Slights, chimera, redemption

Although hope may be evanescent in Bollywood for newcomers, three highly talented Delhiites have discovered that for those who persevere in India’s unforgiving filmdom, there is certainly no business like show business 

Sushant Singh: Actor

In the early 90s, when Sushant Singh was already a well-known actor in Delhi’s theatre circles, he played the famously complex Stanley Kowalski with the ominous edginess of a clenched fist. Singh easily negotiated the nuanced, pointless viciousness of Tennessee Williams’ protagonist of A Streetcar Named Desire.

The young actor decided to move to Mumbai in 1996. Singh describes the transition: “I kept auditioning and was universally rejected.” Indeed, Singh’s early days in Mumbai organised themselves in a mocking montage of rejection, bit-parts and struggle. 

“I began to play unnamed characters in unknown serials. Then someone told me that if I wanted to get out of the rut I needed a good portfolio” says Singh. Borrowing money from his father, Singh went to the now famous photographer Dabbu Ratnani. “I took the pictures to Chetan Anand who I had heard was casting for a new film.”

Anand had rejected Singh at an earlier audition. Fortunately the flux of Bollywood entrants had overwritten the director’s memory. “I could not believe it when Anand told me that he was signing me as the lead!” Then, on the eve of the public announcement of the project, the producer came by to size up Anand’s new find. “The man was horrified because he thought my snout was too big,” he says. Success had thumbed its nose at Singh again. 

Luck finally turned for Singh when he accepted a small role in Satya against his friends’ counsel. His intensity in the tiny part was noticed by Ram Gopal Varma.

A role in Kaun was followed by the memorable part in Jungle and substantial opportunities in 16 December and Legend of Bhagat Singh.

“I don’t have the right family name. Otherwise roles would come even if I flopped 15 times. Even today, many prominent producers don’t pay actors unless they are superstars.”

Singh, however, has had great experiences with his peers, making the struggle worthwhile.

“The actors, whether it is Amitabh Bachchan or Shah Rukh Khan, don’t impose the star-system, the producers do.”

Anuradha Tiwari: Writer/Director

Anuradha Tiwari’s Bollywood career began with an impudent ad-lib flourish that usually obscures plot-holes in expensive movies. A day after graduating from Delhi’s Mass Communication Research Centre, she was outside Mahesh Bhatt’s office. “Are you good,” Bhatt asked, as Tiwari strode into the room. “No, I am brilliant,” she said. Bhatt approved of her bravado first and, later, her unblinkered approach to creativity.

As an assistant director of Papa Kahte Hain, her first project with Bhatt, Tiwari felt no anxiety in stonewalling veterans. “We were recording a song and Javed Akhtarsaab had to step out. I don’t know why, but he asked me to monitor diction before he left.” One of the words in the lyrics — parbat — seemed awkward. “Recording stopped for several hours as I tried convincing everyone, including the music director Rajesh Roshan, that the word should be pronounced parvat.” In the end, Tiwari worked out that Akhtar had used parbat to rhyme with mohabbat! In her next professional engagement, as a creative director in Anupam Kher’s company, Tiwari developed a series called Silent Love Story for Star Plus. Paradoxically, the ambitious retro non-talkies concept was considered ahead of its time. She then conceived India’s first live animation series.

“This time, marketing issues put paid to the project,” she says. Tiwari contented with reversals by accepting a string of high-profile media jobs:  Channel [V]’s supervising producer and later, the national creative director of Crest Communications.  Tiwari scripted her re-entry into films with Subhash Ghai’s Yaadein in 2001. Since then she has been a full-time writer for cinema projects and TV. “I strongly believe in mainstream cinema. It is a big canvas from where the strongest messages can be sent.”

Ravi Walia: Cinematographer

Light is governed by the precise laws of physics. Yet it can also clarify the fickleness of human emotion. Light’s capacity to blaze at the extremities of experience fascinated Ravi Walia much before he enrolled into Delhi’s Mass Communication Research Centre — the media school where he would meet a bright classmate called Anuradha Tiwari. Walia’s other obsession was cinema; and he found himself drawn inexorably to the point where light and story-telling intersected: cinematography. “When I settled in Mumbai in 2000, I would take my show-reel to someone who was directing, say, a music video. And the reaction would be ‘Oh! But this is an ad-film’. This really pissed me off.” Walia is amazed that the producer types imagine light to come in discrete genre-specific packages.

Once he graduated in 1995, Walia shot a series of shows for TV18, including Bhanwar. He was soon brought on board of the Amul India Show on Star Plus. Although he later became involved in some exciting projects, such as Discovery Channel’s journey through the ancient silk route to China, Walia was not getting the jollies. He decided to leave Delhi.  At work in the world’s busiest industry, he found personal score-settling was gratuitous and lovingly planned. “If the crew did not like the director, he would be isolated and his work sabotaged. A cinematographer’s crucial equipment would go missing at the most critical moment. After several months in Mumbai, I had almost devoured my bank balance. I had no choice but to work on ads and serials,” says Walia. Then a remarkable coincidence thrust him under the big-banner. “I was shooting Hakeekat for Sahara. One of the actors sent a segment of the serial to Ram Gopal Varma to pitch for work. Somebody in Verma’s office noticed the camerawork and gave me a call!”

“I shot one of the several stories that constitute Darna Zaroori Hai,” he says. On that platform Walia’s work was visible to other directors such as Siddarth Srinivasan and Anubhav Sinha. Walia describes his experience in Srinivasan’s project, Amavas, as “extremely rewarding.” Anubhav Sinha’s Tatasthu — with Sanjay Dutt and Amisha Patel — is the latest addition to Walia’s portfolio. He hopes to work with Sinha again in January, “He is wonderful because his grasp of technical complexities as well as artistic concerns is absolutely perfect.”