The guy who had mainly cooked the dish was a relatively rich guy—he later shifted to Rajasthan; he actually owned the house and had given it on rent to Ghannu. In the end, it was just him and Ghannu who were left. Painstakingly, they wiped the mutton curry off the walls, cleaning their abode all night long until it looked habitable again.
The very next morning, this same crowd returned, somewhat sober, but still slightly shameless. (Ghannu’s house was a sort of dharamshala. The key was kept at a certain secret place that everybody had access to. Everybody could go there to hang out or to make out with their girlfriends.) Now, the same guys who had fought, apologized to each other, saying let bygones be bygones. This sounded like an excellent idea and everyone concurred. So they sat down and got drunk again.
Many such events happened all the time. One of these happened when Vijay Raaz had just become a big star, while I was still bitterly battling dark nights of struggle. Jeevan, who was Ghannu’s friend and lived with him, happened to be there. (Back then, he too was a struggling actor. But since success was so bloody hard to come by, he quit everything and headed to Delhi where he is today an established member of the Aam Aadmi Party.) Incidentally, Jeevan was also an old friend of Vijay Raaz’s; they were friends from their college days. He began to express his appreciation for Vijay Raaz, mildly at first, and soon enough moved on to build towers of praise. I was sitting there depressed in a corner, listening quietly. He went on and on, and it got louder and louder. I snapped and lost it! I asked him aggressively, ‘What’s so great about him, huh? What the fuck is so great about him?’ A pin-drop silence ensued. That is how these relationships were. I hung out with these guys and yet behaved like this, letting my ego get in the way. They were no different.
Some days later, Vijay Raaz—who like another friend, Sonu, used to affectionately call me Bakri—confronted me. ‘Bakri, what were you saying about me to Jeevan?’
I said nothing.
‘Have I offended you? Have I said anything to you? Or about you? What, yaar!’ he said, confused about why I had behaved that way.
Slowly, softly I began to string some words together to explain exactly why. ‘Jeevan was raving about you,’ I said in a low voice. ‘He was going on and on and on. I lost it.’ My voice got firmer. ‘Why are you so great, Vijay Raaz? I am also no less of an actor. In fact, if there is one thing brilliant about me, it is my acting. The only difference is that you are successful today. And I am not. You are a star and I am not. But that does not mean that you are a fantastic actor and I am not.’
* * *
Our little tribe of struggling actors grew, and in spite of our cruelty, insanity and selfishness, we were together. It became a sort of a dysfunctional family. We strangled each other, but also looked out for each other in strange ways. Once, Jogibhai called up another friend, Hemant Mishra, who too was parched for work, several times about a shoot but the bugger was not answering. So he called Ghannu and asked him to go up to Hemant’s apartment and inform him. Ghannu went to his house and rang the doorbell. There was no response. He pressed it hard and long, and yet no response. He tried and tried several times. Just when he was about to give up and leave, a voice came from inside. ‘Who?’ Ghannu answered, ‘Ji main, Ghannu!’ They were friends but the bugger would not open the door. He was a bit of a stoner. Rumours had it that he even had a pretty little line of pots of marijuana plants growing healthily in his balcony. So again, Ghannu rang the bell. Again he asked, ‘Who?’ Again he answered, ‘It’s me, Ghannu!’ This strange scene might have been repeated three times. Then finally, he decided to bestow upon Ghannu the grace of opening his front door.
‘Haan, bhai. Tell,’ he said.
‘Tomorrow, you have a shoot of Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam,’ said Ghannu. ‘They have asked you to wear a white shirt and a pair of black pants.’
‘I don’t do such shoots. Get lost,’ he declared, slamming the door on Ghannu’s face.
He was one of India’s finest actors, but was starved of work. He did not have the luxury of choice or even the right to make such declarations in that kind of a desperate situation. And yet, he refused to go to such shoots where he had to bring his own clothes. Such is our breed I guess.
There were days when he smoked up so much that he could not even utter dialogues. Once, perhaps subconsciously inspired by him, I decided to do a little experiment. I too got high, just a little high, not too much, and went on a shoot. I had no idea that it would make me so sleepy that the dialogues I had just worked so hard on learning seemed like I had mugged them up a month ago. When the director said ‘Action!’, I began saying my lines. But they were haphazard and out of sequence. The beginning went to the end, the end to the middle, and so on. The entire flow, and therefore the entire scene, was ruined. The director lost it. ‘What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you saying the latter stuff first, and the first stuff last?’ he shouted. ‘At least I am saying the lines!’ I said. How could I tell him that while I appeared all right externally, from the inside I was done for! My experiment failed badly.
