UNLIKE MOST KIDS HIS AGE, Ranbir Kapoor
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THE FAULTS IN OUR STARS THE KASHYAP BROTHERS, ANURAG AND ABHINAV, HAVEN’T PROVEN TO BE LUCKY FOR RANBIR KAPOOR. BUT, THAT STILL DOESN’T MEAN HE ISN’T ALREADY THE DEFINING ACTOR, AND SUPERSTAR, OF HIS GENERATION. BY TANUL THAKUR Besharam Ranbir Kapoor wasn’t big on cricket; UNLIKE MOST KIDS HIS AGE, he preferred football. And, he was more than half a decent player. Besides playing in under-14 and under-16 tournaments, he also played at the district level. Kapoor’s love for football, however, didn’t happen by chance. “There were so many better cricket players than me. So, I guess that was a bit of a hang-up that I would not play cricket, I would play football, because I am at least good at this,” Kapoor said in a September 2012 interview. Excelling at the game was as important as playing it. If Kapoor couldn’t master the game, he wasn’t going to sulk and mope; he would choose a different game instead. Close to a decade and a half later, around August 2008, Kapoor was a fledgling entrant in a much bigger game — one that sees many participants, few heroes; one where fame and obscurity is separated by one Friday; one that operates by its own mysterious rules. Kapoor had been a Bollywood actor for around a year, but his choice of films, or roles, lacked depth — his debut, Saawariya, a commercial and critical disaster, was the kind of film that decimates careers in Bollywood; his second, Bachna Ae Haseeno, was a banal romcom. Bollywood wasn’t unfamiliar with these stories: a star son stumbling, making tried-and-tested choices, contributing nothing valuable and, finally, retrograding to being anonymous again. Kapoor hadn’t found his game yet. Anurag Kashyap, with the help of writers Vasan Bala and Thani Mudaliar, and historian Gyan Prakash, was readying the screenplay AROUND THE SAME TIME, of a period crime-drama film —Bombay Velvet. As the project gradually found its footing, Kashyap approached several known names for the lead role: Saif Ali Khan, Hrithik Roshan and Aamir Khan. But, nothing materialised. Kashyap, then, wasn’t even considering Kapoor — and for good reason — for a project as ambitious and, consequently, financially risky asBombay Velvet, Kashyap needed not only a good actor, but also a star. In 2009, a year when the “Rs 100 crore club” was slowly becoming the industry buzzword due to Ghajini (the first Bollywood film to net more than Rs 100 crore at the box office), Kapoor’s low- budget Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year released in theatres. The film sank at the box office, but that estimation short-changes its true worth. Today, more than five years later,Rocket Singh is remembered more for its charming simplicity and Kapoor’s restrained performance, and less for its unsuccessful box-office run.Rocket Singh, however, was just one of the films that set Kapoor apart from his peers. He also acted in Wake up Sid, a heartfelt coming-of-age drama about a recent graduate trying to understand the growing, bittersweet pains of independence, love and calling. Kapoor’s Jordan in Rockstar was an intense rock singer, struggling to live with not only his untrammelled angst but also the quandaries of a relationship destined to doom. And, Barfi!, a 122 JUNE 2015 • MW tragicomedy that helped see limitations in new light, saw him play a joyous mute and deaf drifter. Before Barfi!, however, Kapoor was every bit the anomaly in Bollywood. His acclaimed films had not even come close to the Rs 100-crore mark, let alone eclipse it. Rocket Singh flopped;Wake up Sid was a marginal commercial success, earning around Rs 22 crore; Rockstar had collections of about Rs 62 crore. “I believe these [Rockstar, Barfi!] are Rs 100-crore films,” he told film critic Rajeev Masand, a few days before Barfi!’s release. “I don’t have to follow someone else’s path; I don’t have to follow what a superstar is doing to get to that number. Having said that, who doesn’t want that [to be a star]? That’s what cinema is about — it’s about hero worship; that’s what being a hero is about: to get those seetis and the taalis, and your films garnering those numbers. I will get there. But, I will get there in my own way.” September 2012, and less than BARFI! RELEASED IN three weeks later, Kapoor did “get there” — it became the fifth film of 2012 to enter the 100-crore club. Kapoor had shown the Bollywood bigwigs that this game could be played by his rules, too. With stars around him playing a more popular sport, Kapoor had finally found his niche. Bombay Velvet His next release, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, which received middling critical acclaim, was an astounding box office success, earning close to Rs 190 crore. Then, “THAT’S WHAT he went full throttle: he was about to commence shooting for Kashyap’s most ambitious project, Bombay Velvet, a movie on the film-maker’s mind for close to a decade. And, then, three months CINEMA IS ABOUT later, Besharam happened. Directed by Abhinav Kashyap (who had earlier made the much enjoyable Dabangg), Besharam was not only unfunny and inane but also crass and tediously formulaic, a film — IT’S ABOUT HERO that saw Kapoor at his desperate worst — trying hard to ape the antics of other Bollywood superstars to make his mark in the potboiler genre.“I followed a prototype of what Salman [Khan], SRK WORSHIP; THAT’S [Shahrukh Khan] and Akshay [Kumar] were doing. I failed. I felt shit about it,” admitted Kapoor in an interview recently. “I learnt I couldn’t take the audience for granted. I don’t have that fan following WHAT BEING A HERO or the body of work that people [will] blindly love me as a hero.” Kapoor will keep finding himself in such tricky situations if he’s unsure about the kind of actor he wants to become, if he lets the film IS ABOUT: TO GET industry hijack his definition of success, if he’s undecided about gauging his own worth: whether THOSE SEETIS AND determined by Friday footfalls or a lasting legacy that cannot be weighed in monetary terms. Last month, Bombay Velvet, the year’s most awaited film, hit the screens. None of the hoopla TAALIS AND YOUR surrounding the film matched up to what it really was: a comprehensively mediocre fare that was derailed by uninspired screenwriting, clueless film-making and a pedestrian plot. But, the blame for FILMS GARNERING Bombay Velvet’s failure doesn’t rest on its leading man, Kapoor, who essays a weakly written part with much heart and panache. Film-making is, after all, a collaborative medium. There is only so much an THOSE NUMBERS. I actor can do if other departments fail to contribute. Bombay Velvet is also not the only Kapoor film to have floundered — partly or completely — due WILL GET THERE. BUT, to the screenwriters and directors’ fault. Barfi! borrowed entire scenes, or bits of them, from nearly a dozen movies around the world; Rockstar suffered from weak screenwriting; Yeh Jawaani Hai I WILL GET THERE IN Deewani, too, was let down by its director, Ayan Mukerji, who settled for a vapid and crowd-pleasing climax that compromised the film’s essence. MY OWN WAY” Bollywood is still known for writing paeans to mediocrity nearly every Friday. This is why it is not going to be easy for Kapoor; he will have to find his game once more. “If I would not have been an actor, I would have been a struggling actor,” said Kapoor in an interview around three years ago. “There’s no other thing I can do or could do.” And, he will do well to remember that, because what are we if not our choices? JUNE 2015 • MW 123.