieces actually see light of day. So …I went to 40, Aram Nagar part 2, with greasepaint on my face. Three gentlemen were in a small wooden floored room to take the audition. Vasan Bala * was one of them.

I did what best I could and left. I was called again in a week or so, for the second round. I was hopeful since the auditioners told me I wasn’t so bad. Auditionees are always hopeful when they aren’t outright rejected. Auditioners don’t praise openly, and rejection is usually just a smirk or a simple ‘that’s enough.’

The same week I auditioned for another film …to be directed by the maker of ‘Khosla ka Ghosla’. That too went okay I thought.

Weeks turned into months and my phone didn’t ring… I gave up all hope on being the modern Devdas’s Chandramukhi.  At the very first public performance of Baghdad ka Ghulam, my phone rang. I had made it, but the film wasn’t Dev.D. It was Oye Lucky,Lucky Oye, to be produced by UTV and directed by Dibakar Banerjee. I got excited about my part although I knew nothing about the project or what I was to do in it.

The beautiful Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye received a standing ovation at its premiere at IFFI in Goa, 2008.  It was there that I met Mr. Kashyap for the first time. To my utter disbelief, he remembered me. “You were very good as Dolly, (my OLLO character). You were also competent in my film’s audition. Kaam karenge saath…” were his parting words to me as he hastily departed before the cameras started hounded him and Kalki. It was semi-surreal. He had appreciated me and left, like a genie a cloud of smoke. I smiled.

Obviously, I hadn’t taken his promise seriously.  An accomplished filmmaker promising to work with a start-out is like saying ‘see you’ to someone who you may never meet again. But still in my head, it was a ‘see you’ and not a ‘see you when I see you’.

Mr. Kashyap, at work

 In the summer of 2010, I was to meet Mr. Kashyap at 40, Aram Nagar.  I mention the office with such reverence because it’s like a sanctuary.  Many aspiring directors, producers and artists are fed a simple meal of dal-chawal every afternoon. For most that work with the filmmaker, it’s second home.

My meeting with Anurag was magical.  “Would you consider doing a small part in my film… its…” “I would play a curtain in your frame!” I declared. The way my voice surged out of my larynx shocked me.  And I had cut him off. He smiled suddenly.

(My mind wandered to several years back. I was watching a tele-film called ‘Last Train to Mahakali’ in a programme called Star Bestsellers.  My dad abruptly turned the TV off. “What kind of deviant stories they show nowadays”. Too late, I had already made a mental note of the young ‘deviant’ director. Smirk.)

 So, years later, when on the 15^th of August of 2010, my phone rang, and Anurag Kashyap asked me to play the main lead in his forthcoming epic drama, three tears of joy rolled down my left eye. When I had asked him what I had done to deserve this meaty,mammoth,super-challenging part, he said something I could not believe. “It was your Dev.D audition. And OLLO just confirmed your caliber to me!”

The universe conspires in a way which we don’t always comprehend. Dev.D is as special to me as my first film. And Anurag Kashyap didn’t break his promise. Hence he is no shoe-maker. ;-)

(*Though Vasan Bala can be confined to no foot-note, he is the person who will object loudliest if an entire blog post is dedicated to him. The talented man, who auditioned me for Dev.D, went on to direct me in an unusual short film called The Wet Bride. He also became a friend who sucked at keeping in touch but gave me the confidence shot I wanted sometimes. He believed in me consistently. Sadly, I couldn’t work with him in his debut film Peddlers of Death. The devil who misguided me was sitting on my left shoulder and he had eaten alive the angel perched on my right. The working of the universe in this case, I am yet to comprehend. But I felt a tingle in my spine when I heard, TODAY, that Peddlers… has made it to the Critic’s week at Cannes 2012. Thacchimammam :-D )

The director of Wet Bride, getting wet.