RAHUL DEV: ON THE HORIZON

By Fuad Omar.

When I first spoke to Rahul Dev I knew things can only be going upwards from then. When someone who's a favourite among the people, has hoardings being stared at by everyone from rickshawallahs to high-class socialites and is a presence no one can ignore, picks up the phone and greets you with a friendly "Hi," you know you have half the battle won.

Prior to our conversation I had only met Rahul once and that too in passing at the Daman music launch party, had only seen him in Champion and that too in glimpses, and so in theory, even though I was not fully exposed to him, I had the upper hand since he had never heard of me. Rahul Dev, superstar-actor of today who's growth in such a short span of time and conscientiousness and dedication was ensuring he would be crowned the megastar of tomorrow, was kind enough to invite me into his home for an interview. He's done well with Champion, is being eagerly awaited in Asoka and Indian and has much more lined up. And to top it off he was an international supermodel before it all happened. I ask him to go back to the beginning and tell me how it all started, and discover there's much more to him than meets the eye.

"I started back seven and a half years ago in November 1993. I was studying to be an engineer in Bangalore and was in my last year of college and had come down for a prep leave to Delhi, as that's where I'm from" he tells me as I notice his towering height over me. Feeling rather short I raise my head a little just so I feel a little taller, while mentally witnessing his story. "I met this guy called Rohit Khosla at Ghungroos Disco, and he was the premiere fashion designer of this country. So he just saw me from afar and kind of liked how I looked and came up to me and shook my hand and said 'Hi, my name's Rohit and I make clothes and I'd like to shoot you in a few of my designs'. Now I had no clue as to who he was as I have a middle class background and don't hang around with designers. My father was a commissioner in the police and my mother a principal in a school. I was a cricketer in school and used to play for the Delhi State School boys and won awards in the under 15 and under 19 categories, and so life for me was one dimensional. I knew who Imran Khan was and had huge posters of his up on my walls, I knew who Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev were, but in terms of fashion I didn't know one designer from the next. But my friends knew who he was and said he's big and I thought it'd be fun, so we met up two days later."

From being someone who dreamt of conquering the cricket pitch to being able to master the big screen, Rahul's story reads like a fairytale. He re-lives those days as he continues, his every look dancing around his words as though he still cannot believe how kind God has been to him. "I did a really bad shoot where I was sweating profusely and had no idea where to look when he said profile or I didn't know the A to Z of cameras or how to look. But the pictures came out looking nothing like me, they were stunning and I was shocked" he says with a smile. "I was amazed and they were really good shots done by one of our top photographers called Prabhota Dasgupta. It was like destiny. The best designer of the country designs you and the best photographer shoots you and even though you do really badly at the shoot and cannot relate to the lens at all, but the pictures come out good because you have some good bones on your face which God gave you and photographed well" he says modestly. His cell phone rings and he takes a quick call, before moving on. "Raymonds which is a hundred year old company here that makes clothes, they were looking for a man for their clothing and I got the job because of those photos and I signed a two year contract with them. I then signed a year's contract with a vehicle company called the Tata Sierra which was big in 1994, and their only competition at the time was something like the Maruti 800. So it was a big vehicle launch and all of a sudden I was on billboards and in the centre pages of magazines so I got noticed and people were asking 'who is this guy?'. So I continued doing that until 1997, then Mira Nair offered me a role in her film Kama Sutra." He goes on to say how he declined the role and how she even offered him a role in her soon-to-be released and extremely popular on the film festival circuit movie, Monsoon Wedding, but again it was not meant to be. I ask if he was taken aback by the press attention once he became a known face. "The press were kind to me and featured me as one of the first four Indian supermodels in Society magazine and as one of the ten most sexiest men of the millennium in the Times of India, and so I made my name because the media were good to me. Mukul Anand got to hear of me and I got a call from his office and Mukul spoke to me and offered me the role of Mas Ghul, the most wanted man in the country, in Dus." Dus is a film that brings back memories. It was a film I looked forward to as well, but again was not meant to be. Mukul Anand's unfulfilled dream was mostly a masterpiece written in his mind and so it has never been completed. The story of a Hindu army officer (Salman Khan), a Muslim freedom fighter (Sanjay Dutt) and how they join forces to capture the most wanted man in India was big budget, full of technical brilliance and shaping up to be a masterpiece, but it was not to happen. "In 1997 Mukul passed away and so Dus was shelved, and Champion began. The film took a long time to make, around two years and six months to see the light of day, but I guess it happened for the best and at the right time because it earned me two nominations for the Screen Awards, Best Newcomer and Best Actor in a Villainous Role. So I guess it all worked out well, everyone liked what I did in the film and it did okay business. It's because of that film I got Feroz's film which I've signed and Vikram Bhatt's and of course I have Asoka. I auditioned for that role because I really respect Santosh Sivan and consider it an honour to be working with him."

So that's Rahul Dev's story. The man who frightened me with his dimly lit ripping body in the promos of Champion, the man who's looking great in Asoka and is all set to make a splash internationally and is still constantly a favourite among the filmi press. His aim is to establish his acting credentials and the roles he's taken on do just that. "The roles I have show a great degree of varying emotions and hopefully it'll show that I'm not here to be a star, I'm here to break into the mould of an actor and do good work. I want to shed my image of a model and be recognised as an actor, and I'm not from theatre or TV or even have any acting background, so for me this is all new and I'm working hard and hope I can be appreciated." On that note his sincerity and conviction are well-balanced and I think the past hour and a half have been spent in the presence of a fighter who has something to prove - Less to the world and more to himself, to show anyone who has any reservations they are wrong to do so. He has top films lined up and meaty roles. So don't be surprised if you see Rahul Dev everywhere tomorrow, because wherever you go, you can't escape him.