The steady rise of actors Pankaj Tripathi, Rajkummar Rao and Taapsee Pannu – all of whom are identified with strong characters and great screen presence – has happily kept pace with the three years of The Hindu’s Mumbai presence
On November 28, 2015, when The Hindulaunched its Mumbai edition, the first Bollywood personality we did an extensive interview with was Shah Rukh Khan (SRK), an outsider (like us) who had been embraced by the city, 25 years ago when he landed here, and who had, in turn, made it his home. We had the same aspiration. “Mumbai suits my way of life,” he had said while confessing to loving even its infamous traffic: “It’s the only time I get to be with myself… ” I like the quiet of the traffic in Mumbai, how it slows things.”
Since then, in the three years of our own presence in Mumbai, we have seen many outsiders hit the high notes in Bollywood. Take this year for instance. Among the outside stars we met is the Ayurveda doctor from Varanasi, Vineet Kumar Singh, who packed a punch as an aspiring boxer who falls in love with the niece of the federation chief in caste-class-politics-religion ridden Uttar Pradesh in Mukkabaaz. Amar Kaushik, the born-in-UP, bred-in-Arunachal Pradesh boy delivered ₹100 crore magic figure at the box office with his small feature debut the feminist horror-comedy Stree. Then there’s popular singer-actor from Chandigarh Ayushmann Khurana, who may have made his presence felt with Vicky Donor in 2012 but has had an extraordinary 2018 with critical appreciation for Andhadhun and tasting commercial success with Badhaai Ho.
Here are three individuals who have bloomed, blossomed and came into their own between these past three years, the same time as The Hindu has been present in Mumbai…
Pankaj Tripathi
In an interview with The Hindu in 2016, actor Pankaj Tripathi remembered the day he landed in Mumbai Central on the Golden Temple Express: October 16, 2004. “Every actor remembers his first day in Mumbai though he may forget many other significant ones,” he had told us when we met him soon after the release of Nil Battey Sannata.
Since then, we have been encountering him more often on screen than for real, in one power-packed performance after another. From the eccentric school principal of Nil… to the easy and light-footed singer-dancer Rangeela in Anaarkali of Aarah, from the arrogant CRPF commandant Atma Singh in Newton to a farmer-turned-builder Kehri Singh in Gurgaon. In Bareilly Ki Barfihe was delightful as the father who bums cigarettes from his daughter. This year Tripathi has been in insane form, making comedy look easy with his deadpan look, droll ways and crackling, impeccable dialogue rendition in Stree. There’s more: two online blockbusters — Sacred Games and Mirzapur — and Rajinikanth blockbuster Kaala.
The actor who came to Bollywood via the National School of Drama began with small, supporting roles; graduating to bigger films like Dilwale, Singham Returns and Gunday. However, it was his Sultan, the brutal butcher and henchman of Ramadhir Singh, in Gangs of Wasseypur that brought him the first flush of recognition as did Masaan where he played the humane Sadhyaji who forms a unique, indefinable bond with Devi (Richa Chaddha).
But its the last three years that have been about a wonderful body of work taking shape, about consolidating his laurels; and a virtuoso actor becoming a star-performer. Born to a farming family in the village of Belsand, near Gopalganj, Bihar, it has been almost 14 years in Mumbai now, but Tripathi’s heart still belongs to his village. Tripathi’s Andheri home faces a huge pond and a temple, giving a sense of expanse and a rural feel. We hope he stays as rooted even as he keeps going places.
RAJKUMMAR RAO
It’s difficult to make your presence felt in a film that is wholly about another individual, especially when your co-star is Manoj Bajpayee. In 2016, in AligarhBajpayee played Dr. Shrinivas Ramachandra Siras complete with his traumas, loneliness and humiliation, angst and quirks. Yet Rajkummar Rao held his own as the gregarious, ambitious journalist Deepu Sebastian, out to get a good story but gradually becoming Siras’ confidante and sounding board. With Rao’s nervous energy pitted against Bajpayee’s stillness an extraordinary on-screen jugalbandi was born.
Immediately after, Rao did something diametrically opposite — a one-man film Trapped. His Shaurya, a man stuck in a high-rise apartment, brought out his vulnerability as well as resilience, moving from exasperation to suffocation to despair with specks of humour and hope thrown in.
Soon after, he was on top of his game yet again in the titular role of the upright, honest polling officer bent on conducting free and fair elections in Dandakaranya in Chhatisgarh in Newton, a role that won him the prestigious Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor.
In a diametrically opposite turn he brought the house down in Bareilly Ki Barfi with his chameleon turn and comic timing as a meek sari salesman who is a simpering simpleton one minute, full of swagger the next. He was a hoot this year as a small-town tailor,“Chanderi ka Manish Malhotra”, in this year’s sleeper hit, Stree.
Two years ago, Rao had told us that Hindi cinema is going through an exciting phase, and he likes riding the wave. “We are going back to the roots, to the small towns which are a major part of our country, to the ordinary people.” Carrying the experience of growing up in Gurgaon, in a small town middle-class environment has stood the actor in good stead. So far, and hopefully in the future too.
TAPSEE PANNU
The turning point for Taapsee Pannu came with Pink in 2016. The jury might still be out on whether the film was feminist enough or not but the audience took note of her believable turn as a single working woman in Delhi. She convincingly brought alive the fears, frustrations, anger, helplessness, vulnerability, seething rebellion and retaliations of a woman facing the full force of patriarchy around her.
A Delhi girl, Pannu graduated in computer science and worked as a software professional for a while. After a stint in modelling and doing many successful Tamil and Telugu films, she made her debut in Bollywood in 2013 with Chashme Buddoor, a vacuous remake of the Sai Paranjape original. But since 2016 there has been a perceptible, conscious chase for substantial roles that has rounded off well this year.
Many may have missed the 2017 cultural collision romedy Running Shaadi but as Nimmi, the daughter of a bridal-wear shop owner in Amritsar, she was fun and feisty. With her at the centre the gender equations and role reversals got redefined without a big deal being made of them. The “caring” hero was shown washing clothes and Nimi’s hair; the “irreverent” Nimi drives the scooter while he rides pillion.
Her next releases disappointed. Judwa 2 was the usual glamorous frolic and in the guise of being a film about a woman spy fighting her way past the villains, Naam Shabana ended up reflecting a male world-view but this year Pannu has been in the reckoning again with Soorma, Mulk and Manmarziyan. As hockey player Harpreet, Pannu is winsome and warm in Soorma. In Mulk she does well as a modern Hindu bahu of a liberal Muslim family whose marriage is facing unspoken turbulence and then she slips in just as easily into the fiery dramatic courtroom speeches as a lawyer that she is. Manmarziyaan had her as Rumi, totally in control yet confused about love, sex and marriage.
“I have a quote on my wall: When you want to have something that nobody has gotten before, you have to do something that nobody has ever done before,” she had told The Hindu in an interview on the eve of Manmarziyaan, adding, “I will stick to unconventional themes.” Touche!
Source - THE HINDU
