My TV Acting Debut: In a Torture Series
I still get the shudders when I think of my on-camera acting debut. This was back in Guwahati in 2005. I felt like committing filmy suicide on every day of the 21 day shoot. It was for 8 episodes of a serial commissioned for Doordarshan North-East.
The producer and director treated me very well, but alas, they were PhDs in GPD&S. GPD&S bole toh Gheesa Peeta Dialogue & Situations. But I’m grateful to them anyway; better learn when the stakes are still low.
I was the hero of the serial, which was a social drama about an honest young man who can’t find a job and gets incited into joining a militant outfit, till the cops catch him and give him dhan dhana dhan dhulai. His girlfriend then works to get him released. It’s a genuine issue and a serious issue, but the script…heh heh heh.
The very first day I had to do some of the WWWWWOOOOORRRRRSSSSTTTT romantic scenes imaginable. Pata nahin ulti kiye bina kaise raha. According to the script, ‘Avinash (that’s me) and Alka (girlfriend) are seen running along the side of the river.’
The director suggested that while running, the heroine should stumble a bit, and I should catch her, then continue running. Me and my old college friend who was playing the heroine, thought it would be better to jump into the lake and drown.
Then the script said ‘They get tired and sit huffing and puffing on the river bank.’ I said to my heroine I’d feel better about the scene even if it were huffing and puffing after doing more than just friggin’ RUNNING ALONG A RIVER BANK!!! Seriously, I’d’ve been less embarassed if instead of running along a river, we’d've had to do hot smooching scenes.
Then, here’s how the dialogue goes (soch ke hi ulti aa rahi hai)
Avinash: Arre main toh thak gaya. Tum nahin thaki?
Alka: Nahin, Avinash, main jab bhi tumhare saath hoti hoon mera dil karta hai ki main, nachoon, gaoon, jhoomoo…
Avinash: Arre bas bas, ab aa ke mere paas baitho
Alka: Tum kaho toh main hamesha tumhare paas aise baithi rahoon
Avinash: Bade romantic mood mein ho aaj (FFFFF*@#$&%@#$%*@$#%!!!!!!!)
Alka: Woh main hamesha rehti hoon. Par janab ko dekhne ki fursat mile tab na. Pata hai, Avinash, tumhare bina EK PAL BHI SAALON KI TARAH lagta hai. Mere liye zindagi ka sabse khoobsurat sapna hai ki main tumhare saath isi tarah rahoon.
Avinash: Kya main bhi aisa nahin sochta, Alka. Ki tum zindagi bhar isi tarah mere paas raho. Bas, thoda intezar karo. Phir main zindagi bhar tumhe apne seene se laga kar rakhoonga.
(Followed by intense imaginary vomiting by both actors)
During my courtroom trial scene, there was a cop standing behind me. His breath, even from four feet away, and behind me, stank to the high heavens of tobacco and cigarettes, as though he passionately participated in tobacco-chewing contests every week. And I had to stand for about two hours in front of him for that scene. Thank God I never had any face-to-face dialogue with him.
About a month after the shoot, I was called to shoot one last scene in which I’m running from the cops through a jungle. Anyone watching will have noticed that my shoes change from sports shoes to laceless leathers, and the model of the gun I’m carrying changes as well. Continuity ki ma-behen.
Assamese has the ‘ch’ and ‘chh’ alphabets but they’ve been lost in pronounciation over the ages and a majority of Assamese people would pronounce chor and chhaka as sor and sakka. Some can do ‘ch’, but most can’t utter a clean ‘chh’. So when Assamese people have to do Hindi dialogue, there’s bound to be a lot of fun.
The actress playing the title character was rehearsing her dialogue. The line was “Iske jail se chhootne ke chances kitne hain?” I overheard her saying “Iske jail se ch**tne ke chances kitne hain?” and “Iske jail se ch^dne ke chances kitne hain?” Being a gentlemen, I very subtly suggested that she say instead “Iske jail se release hone ke chances…”
Lines I’ve actually had to utter include:
“Ma tumne abhi tak khana nahi khaya?” (Ma replies “Tumhe khilaye bina kaise kha sakti hoon main?”)
“Ma, mujhe maaf kar do. Main bhatak gaya tha.”
Anyway, here’s the BEST dialogue of all. (The scriptwriter wasn’t a professional, by the way.) There’s a scene where the heroine comes with a camera and says to the hero
“Avinash, tum wahi baithe raho. MUJHE TUMHARI LENI HAI.”
