MANOJ BAJPAI: THE ROAD AHEAD

By Fuad Omar.

Manoj Bajpai is one of India’s most underrated actors. He’s proved his acting prowess on more than one occasion and in a diverse range of roles, contributing to films that have not only seen mainstream success but also pushed forward new genres and experimental film to the forefront. There is no actor who can imitate Manoj Bajpai better than himself and he has yet to disappoint. Be it the hardcore gangster of Bhiku Mhatre in Satya, the doorbell ringing semi-psychopath in Kaun, the epitome of evil in Aks or the cool, calm and collected killer in Fiza, Manoj Bajpai has a body of work that would make any actor green with envy. 

When I meet Manoj he’s come from the gym and has been kind enough to come to where I am rather than risk me getting lost in the city of dreams. He’s taller than I expected and looking in great shape. We begin with a discussion about his work and films and I express my enthusiasm for the type of cinema he is promoting and contributing to, that deviates from mainstream commercial cinema.

Fixing his eyes sharply on me, he smiles and says:
“Thank you Fuad. The kind of performance and films I believe in, I really do need support for that kind of work.”

I begin by asking why it is he’s opted for a road less travelled and chosen to perform in films that tend to be never-before-defined and break new ground in terms of genre, yet do not exactly set the box office alight.

“I strongly believe that for me, the box office is not the yardstick of success. The box office outcome is something no-one can predict. Your work is something millions of people are going to see and decide what they think of it. I cannot control or decide that, I can only work on myself and give my all to my performance and fall over myself to give my utmost best. There are certain things I want to offer to the audience and that’s because after a beautiful history of Indian cinema I want to offer them something that’s slightly different and is a change from what they’re used to seeing. Now is the time they deserve a great change in the quality of films and performance. They can choose only from the number of films that are put before them and we should experiment in terms of storytelling, narration, execution and looks because it is a time of great change.” 

“Even if we take the overseas market as an example which has just opened up to Indian cinema, let’s take this market and use it to our advantage. Let’s open our cinema globally and allow everyone to share in its magic.”

Indian cinema has definitely been accepted more worldwide now but only to an extent. What started with appreciation for something that is colourful but is ‘too long’ and ‘has too many songs’ has grown to an acceptance that these films can actually make an impact on both filmgoers and the box office. Which films would he say opened the door to the trend?

“The two films that I think introduced the outside world to Indian cinema were Salaam Bombay and Bandit Queen and we have to thank Shekhar Kapur and Mira Nair for that. These were followed by films credited to Ram Gopal Verma and Mani Ratnam, who I feel are great directors. After a long gap you have these extremely talented and visionary directors. After Mehboob Khan and Guru Dutt-saab and Bimal Roy there was a gap of good filmmakers, then there came Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani but they were restricted by their resources so there films could not reach an outside audience. But now we have the means and are reaching a wider audience and our films are improving in quality and technically, but we still have further to go.” “Let’s feel proud of Lagaan and of Bandit Queen and Salaam Bombay and Satya and all these films, but we cannot afford to get satisfied. We are still a poor country and have limited resources and have to make much better a product to sell it to the world and say ‘yes we are capable even with our limited resources and we can match you guys’.”

Manoj Bajpai began his career playing side roles in films like Dastak (for which he also contributed to dialogue) and has grown to being given the opportunity to grow as an actor and exhibit emotions to the most complex of roles be they light entertainment or socially targeted films. He is considered today an inspiration to not only the film fan and aspiring actors but also to those who are demanding a break from formulaic cinema. I ask the chameleon thespian who his inspirations are.

“As an actor I am inspired by two people. One is the goldmine that is Mr Naseeruddin Shah and I feel it’s a shame our industry in mainstream cinema couldn’t explore that talent. I feel he is on par with the De Niros and the Pacinos of the West. Then you have Mr Amitabh Bachchan who has such a strong charisma, personality and reservoir of talent that it’s a shame it’s never been fully used. He’s only been exploited in mainstream commercial cinema which doesn’t give you that much scope to explore your own talent. But now at his age he is finally getting what he deserves and getting good roles to perform. Then in directors I’d say Shekhar Kapur, he is one of the best directors I have ever worked with, he is one hell of an intelligent director. Then there’s Ram Gopal Verma who is extremely unpredictable and loves to surprise both himself and the audience. He loves to experiment with new things and devote everything to his concept. And in the new generation I’d say there’s Rakesh Mehra. I think he has great potential to shock the world. There is no doubt he knows his craft and has the understanding of cinema.” 

At the Filmfare Awards function as Mr Bachchan picked up his award he thanked Manoj Bajpai and said all he had to do was copy him, so the award was as much Manoj’s as it was his. Prior to this also he has complimented Manoj’s acting continuously much to the elation of Manoj. As I raise this issue, he smiles with humbling pride and attempts to tell me his reaction to Mr Bachchan’s comments.

“I think Mr Bachchan is going to spoil me very badly. The kind of words he has used to describe me in the past three years make me feel like packing my bags and going back to my village because that’s enough for me. If you ask me what goals I had when I left my village with dreams of becoming an actor, they have all been achieved by what Mr Bachchan has said and that I have worked with him. His words are more than enough a reward for my efforts. But I feel he is also being very modest, I learnt so much from him.”

