Part 58: I waited. And waited. Finally…

I had just about enough of the 9 to 5 corporate world at Lintas and a year later I quit. After four years, I finally started to walk without crutches. And the movie dream, the actor dream that had been temporarily relegated to the back-burner, came back to the fore with a bang. I started dreaming again.

I continued with stage performances and opportunity search. My mom used to tell me to take rest but I will make her silent by saying that my inner fire will burn me.

I met a gold medalist Rajeshwarirajan from the film institute at Madras. And she wanted me to do a TV serial for in a serial called “Galatta Kutumbam”. I had to act in 6 episodes out of 13.Among the artists were Srividhya Amma , A.R.S. Sri Ram. I had to play the role of boyfriend of a girl named Bijili. There were no dialogues but the director used to explain us the scene and we should speak accordingly. I thought she has one of the most original ideas in those times. She wanted to shoot the entire six episodes shot without pre-written dialogues. That is, she would explain the scene to us and ask us to improvise on the spot.

Basically, she asked us to go ape. And I did.

I was so easily broken into this new medium. The whole thing was so unlike a play. The shooting out of sequence I mean. That TV series really helped. This gave me a lot of confidence. I was sure I would surely get a chance for a movie.

I had also started doing many commercials in the meantime. Can you remember me in the add of “TVS Excel” where I say “TVS Excel” Namma Vandi (our vehicle), holding a cricket bat in my hand? Can you?

But one of the very first was a public service advertisement for drug addiction. The ad was produced jointly by the very prestigious Shivaji Productions and Satya Movies.

Shivaji Production’s Ram Kumar Sir, Satya Movies’ Tyagarajan Sir, A.R .Rehman( then he was Dileep ) and me together .And I got a chance to act in the Add. It would end with the message “Friend who gives you Drug is not your friend”. We shot the entire ad in one day. And that one-day was all I had to go from looking like a healthy stud to a completely worn-out drug addict who is the last stages of his life.

Now that was a huge challenge.

I didn’t quite know the difference between instinctive acting and method acting. And so wasn’t too sure how to approach the problem of looking like two completely different people in one day. So I sat in a corner and just psyched myself into believing that I was a hard-core addict. I repeatedly told myself that I was a lowlife druggie. Over and over again. And after an hour I ‘became’ that drug addict. It was a lesson well learned.

Sometimes you don’t even have to lose/gain weight to ‘look’ different. Your body language, the awkward gait, a stoop here, and suddenly a sturdy-looking guy will appear to be a weakling.

Tyagarajan Sir said, “Vikram! You have acted very well. I’ll call you for my movie.” and left. The producers claimed that one commercial right away established me as an actor to watch out for. So I hoped and waited for a break from the same producers who had been so positive and encouraging.

And absolutely no movies followed! Not even a phone call for the next six months.

Later I also did the advertisements for pepper, television. On the hand, the search for a chance continued. People would send me away saying ‘You are short’, ‘Face is too oval’, ‘you look like a doll’ and other things. Everyday I would look at my reflection in the mirror. He’s too short. His face is way too long. Very disproportionate with the rest of the body. Looks more like an animated figure than a real-life person. The love and appreciation from the film community was overwhelming.

But I waited. And waited.

Finally, Satya Movies called.

Remember my friend Dharani from college? He worked as an assistant direction in films and he called about this movie Nila Penne produced by Satya Movies with Divya Bharati as the female lead.

Dharani, ‘May Madam’ Balu, Actor Selva and I were in the same batch at Loyola. Arvind Swamy was my junior.

I went for the audition and thought I did pretty well.

Dharani came and told very confidently, “Machchan! You are gonna be okay. You will be selected sure”

Five to six months passed but I didn’t hear from them. What I didn’t know was that as actors we were supposed to follow up with these movie companies. My feeling was: I did a great audition. If I was good, they’d call me. And when I didn’t hear from them I just assumed they weren’t interested.

So I waited again. For the next break. And finally got an offer from a bank.

Don’t faint!

There were twenty-one employees from Indian bank who pooled in money. Out of them five people approached me and said, “We are all bank staffs and want to produce a movie.” After a cup of tea together I said, “Okay”.

And that’s how started a movie “En Kaathal Kanmani’’, a spoof on cigarette smoking.

What a joke the film was. I have a girl friend. Her father wants me to quit smoking and hires a detective agency to follow me around. All kinds of slapstick farce ensue. Buckets of water toppling over me! Cigarettes exploding in my face! But I agreed to do it any way. It was a film after all.

On the first day after the pooja I was at the shooting. Merely one hour into the shoot.

When I was at lunch break I got a call from Dharani: ‘Machchaan! Udane kizhambi vaa!! Neenthan Nila Penne’s hero!! (Come immediately. They have selected you as the hero of Nila Penne!).

But I couldn’t! My movie with the bankers had started and that was the first day of the movie. Having committed to them I couldn’t just drop everything and run to Satya Movies.

Explaining the situation I said, “I can’t”.

“Poda (get lost)” He kept the phone down.

My loss was another actor(Arvind Swamy)’s gain. Through Nila Penne didn’t exactly set the box office on fire, the actor (Arvind Swamy)was noticed and he even went on to work with Mani Ratnam!

And my film? Nothing ever went on schedule. We would shoot for three days and then there would be a break for three months. Another week of shooting followed and then a break of five months! The film took over two years to make. It did not complete. And at the end of it I didn’t even know if the film would ever be released. I was worried about my destiny.

Many times I thought I should stop this movie and go to ‘Nila Penne’ but on the other hand I was thinking, “Chee. Isn’t that cheating the people who’ve kept faith in me?”

It’s better to lose a film than to lose trust. Isn’t it..?

At last they said, “We have stopped the movie”!

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