In the weeks that followed, I looked back at my many pursuits, my potential love stories that never materialized and I wondered why it was that I was the only one not getting any girls. I tried hard but I could not get into a relationship. After deep contemplation it dawned on me that perhaps this was not my department at all. Perhaps it was best if I left it. And that was exactly what I did. Instead, I focused fully and solely on my work for those four or five years. It is that diligence, that focus which has brought me to where I am today.
* * *
The National School of Drama had no shortage of eccentric people. There was this guy, whose name I don’t even know, who would come up to me and ask, ‘Do you want to hear my speech of Ashwatthama? I can do it even better than Naseeruddin Shah!’ I had just begin to nod my head and say all right, buddy, show me what you’ve got. But before I would even nod, leave alone speak, he would begin his theatrical speech of this character from the Mahabharata. Once it was done, I’d say, ‘Very good, yaar! Very good!’ He would leave and accost whoever else was nearby and begin the process again, and repeat it an umpteen number of times with an umpteen number of people. He would begin in the morning and proceed to bore the daylights out of all the unlucky people who happened to be there, right until dusk.
One of my favourite things about NSD was Vijay Shukla. He was my senior, not academically—he was not in the school itself but in the repertory wing of NSD—but in theatre, in terms of his acting experience, his expertise. I have met many fine actors and many fine personalities but none as fine as him. There was Rajesh Khanna, the actor who had won over the entire nation at the time. And then there was Vijay. Both of them were stars. The fact that I’m comparing him to Rajesh Khanna illustrates just how charismatic and unforgettable this man’s personality was. I have never met anybody like either of them. Even after all these years, I am still totally in awe, perhaps more in awe of Vijay than of the superstar.
Vijay would give electrifying performances with incredible nonchalance. He had this completely effortless cool factor about him, like he didn’t give a damn about anything, which made people go mad over him, and earned him quite a fan following. His casual effortlessness, his rock-star indifference, was his quintessence. Viewers would queue up in the auditorium, quivering with excitement to watch him on stage. He would stand on the side of the auditorium wearing the costume of the character he was playing and walk right from there to the stage to play his part.
One fine day, a young girl who happened to be a diehard fan of his, accosted him on the street after his performance and expressed her great admiration for him.
‘I am a huuuuge fan of yours,’ she said.
‘Hmm . . .’ He lit a cigarette, took a deep, satisfying drag and said with his trademark apathy, ‘How big a fan?’
‘A very, very, very big fan,’ she said earnestly. ‘I can do anything for you, Vijay.’
‘Really?’ he remarked, almost condescendingly.
‘Really!’ she insisted.
‘Like what?’ he asked, apparently uninterested. ‘What can you do?’
‘Oh, I don’t know!’ She fumbled nervously. ‘But anything you say. I could even marry you!’ she said excitedly.
‘Cool. Let’s get married then,’ Vijay remarked coolly as if he was discussing the weather.
‘Wait. What?’ she gasped.
‘Yes. Isn’t that what you just said?’
‘Umm . . . yes, I did. But like here? Like right now? I mean . . .’ She was nonplussed at this shocking proposition.
‘Yes, why not?’ he said quietly.
Then he called out to a person nearby, who was another actor, and told him something. Immediately, this guy read a few mantras and these two strangers were married right then and there on the footpath! Obviously, they separated a few days later but then that’s not the story.
* * *
After passing out of NSD like so many had before me, I too refused to get out of the hostel. The authorities issued multiple warnings to leave, all of which fell on deaf ears. It was ridiculously hard to leave. We had spent golden years there, built bonds for life. We did not know what the world outside held for us. We had no jobs. We had nowhere to go. Sure, we could have joined the repertory, and many did. But I could not, because of all that I had heard about it. Its reputation for creativity was not as great as the school’s was and moreover there was a lot of politics going on there.
Then an opportunity showed up by word of mouth. It was as if an invisible, generous genie had heard our unspoken pleas for work. A little troupe was performing street plays as advertisements for oil, soap and all kinds of other consumer products. Each actor would get Rs 100 per day. I left NSD and joined immediately. We did about four or five shows each day. The producer had a van. There were nearly half a dozen of us. All of us would huddle together inside the van, placing our
