I stood there, taking it all in and trying to understand what I should do. Meanwhile, Mukesh went to a corner and squatted.
‘What are you doing, Mukesh?’
‘Didn’t the director ask us to improvise? I am milking my buffalo,’ he stammered.
‘What should I do?’ I asked.
‘How would I know? Aap toh National School of Drama se hain. Mele se kyon pooch lahe hain. Aap kalo jo bhi kalna hai. (You are from the National School of Drama. Why are you asking me? You do whatever you want to do),’ he lisped cutely.
Meanwhile, the camera was ready and the director appeared asking us if we were.
‘Yes, sir! Ready!’ we chorused.
‘Action!’ the director said.
‘Mele bhains ko danda kyon mala? Mele bhains ko danda kyon mala?’ (Why did you hit my buffalo with a stick? Why did you hit my buffalo with a stick?) Mukesh began singing and acting as if he was milking a buffalo.
I simply stood there wondering what to do.
‘Where is this buffalo of yours, Mukesh? I cannot see any around,’ I asked.
‘It is here. I am miming,’ he replied.
‘What will I do?’ I asked.
‘You do whatever you want,’ he said.
‘If you can milk an invisible buffalo, then I suppose I too can do anything,’ I thought out aloud.
‘What will you do?’
‘All right, Mukesh, open your mouth,’ I said. He opened his mouth and I made a gesture of putting something inside it.
‘What was that?’ he asked.
‘Sugar, tea leaves and a bit of your buffalo’s milk,’ I said. ‘All prepared on the stove over there,’ I said, pointing to an empty corner.
By now, the director had had enough of this nonsense.
‘You motherfuckers! Stop wasting our time. Is this your preparation? Is this your improvisation?’ he shouted angrily. ‘Get lost, you motherfuckers. Get out now!’ We ran out of the office and into the street, afraid that he might hurl something at us.
Those days we used to walk long distances. We walked for so long that we reached Juhu. All the while we did not utter a single word to each other. Our silence was fermenting with tension.
‘What happened, Mukesh?’ I said, finally breaking the silence.
‘Mele ma–behen kalne pe tule ho aap!’ he screeched.
‘Arrey? How did I? How did I fuck you up?’
‘Arrey! Couldn’t you have assumed at least?’
‘Assumed what?’ I asked.
‘When we rehearse and somebody pretends to hand you a cup of tea, we assume that there is a real cup of tea, right? We assume there is.’ He was furious.
‘Aap assume nahin kal sakte?’ (Why can’t you assume?)
‘I am sorry, yaar,’ I told him earnestly.
The reason Shaikh was so adorable was because Mukesh is. Acting is really that simple. You merely observe the spirit of the person beyond its totality and then portray it on screen. A human being is not really as complicated as we make him out to be. There are a few basic elements which pain him, which move him, you remove one or two of them and he is happy. Life is a game of these few fundamentals as a result of which, acting is as well. The rest are decorative details.
My character Tehmur in Talaash is a rehash of my own brother Ayaz’s, who I have been observing with intense attention for years, and continue to even today whenever I go to Budhana. People think I worked so incredibly hard on that character. Not at all. Most of the time, I am simply copying the colourful characters I have known in real life. For many people, the most compelling role I have played so far has been that of Khan, the aggressive Intelligence Bureau official in Kahaani. However, it is a simple rehash of a person in real life—my cousin, my tau’s son.
Initially, when I am just introduced to the role I’ll be playing, then yes, I am certainly a little clumsy and out of sync. Then as you try to get into the shoes of the character, into the unconscious mind of the character, you slowly begin to get better. And as soon as you are able to get into the spirit, the very essence of the character and make it your own, you get into an incredible flow. The gestures and the postures of the character become yours. The voice becomes yours. And once this initial physicality has been taken care of, you get into the heart and soul and psyche of the character. You go so deep that you can easily predict what he will do next. You even know what the character is thinking in his free moments.
But then come the lessons I learnt working with so many directors in theatre—you must not prepare for the character at an emotional level. You have to try to understand the politics, the chaalbaazi, of the character. What does this guy really want? How can he use some jugaad to improvise a situation? What are his survival tactics? As an actor, your characterization should be to the level that you must know how this guy sits in the toilet. And for how long he sits there. How does he sleep? You understand the character like you know yourself, ideally even better than you know yourself. That is the moment when you know you have truly grasped the character.
Like Robert De Niro did in the film Raging Bull where he played the boxer Jake LaMotta so brilliantly. De Niro took permission from LaMotta to stay with him for four months to do exactly this. The director Martin Scorsese agreed to pay LaMotta. De Niro used to sleep next to him, wake up with him, have breakfast with him and
