While playing Rajesh in Shekhar Kammula’s take on college life — 'Happy Days' — Tollywood actor Nikhil Siddharth got to relive his best moments. “As soon as my final semester project ended, the shooting for 'Happy Days' started. The incidents, the situation and the mood was exactly like that of life in an engineering college. It was so close to real life that it was like being back in college — the ragging, the last-minute cramming, I had lived through it all,” says Siddharth. He resents not being able to do college-centric movies anymore. “In all my other movies, I have played different characters and would love to go back to being a student,” says Siddharth.
An engineering graduate from Muffakham Jah College of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad, Siddharth graduated in computer science and engineering and was a meritorious student in school. “After the rigors of school and two years of intermediate, everyone tends to cut some slack once they join an engineering college. In the first year of my BE, I was very diligent and never missed a class but after that, I discovered my calling is elsewhere. Though I had loads of fun, I never performed poorly in my examinations,” says Siddharth, whose parents (both academicians) made sure that education was always on top of his list of priorities.
Siddharth always liked the idea of being a software pro, though lab sessions scared him. “It was nightmarish to make your program work during a lab session. Usually only three or four students managed to make their programs work and achieve the results while rest of us copied from them,” shares Siddharth. The actor admits that college is not easy and the rosy picture painted in most of the mainstream movies does not connect with real life. “People think it is a cakewalk after 12 years of school. Well, it is not. Everybody tries to cope up and has to balance the fun and academics.”
It is during college that Siddharth came in touch with filmmakers and learned the ropes. “I started by visiting the sets often. This gave me an idea of how things actually work in Tollywood. It was a learning curve and prepared me for my role in 'Happy Days',” says Siddharth, who was an active participant in college culturals. “I had performed in a skit during one of the cultural events at college and it was well received,” confesses Siddharth, of his first foray into acting.
An outgoing person by nature, Siddharth managed to make friends with different sets of people. “I had a lot of friends from the senior batches, among juniors and across disciplines. I was also a part of a group of friends, who would throw parties regularly to enliven the social scene on campus,” admits Siddharth. A regular at the college back-gate — it was the perfect spot for friends to gather and decide on an impromptu movie or a visit to the coffee shop — sessions. “I avoided bunking classes and spending that time at the college canteen as faculty members frequented it. We would collect a group of 15 and make a dash through the back-gate,” chuckles Siddharth.
The actor misses his college friends of four years. “It was fun while it lasted and now all have gone their separate ways,” says Siddharth.
— payal@newindianexpress.com