Why Gajraj sets a great example!

From a distance showbiz seems a sea of wellknown faces but unknown names Organisationally itrsquos only in the movies that someonersquos even termed an lsquoextrarsquo Happens only with actorsActor Gajraj Rao finds this quite natural common to all professions Only that films attract more attention centred on stars of courseRao tells me itrsquos the same way you remember chicken and pyaaz in chicken do pyaaza ldquoAlthough without the masalas boiled chicken plus pyaaz would be inediblerdquo Those masalas are the essential ensemblecast in a filmNotably in Anurag Kashyaprsquos Black Friday 2004 where by sheer dint of dumb luck Rao found himself as the lone bald man in its iconic posterWe saw his face We didnrsquot know his name Back then some would confuse him for Loy Mendonsa from ShankarEhsaanLoyTherersquos also that scene in Meghna Gulzarrsquos Talvar 2015 where Rao enters as UP Police inspector Dhaniram into CBI officersrsquo Irrfan Sohum Shah room having botched up initial investigations into Noidarsquos Aarushi murder caseVishal Bhardwajrsquos script for Talvar had everything on paper including what Dhaniram is exactly meant to dosay Raorsquos coactor Irrfan sat him down still discussing in detail a likely backstory to this twominute roleBy all accounts Irrfan wasnrsquot just a directorrsquos actor he was as much a director himself The crazy scene that followed with Irrfan whacking around Raorsquos bum with police lathi remains etched in memoryWe remember him We still didnrsquot know his name Rao had been in Mumbaimovies since early rsquo90s Having moved from Delhi along with the nearfull batch of top theatre talents who had participated in Shekhar Kapurrsquos Bandit Queen 1994While in Delhi I realise nowmdashvocationally Rao and I had a thing in common He would have been in his 20s pursuing theatre I was in my early teens in school Both of us used to be lsquofreelance journalistsrsquoEvery other day Rao would figure from sources which hotel some of the big celebrities visiting town were staying Hersquod call up that hotelOnce the receptionist put him through to the celebrityrsquos room hersquod talk extraconfidently demanding an appointment for an interview Itrsquod mostly work outThis is how I got to meetprofile music bands Indus Creed Junoon tennis star Leander Paes etc for English publications Rao did the same with Mehmood Yash Chopra and the like for Hindi dailies Jansatta Navbharat Times Hindustan Dainik and othersFreelance payments freed Rao up to practise theatre without any pressure given books cab and fastfood expenses sorted He held a press card often went to Delhi Press Club and says he even got to observe the politics of journalism closelyIncidentally he played a devious powerdrunk newspaper editorpublisher the main villain in Maidaan 2024Likewise in Mumbai while the inherently jovial Rao patiently pursued acting over decades picking up roles because itrsquos work after all mdash hersquos been a prolific advertising filmmaker all through having directed about 1000 commercialsHe says yoursquove gotta have Plan B when there are so many frictionsvariables involved ldquoIf you break your head against a wall itrsquos not that yoursquoll make a hole in it You might hurt yourself step back instead and find another route inrdquoRao is proteacutegeacute of Delhibased adman late Pradeep Sarkar Parineeta Mardaani Sarkar himself moved to Mumbai to make movies only in his 40sBecause as Rao says ldquoNobody in Delhi would allow Sarkar to make ad films which was the sole prerogative of Mumbai directors Prahlad Kakar etcrdquoOtherwise an advertising artdirector Rao calls Sarkar ldquoNapoleonrdquo who led an army into Mumbai ldquothough it was more a Lagaan teamrdquo since everyone was figuring out their waysSuch as musiccomposer Shantanu Moitra 3 Idiots who used to be the clientservicing guy or screenwriter Jaideep Sahni Chak De India a copyrighter Rao included of course who started his own adfilm production house Code RedOne of the jobs of which is to spot fresh facestalents for commercials And thatrsquos what once drew Rao to comedy sketches of a startup YouTube collective TVFHe was struck by their very ldquoSharad Joshi kinda vyangsatirical writingrdquo He wished to cast these fresh IIT grads They cast him insteadRao went over for the TVF shoot which ldquofelt like Malegaon type setuprdquo He swore to never return A week after the sketch dropped online kids would recognise him as TVFJeetursquos papa from lsquoTech Conversations With My DadrsquoYouTube had truly exploded Rao was perhaps its oldest star Similarly he did a TVF short with actor Ayushmann Khurrana who in turn recommended Rao for lead role in Amit Sharmarsquos Badhaai Ho where Khurrana would play his sonRao and Sharma have anyway been advertising colleagues from Sarkarrsquos troupe But Sharmarsquos wife had been equally following Raorsquos TVFJeetu dadsketches Rao was still apprehensive of taking up the massivelead roleHe says ldquoWhen yoursquore used to a 1 BHK you donrsquot know what to do in a 1o000 sq ft seafacing villa You suffer from imposter syndrome which also comes from a middleclass mindsetrdquoHe picked up and comically shone in Badhaai Ho 2018 He was the centreforward star at 47 This is how that nameless dangerous lsquozamindarrsquos sonrsquo from Bandit Queen 1994 became lsquoGajraj Raorsquo for public foreverMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass cultureHe tweets mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper