From a distance, showbiz seems a sea of well-known faces, but unknown names. Organisationally, it’s only in the movies that someone’s even termed an ‘extra’! Happens only with actors.
Actor Gajraj Rao finds this quite natural; common to all professions. Only, that films attract more attention, centred on stars, of course.
Rao tells me it’s the same way you remember chicken and pyaaz, in chicken do pyaaza: “Although without the masalas, boiled chicken plus pyaaz would be inedible.” Those masalas are the essential ensemble-cast in a film.
Notably, in Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday (2004) where, by sheer dint of dumb luck, Rao found himself as the lone, bald man in its iconic poster!
We saw his face. We didn’t know his name. Back then, some would confuse him for Loy Mendonsa from Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy.
There’s also that scene in Meghna Gulzar’s Talvar (2015), where Rao enters as UP Police inspector Dhaniram into CBI officers’ (Irrfan, Sohum Shah) room; having botched up initial investigations into Noida’s Aarushi murder case.
Vishal Bhardwaj’s script for Talvar had everything on paper, including what Dhaniram is exactly meant to do/say. Rao’s co-actor Irrfan sat him down still; discussing in detail a likely backstory to this two-minute role.
By all accounts, Irrfan wasn’t just a director’s actor; he was as much a director himself. The crazy scene that followed, with Irrfan whacking around Rao’s bum, with police lathi, remains etched in memory.
We remember him. We still didn’t know his name. Rao had been in Mumbai/movies since early ’90s. Having moved from Delhi, along with the near-full batch of top theatre talents, who had participated in Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen (1994).
While in Delhi, I realise now—vocationally, 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 ‘freelance journalists’!
Every other day, Rao would figure from sources, which hotel some of the big celebrities visiting town were staying. He’d call up that hotel.
Once the receptionist put him through to the celebrity’s room, he’d talk extra-confidently, demanding an appointment for an interview. It’d mostly work out.
This is how I got to meet/profile 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 others.
Freelance payments freed Rao up to practise theatre without any pressure; given books, cab and fast-food expenses, sorted. He held a press card, often went to Delhi Press Club, and says he even got to observe the politics of journalism closely.
Incidentally, he played a devious, power-drunk newspaper editor-publisher, the main villain, in Maidaan (2024).
Likewise, in Mumbai, while the inherently jovial Rao patiently pursued acting, over decades, picking up roles, because it’s work, after all — he’s been a prolific advertising filmmaker, all through; having directed about 1000 commercials!
He says, you’ve gotta have Plan B, when there are so many frictions/variables involved: “If you break your head against a wall, it’s not that you’ll make a hole in it. You might hurt yourself, step back instead, and find another route in.”
Rao is protégé of Delhi-based ad-man, late Pradeep Sarkar (Parineeta, Mardaani). Sarkar himself moved to Mumbai to make movies, only in his 40s.
Because, as Rao says, “Nobody in Delhi would allow [Sarkar] to make ad films, which was the sole prerogative of Mumbai directors [Prahlad Kakar, etc].”
Otherwise an advertising art-director, Rao calls Sarkar “Napoleon”, who led an army into Mumbai, “though it was more a Lagaan team,” since everyone was figuring out their ways.
Such as music-composer Shantanu Moitra (3 Idiots), who used to be the client-servicing guy; or screenwriter Jaideep Sahni (Chak De! India), a copyrighter. Rao included, of course, who started his own ad-film production house, Code Red.
One of the jobs of which is to spot fresh faces/talents for commercials. And that’s what once drew Rao to comedy sketches of a start-up YouTube collective, TVF.
He was struck by their very “Sharad Joshi kinda vyang/satirical writing.” He wished to cast these fresh IIT grads. They cast him, instead!
Rao went over for the TVF shoot, which “felt like Malegaon type set-up.” He swore to never return. A week after the sketch dropped online, kids would recognise him as TVF/Jeetu’s papa, from ‘Tech Conversations With My Dad’!
YouTube 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 Sharma’s Badhaai Ho, where Khurrana would play his son.
Rao and Sharma have, anyway, been advertising colleagues from Sarkar’s troupe. But Sharma’s wife had been equally following Rao’s TVF/Jeetu dad-sketches. Rao was still apprehensive of taking up the massive/lead role.
He says, “When you’re used to a 1 BHK, you don’t know what to do in a 1o,000 sq ft, sea-facing villa. You suffer from imposter syndrome, which also comes from a middle-class mindset.”
He picked up and comically shone in Badhaai Ho (2018). He was the centre-forward star, at 47. This is how that nameless, dangerous ‘zamindar’s son’ from Bandit Queen (1994) became ‘Gajraj Rao’ for public, forever.
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture.
He tweets @mayankw14. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.