He is a successful actor, celebrity cricketer and a businessman. As a hero he already has one film which has hit the screen and he is awaiting the release of his second. But what makes him different from others is that Dhruv is deaf and mute from birth.
Having started his film career with Snehanjali, Dhruv explains in his style, how he was bitten by the acting bug. “I used to accompany my father, Suresh Sharma, who is a businessman and senior artiste in the industry for shooting. On the sets, I observed that though the actors come on screen and act, there is somebody else who dubs the voice for them. That’s when I started thinking about acting.”
Going back to his childhood, Dhruv says that when his father noticed that he could not hear well, he made a decision to bring up Dhruv like any other normal child. “When he came to know about his hearing disabilities, he tried to practice sign language, but I was against it. I used to tie his hands and make him pronounce words through lip sync. I sent him to Frank Anthony and later, he managed to complete PUC from KLE college. Later I had to pull him off as he could not match the strength of normal students. That was the time, the entire family gave him full support,” said Suresh.
According to his father, Dhruv is a peculiar child as he listens to sound of high frequency but cannot differentiate the sound.
Today, Dhruv is waiting to start his third film, Luck directed by Girish K and he is awaiting the release of his bilingual film, Hit List (Malayalam and Kannada). He has been complimented by senior actors like Ananth Nag and Om Puri for his extraordinary skills.
His other passion is playing cricket. “My father, being an University player, got me trained under the guidance of Irfan Khan. Today I am happy to be part of the Celebrity Cricket League under Sudeep’s captaincy. In fact one of my memorable matches was playing against Pakistan in 2005 where we had deaf and mute crickets on the field. I was excited to have won against them,” he said.
Suresh was hoping that his son would be selected for the Indian team. “They rejected him only because of his disability. I was upset because they did not see what a brilliant player he is,” Suresh said. Dhruv is married to Ruby and has two kids. “When we asked Ruby, what made her accept Dhruv, she said, ‘I understand Dhruv better than anybody.’ That’s when I knew my son will be settled,” he said.