BENGALURU : Turning pages
As I was a successful film actor, my days were like a revolving door through a slew of film studios, outdoor locations both near and far and countless parties in the company of the affluent and the influential. My career graph soared.Achieving fame, fortune and a fabulous fan following through success in films catapults an individual—from leading a regular, invariably drab, tedious and routine-oriented life—to dazzling heights. Reaching this lofty perch, ideally one must strive to maintain a sense of perspective and balance and try not to be carried away by the glitz, glamour and razzle-dazzle of the celluloid world. Inhabiting that rarefied stratosphere, one should not look down upon the other inhabitants of planet earth.
In reality, such a sea change in circumstances often means one is bound to get disconnected from the ground realities. Unknowingly conceit rises to the fore. In my case, my fame greatly exceeded my emotional capacity to handle it with any modicum of equilibrium.At parties, it became my mission to be photographed with the elite crowds by the paparazzi.
In newspapers and magazines, instead of news articles, editorials and analysis on the state of the nation and the world, it became my mission to only search for my photographs. This was the era; TV was just beginning to make its presence felt in different parts of India and had not yet begun wielding its current phenomenal reach. I expected whoever I met to praise me in glowing terms and applaud my performances in diverse roles.
In a word, I was becoming a victim of my own success! In retrospect, I had the sense of candour and reality to realise that I too succumbed like so many others before me. What sets me apart is the fact that my humour rescues and elevates me and holds down my feet. And because of it, I have always emerged smiling and stronger for the insights.
After the phenomenal success of Saaransh, everyone thought that ‘ek aur art film ka actor aa gaya hai’ (another art film actor has arrived) to add to the ranks of Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri. But that was never my dream. I had the clarity of ambition that I wanted to work with commercial directors of the day like Yash Chopra, Manmohan Desai,T. Rama Rao, L. V. Prasad, Subhash Ghai, Prakash Mehra, because the wide-eyed boy from Shimla used to watch their films and dream big.
Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Manoj Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor were my idols. I was not going to be an art film actor. I did not want to live in poverty. I wanted to own a house which I could call my home; I wanted to own a car. I wanted to be a star. There was never any doubt in my mind about this.
I wanted to be written about in the media—small regional newspapers and magazines as well as the top prestigious ones like theTimes of India, the Hindustan Times, Indian Express, The Hindu, The Illustrated Weekly, India Today, Sunday. I loved to be photographed, enjoyed giving out autographs, thrived on applause and was delighted when mobbed by people. I wouldn’t mind travelling anywhere to attend a function, however small or insignificant it be.
I was on a signing spree and I don’t even remember how many films I had signed. But I do recall that the first ‘significant’ film was Laxmi Productions’ Aakhree Raasta. It was momentous because it had Amitabh Bachchan in a double role, along with Sridevi and Jaya Prada in the main cast. A. Purnachandra Rao was a very big producer from the south and K.
Bhagyaraj was a well sought-after director. Another big name attached to it was T. Rama Rao, a well- known stalwart of the industry. Purnachandra Rao came to narrate the story to me and offered me the villain’s role, which was ultimately played by Sadashiv Amrapurkar. He showed me the original Tamil film Oru Kaidhiyan Diary, on which the Hindi film was to be based.Excerpted from Lessons Life Taught Me, Unknowingly, by Anupam Kher, with permission from Penguin Random House India.