Manoj himself is forthcoming about how Mr Bachchan has always been an inspiration to him. How did it feel to be standing side-by-side in the same frame and acting with his childhood hero?

“It was an impossible dream I had that was fulfilled. I never imagined it but dreamt it, and said dream karne ka kya jaata hai! I can’t explain in words what kind of village I come from and how far it is from modern civilisation. My co-villagers are still not exposed to the outside world and don’t have access to electricity even now, so you can imagine the kind of place I come from. So for me, it’s very difficult to explain how I feel after having worked for so many years, after having worked with Mr Bachchan and having heard all that he has said about me. It’s something that makes me feel one phase of my life is over now and now I have to look for a new goal and inspirations in order to move on.”

His comments about his home town intrigue me and I ask him to recount his story for me, and tell me how he made it from Bihar to Bombay.

“It’s a typical villager’s story. I’m a low middle class farmer’s son who has six children and we had little money. There were a lot of problems in terms of money and education but my parents saw to it that we all finished our graduation before we do anything. I was always too much into Hindi movies and it was Mr Bachchan’s performance in Zanjeer which did something to me that made me realise this is what I want to do. I never told anybody I wanted to become an actor because in our society actors were not respected and if you become one you’re looked down upon. I went to Delhi telling my parents I wanted to go to university and they told me it was too expensive and they could only afford to give me the ticket, beyond that I’d have to support myself because they had five other children to look after. I said fine and headed off to Delhi and my father sent me money from time to time and my friends supported me. I never looked upon it as a tough phase because to me it was like child’s play. We thought ‘if we don’t have money then we don’t have money, let’s do something about it. Let’s fool or con somebody!’ It was quite an experience! The people I met at that time encouraged and supported me a lot.”

Manoj has been taught by the renown acting teacher Barry John, the same man who trained Shah Rukh Khan and is an acting institution in himself.

“He’s my guru,” he tells me as I utter his name. “When I started doing professional theatre I met this man and I was taken to his workshop and that’s when he invited me to assist him and in the bargain he would train me. That was a huge blessing and a compliment to my hard work. I assisted him for four years and he guided me and taught me the overall craft and whatever I am today is because of him.”

And where Manoj is today is on cloud nine. He is part and parcel of some of the best movies to hit the screen this side of the millennium and has much more lined up. From such a small village he has travelled and achieved so much. I wonder out loud how it must feel to go back and see where he came from. He smiles again and lost in a moment tells me:

“I see the affection and admiration in everyone’s eyes when I go back to my village. They feel great pride and that’s something that’s quite overwhelming because through my own journey I can give them some kind of hope that all of them can do it.” 

Eyeing his watch as he has another appointment immediately after mine, we quickly go through his films and then he gives me a warm hug before he leaves. As he dons his shades and smiles, he tells me:

“Give my warmest regards and love to my fans”. And with that Manoj Bajpai, thespian chameleon, warm human being and actor extraordinaire disappears to go and do what he does, make some more movie magic! 


MANOJ ON HIS FILMS

Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar

“That was a symbolic film about how you start getting caught up in urban ways. You think you’re doing the right thing but when you look in the mirror after twenty years you feel numb. You don’t have any emotions left or have any of the ones you carried with you from your village. That innocence, trust and hope is gone. It was a very symbolic film but I feel we went wrong somewhere that not everyone could understand it.”

Shool

“It was a film I took as putting Zanjeer’s Amitabh Bachchan in this day, age and time. He is no more a hero. He is an aged selfless cop who is cursed by his wife, his father and the whole of society. The same cop is no more a hero if you put him in today’s society. His wife says ‘why are you ruining our life’ and his father doesn’t understand why he’s doing this, the family have gone against him and killed his stand and definition of duty and that’s why he’s on the verge of suicide. That’s the way I looked at it.”

Aks

“I haven’t done a role as such, I was personifying evil. It was similar to Kaun in the sense that in that film too I had to play an ordinary man who appears to be a killer, but isn’t. There’s no description of where’s he come from or who he is. He’s put in an extraordinary situation and looks like a killer when he’s not. It was a very difficult performance and after that one was Aks. I play a metaphor of evil in that film and had to give flesh and blood to this metaphor. Evil is many things. It’s arrogant, flamboyant, attractive, seductive, frightening and also very human at the same time. So to put all these things into a person and characterise what kind of person this man should be was very difficult. The arrogance, coldness and knowledge evil has that it will win was tough to portray. To an extent everyone wants to be a great lover like Raghuvan, everyone wants to walk like him, be a great brother like him and everyone wants that ignorant arrogance like him and be as sure of themselves as he is. We wanted to make him look attractive physically and characteristically. The affair he has with his girlfriend is the kind people crave for in a relationship, there’s no questions, just love. It was very difficult to write lines for this character and I suggested that it should be something that say ‘I know what you say and teach but I’m only doing that’ – Na koi marta hai na maarta hai, aapne kahan hai! When he kills he lusts for it, evil is like that. Every moment be it when he goes to a strip club or when he kills, he’s enjoying it. The performance had to be that powerful that it attracted the audience.”

Coming Up:

“My forthcoming films are Road which is directed by Rajat Mukherjee and produced by Ram Gopal Verma, there’s Danger where I’m working with Urmila, then there’s Panchee which is directed by Partho Ghosh and Line of Control which has many stars and I’m one of the soldiers and one Indo-Canadian film which I have signed with a new director.”