From Tea Estates to Bollywood Dreams
Raj Singh Chaudhary grew up in some most scenic locations in Darjeeling. His father owned a tea estate over there. Hindi movies did their metro rounds and would be played with a five month delay in the town. But his really first brush with filmdom was when he witnessed the Big B himself shoot for a film called “Barsat Ki Ek Raat” just 20 kms away from his tea estate. That may not have been the tipping moment but it surely had an effect.
A software engineer by education he was spotted for his tall frame and boyish looks. Gladrags and Graviera made him walk on the ramp. A few ad shoots and a bit of glitz….it was graduation time and time to take a serious look at career. Software it was. A brief collaboration ended in his friends duping him and somehow….somewhere….it had to happen.
He got a call for a film…..rushed to Bombay then….that film never took off but Hindi filmdom had a knock on its door. He wrote a script on college ragging and approached people to direct it. A chance meeting with Anurag Kashyap who was not yet the critically acclaimed director of Black Friday laid the germs of what would be Gulaal today.
His association with Anurag Kashyap went beyond an actor director one. He assisted Anurag in Black Friday. Anurag acted in his short film….about a man who wants to desperately take a drag….curfew on the streets…..not a shop open…..not a soul on the street….sounds familiar….that’s the first scene of No Smoking.
Black Friday was shot and completed. Gulaal was to begin much before but did not. Not much work happening. Cricket and squash sessions with Anurag held sanity.
Production of Gulaal finally started in October 2006….with many feelers and promises to start in between….the camera finally rolled. A stellar cast of Anurag’s fav actors Gulaal was all set to explore the mammoth havelies and the barren landscapes of Rajasthan.
Deelip Singh is a 28 year old student. 28 and still studying. His brother comes to see him off and leaves a caretaker. A literal mama’s boy. Meek, shy and lost, enters the college campus to see his world turned upside down…fall apart….devastated and finally destroyed.
Anurag’s tendency to experiment and be real and edgy made Raj explore the possibilities of getting to know the character and perform. Losing all inhibitions and shyness as a person to bring about the shy and reserved Deelip. Quite a contrast to transform oneself from real to reel.
Gulaal took a journey of it’s own. In between Anurag made three films….No Smoking, Return of Hanuman and Dev.D. The rest of the cast and crew too had to make way for newer things. Gulaal had run out of finances and maybe it would have never seen the light of day…that’s what most thought… All we could do was see the rushes of the earlier schedule and dream that one day it just happened.
Every year like there is a murmur that Paanch might release……so woould there be a buzz that Gulaal might start again. All lived in hope…maybe it had to happen…it did.
Zee Limelight finally took on and completed the last mile. The one which usually saps out all energy in the best of the runners…Raj lasted. Have been personally a witness to the grit and the determination and the will to make something happen. All I can do is maybe smile….hug and applaud….but the one man who has shed more blood and sweat than any other for this might just as usual stand in one corner and smile and be away from all the flash bulbs and glitz….happy that it happened.
Friday the 13th seems to be the chosen day…..Gulaal releases today. Ironicly he too was born on a friday the 13th.
Raj has 2 releases coming up. One “Mehmanjee” a true story on groom abduction set in Bihar by Sushil Rajpal. “Waiting Room” a psychological thriller set in a deserted railway station by debutant Maneej Premnath and an English film called “Meridian” opposite Soha Ali Khan.
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Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
thanks a lot for sharing vasan. more power! and happy birthday ki dher saari shubhkaamnaayein mr. chaudhry.
great insight into the labour gone into making this film a tangible reality today. great post vasan bhai. can we have raja chaudhary himself to write a guest post or something..?
would love to know more abt the process of evolution of Gulal (or as u call it, the Genesis) from the horse’s mouth (raja). or should it b horses’ mouth (AK & Raja)?
watching the movie tonight at INOX, Pune.
have shot an interview with Raja..will put that soon…..also a small cast interview by imtiyaz ali.
Would love to know which tea estate he came from..
Namring Tea Estate
The film is not released in Chennai on 13th, i am waiting for it, and Vasan, u gave another dimension to my expectation by revealing Raj’s back story… Great man… And this post is on right time… Happy Birthday Raj, i think this is the best birthday gift u have ever got from anybody… Enjoy…PERSONALITY doesn’t come without pain… AK was an example and now it is Raj too! Keep climbing the top…
Hey sorry I did not explain it correctly….Raja was born on July 13th which also happened to be a Friday….was ref.ing to that.
kathiir – raja is a great guy and has fought tooth and nail for this film…made it happen…something like if you want it so dear the universe conspires…
Waiting to see you in Mumbai….
@vasan
when is paanch releasing?
no idea atheist….God knows….AK knows….I dont
fuck!! amazing inside information.. love it.. KEEP IT COMING!!
Raja’s performance in the movie is fantastic. i think it gets lost because his character is low key and doesn’t have any great lines to speak of but it is his story and he holds the film admirably together. His charcter arc is clearly well defined and perfectly executed.
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Almost a parallel with how Satya’s character was the movie…
Friday the 13th….hmmm interesting…
Vasan, please pass this on to Raja……..Dont know how deliberate it was, but the underplay of Dilip for the stretch of the movie was incredible. I have been thinking of Gulaal since the screen went blank and Inspite of the movie being Dilip’s story, my entire stream of thoughts have been on Ransa,Dukey, Prithvi and Kiran.
Why are all the leading characters (’A', ‘Dev’, ‘Dilip’) of AK’s movies such losers?
Vasan,
Saying “God knows” to `atheist’! :D
Gautam hope you had the time of your life reading this….hope I made a difference…thanks for the encouragement….please keep coming back to PFC…love you, miss you and all that jazz….
WWWOOWOWOWOWOWO FUCK Gautam was here…..WOWOWOWOOWOOWOWOWO
Holden – will let raja know…
Ravi – That was the idea…believe in God and Paanch just might release…
dazedandconfused – bang on…
Vasan- great post buddy.It was really nice to know that there are people like Raj and AK who can say proudly that their struggle has been worth it.I’m sure its an inspiration for all of us!!!