Tags: Acting, Acting debut, doordarshan, Serial, TV acting
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
Hey Avinash,..
sorry Kenny,.
Ha Ha, is it TV serial
last line sahi hai.,
“MUJHE TUMHARI LENI HAI.”
:P
ho gaya kalyan… send us the DVDs of the series… hum torture series ke har actor ke param bhakt hain (Hinglish: I torture series of actors first worshipper)
Oz bhai,..
wait for my article on
Harnam Singh’s “SHAITANI DRACULA”
hahahahha…
film bhi hoti saath mein toh mazaa aa jata..
lol…damn funny, is the vid. available on you tube? m dying to see it..1!
Lol…
jez! you really went through a torture !!! and last line… my goodness!!
I hope u didnt answer “Mai to hamesha dene ke liye taiaar rehta hoon”
hehe
Long back I had read an interview of Soumitro Chatterjee. In that interview, Soumitro describes an incident with Satyajit Ray.
Apparently Ray watched a movie of Soumitro in a cinema hall and it was a very bad movie, so bad that even Soumitro couldn’t hide his contempt for it even as he played out his character. Some sort of a smirking, what-am-I-doing-here look on his face all through the movie.
When Ray met Soumitro after this he was very angry with the actor. Ray’s point was that Soumitro was not being true to his calling. When you are an actor, and you decide to take on a role, you have to believe in your character and perform. There are no two ways about it. What you cannot do is show your contempt onscreen. That is dishonest.
What Ray was saying is that if you don’t believe in a role don’t take it. Let it go. If however you decide to take on the role — for whatever reasons — then be true to it. Don’t fuck around.
I don’t have the series with me. It’s taken me three years to be able to somehow look at myself in it. I couldn’t bear to watch it when it aired, which it has umpteen times already. Maybe when I meet the producer next time I’ll ask him for the DVDs.
“If however you decide to take on the role — for whatever reasons — then be true to it. Don’t fuck around.”
@rabindro
You are ABSOLUTELY correct. I can say with a clear conscience that I did my best no matter how shitty the scene was. Everyone who’s seen the series has said I’ve done a good job, although personally heh heh….
Hi Kenny it was hilarious..As usual being a die hard Nirupa Roy fan I liked the maa and khana wala dialogue most.I just dont know in the past whenever the hero had a conversation with his mother it always used to be about food.Example:
Mother:Beta maine apne haathon se tere liye kheer banaya hai.
Haha. That was howlarious. :D
Kenny, whats the name of the serial? Which channel is it aired on at times, if you say umpteen times over and again?
@Anindya
It’s such an illogical line: ‘Maine apne haathon se kheer banaya hai’
I mean, would anyone say, ‘Maine Kamla aunty ke haathon se kheer banaya hai.’
@Arthi
‘Maloti.’ It’s available only on DD North-East.
Kenny, you have an incredible sense of writing. All your posts are just equally funny. Keep them coming….
hilarious kenny… some day i’ll share with you my torturous adventures on set. and yes, would love to see this serial of yours.. jaldi se share kar! and of course, the last line only warrants a line as simple as “mujhe bhi”
Hello
I really enjoyed reading your blog..Let me start by saying that I am an acting nut. What that means is that for the past 5 years I have tried to figure out the best way to do this thing. I have done Method classes, a two year Meisner Program and I always check out blogs like this one for more information.
What I got from all of these people was how to act like them. It wasn’t until I got to http://www.theactingcorps.com that they told me we’re going to teach you stuff, and you’ll do it every day, a lot, but in the end it’s you up there, and you have to like what you’re doing, you can’ t be worried about making your teacher happy. These people actually taught me to enjoy acting again through a technique that seems to take the best and most effective elements from a lot of the stuff I know. Anyways I look forward to all the updates. Thanks again.
Jessica
Thanks Trimoneo and Striker.
“Mujhe bhi.” Yeah good reply. Do share your adventures too
Well….I LOVED THE POST..considering the fact that I am a fortunate(?) one who has ACTUALLY seen one episode of it!! The one in which the “bad boys” try to lure Kenny..err Avinash to become a bad boy rather than an unemplyed good boy.
And those who have got DISH TV and a MAXI pack they can actually see this serial on DD North east . Channel 854 ( between the Oriya and Nepali channels) . Just keep tuning on between 8 to 9..and if they arent broadcasting manipuri serials in funny Hindi or Khasi people hinding speaking like French, its Kenny’s serial in Assamese…….
Cheers and I do believe Kenny did a very good job. I missed seeing the girlfriend though….or the Camera..( that part was hilarious btw)..