logo

He was reclining on his chair with the confidence of an auteur and the poise of a pro. He was speaking eloquently under the single-slit illumination of a globe-shaped light source. Time had done to him, what success would do to anybody. Three movies, all of which were smashing commercial successes.
The cinema illiterates stooped to their own levels, confining all his movies under the “gangster flicks” label but he resented their claims.

But today, he wasn’t talking genres; just discussing the characters that made his movies so special. BBC had floated a one-hour retrospective on Siddharth Ranjan’s work titled ‘My movies, my characters’. Siddharth was just trying to stay true to the commitment he had made.

“People say my movies sell because, they are so Indian. I think the classification is not complete when they say that. I would for sure expand on the perceived make-up of my movies, would go a step further. I think my movies are essentially about Mumbai, about the great ‘Mumbaikar Dream’. My characters flow in and out of the nook and corner of Mumbai, the streets, the buildings, the cathedrals. They bring in with itself the fragrance of a ‘Maska Pav’, the unbearable noise of a cement-mixer and the impatience of an enthusiastic kid at Shivaji Park waiting for his turn to pad up. Their thought process, their collective intellect, their quirks and their spirit are the attributes that define my characters as well.

There are people who ask me whether I personally know the characters that I sketch. I always thought that was a tricky question to answer (Takes a deep breath).
That’s a tricky question primarily because character development occurs on such a sub-conscious level. When I write my characters, I so often go beyond the boundaries and framework of the piece of paper I am working with, writing with unrestrained creativity. So it goes without saying that all I do is bring out a certain line or a specific nuance that has already been conveyed to me and has been pre-embedded in my conscience. On a careful analysis I think I have been able to bring myself to the truth, have discovered the inspiration behind every character I have given life to. That one individual of whom all my characters are mere derivatives of, that one person I have knowingly or unknowingly studied over a period of time… Nikhil Ranade.

Most of you listening to me, might not know Nikhil. Nikhil has never made an effort to get noticed. I guess popularity has always come to Nikhil with ease. We are almost of the same age but he outgrew me at some point in our lives. It was some things that he did, some things that he said and a lot of things that he thought about but never said. I chose to be his sidekick. It ain’t that bad a thing to be a sidekick, you see. You trust your leader earnestly, just follow what he suggests and even if you fall on your back, you just get up, dust your pants and walk away.

I remember, the first time I was asked to commit a crime. Nobody had ever suggested me to commit one before, but Nikhil had. He had had zeroed in on a plan to clean away some WWF postcards that our classmate Ravi Shankar had. I just accompanied Nikhil to Ravi’s room; he laid out his whole plan and just wiped away every single postcard that Ravi had. We hid the postcards in a crevice adjacent to this water-tank (gestures in a circular fashion to imply a water-tank’s geometrical shape) on the terrace. The next day, we ended up selling the entire set of postcards for thrice its original price. Nikhil even coaxed Ravi into buying some (smiles). It was funny but that was how it worked with Nikhil, you see.

There were times when I thought Nikhil was just like me. That thought made me happy. Like the time, he had suggested boozing together. I was terrified at the thought of being spotted by someone familiar, some distant relative, some family friend. You know how that crap works. But, Nikhil was adamant.
So, I thought, “Well, what the hell? This is his first booze too. And just look at the nerve on this guy, absolutely nothing.”

So, we walked into this sleazy bar, which had neon signs for name-board. I soon found out that Nikhil knew almost all the waiters there (Laughs). He conversed with them, hugged them, slapped some on their butts and walked me in. We didn’t take a seat, just sat by the counter. I think Nikhil ordered two beers. Strong ones too (smiles impishly). I had just finished taking a couple of sips when I turned to Nikhil and saw an empty bottle by his side. He was conversing casually with the bartender.

“Nayak, there’s no need to change the entire TV set my man. It’s just a small issue with the picture tube. You give me 250 and I’ll set it right for you”

It was at that precise moment that I realized I could never perhaps, fully understand Nikhil. I could not. He seemed to inherit his energy from some parallel universe that he was a part of. I knew, people like me could never perhaps inhabit that universe, however hard I try to. Nikhil gulped in three more bottles as I struggled to somehow finish my first one. I puked all the way back and Nikhil carried me home.

It was tough walking into a street with Nikhil. We often had to abort our steps once in every five minutes, coz some or the other acquaintance of his would call out to him. I watched him talk, watched his eyes sparkle as he did. I watched him hug and punch them affectionately, blurt out something, whisper something in the other person’s ear. I watched them cracking up.
I had just got hooked to movies back then. Nikhil was almost like Vito and Michael Corleone put together. There were days when he was Tony Montana of Scarface, but those days were far and few in between. But there was a subtle difference. Nikhil was truly Mumbai’s own child; the maximum he could become was a Mumbai equivalent of the screen characters I had watched and idolized in time. He would never date girls who demanded equal space in a relationship. His was from the old school of thought, that believed that men ought to be powerful and women sexy. Equality of sexes was an outdated concept to Nikhil.

Professionally we both went our ways. I turned to copywriting, then to writing scripts and further ended up directing movies. He did something I could not fully grasp.
“Still handling Rehan Bhai’s Real estate business” has always been his pet reply.

There are days when my pen ceases to write for want of inspiration. Every such time I walk back to Nikhil and find characters unfurling itself. He is in the most atomic form, every character that I have sketched to date. Every single moment in my movies that I freeze on screen can’t be complete without a character that finds its roots in Nikhil Ranade. I don’t just see it as a singular source of inspiration, but more of a sidekick’s tribute”…

The projecting globe light that was shining on him had dimmed by then and further faded away completely. The retrospective was over. Siddharth Ranjan got up, shook hands with the studio officials, wore his coat and walked out. It was raining heavily.

A cab came over and stopped just outside the studio gate. The back seat glass went down, and a hand emerged signaling Siddharth to come in. Siddharth walked inside.

The hand that had just waved Siddharth in took a feel of his raincoat, “Poor plastic. Low quality. Wont last the whole of this rainy season. I bet”, Nikhil proclaimed.

Siddharth just smiled back uneasily.

“So you were doing some show?”

“Yeah it was a retrospective of my work”, Siddharth revealed.

“Wow”, Nikhil exclaimed. “By the way, watched your last film’

“Yeah. And???” Siddharth enquired almost lunging forward and enthusiastically.

“Well. To be honest it just did not do it for me buddy. I guess it was the characterization. All the characters just seemed too fluffy to me. Too unreal. Just show me somebody who talks and behaves like the way your characters do”, Nikhil replied slowly exhaling a puff.

Siddharth just waited for the smoke to settle down and stared at the mirror fixed adjacent to the cab driver. It showed Nikhil’s reflection.

“Well. There are people like that brother… Real people”, he said, falling back lazily onto his seat.