The giant leap from shantytown to ramp

As a child, Sanjay Padiyar knew when he grew up he would follow in his father’s footsteps and become a blacksmith. What he didn’t know, however, was that he would walk the ramp for designer Narendra Kumar at the prestigious Lakme Fashion Week. He will do it on March 7, 2010.

Padiyar’s story is the stuff Bollywood films are made of — growing up in a slum in Delhi, leaving school at 14, dreaming of a career in films, coming to Mumbai and getting a break as a model. It is also a heart-warming tale of shantytown India’s big aspirations.

But the man who scripted it all remains grounded. “I am born a blacksmith, have married a blacksmith and will die a blacksmith. I just want to try to achieve my dream, I do not care about failure or success,” says the 22-year-old.

Padiyar is in Mumbai with his friend and father figure, French documentary filmmaker Camille Ponsin. For the last one-and-a-half years, Ponsin has been filming Padiyar’s life for a documentary for French television.

“I wanted to document the life of a common young Indian man living on the pavement, who was able to chalk out his own destiny by earning his living with his head and not his hands,” says Ponsin.

Six months into shooting, Ponsin came to know about his subject’s Bollywood aspiration. It took him two months to decide and then bring Padiyar to Mumbai. He was armed with just one stray contact in the fashion world.

That, however, was enough to set up a meeting with Narendra Kumar and Padiyar was asked to audition. “Some of the models there told me to just think of it as a walk in the park. All I needed was the right attitude,” says Padiyar. He took the walk and a few minutes later, he was told he would be walking the ramp on Sunday.

Padiyar’s first trip to Mumbai has been a rollercoaster of emotions: his first glimpse of the sea, his first time on a film set, meeting photographers and designers and learning about the fashion industry. Attributing his journey to Ponsin, he says, “He was the first person to ask me what my dreams were. I told him and here I am.”

The first from his family to step out of Delhi, Padiyar is originally from Chittorgarh, Rajasthan. “My father wanted all his children to have a proper education,” says Padiyar, who dropped out of school in standard IX and started hanging out with a bunch of friends and getting into troubles. It was during this stage that he began to think about trying out his luck in the movies.

The twist in his life came soon. “A group of foreigners would come to teach English in our camp (slum). We would go there just to check them out. Gradually I started taking a liking to the language and wanted to learn it,” he says. When his teachers thought he was good enough, he was told to teach younger children, which he has been doing for the last four years.

Sunday could be the beginning of a new chapter in Padiyar’s life and a new segment in Ponsin’s documentary.