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Gajraj Rao…

His filmography reads like a dream run for any actor, having worked with only the best names in the business. Shekhar Kapoor’s Bandit Queen, Mani Rathnam’s Dil Se, Hansal Mehta’s Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar and Chhal, Rakesh Omprakash Mehra’s Aks, Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi, Shoojit Sarcar’s Yahaan and Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday and No Smoking. Wow! How could we miss a man who has such an amazing filmography?

His short film “Hostel (Holi)” won the Bronze Lion at Cannes (there’s no Gold Lion or Silver Lion award this year for this category… ). The response at Cannes has been overwhelming. Bob Scarpelli, this year’s Jury President of Cannes Festival, has this to say about ‘Hostel’ (Source: Agencyfaqs)…

Honestly, when we screened this film, we were touched. The film was full of emotions, and also had a surprise element in it. One takes a little time to discover that the children are blind.The idea of blind children playing with colours is undoubtedly marvellous

The film gets over a thousand hits each day and till now has had over 200,000 downloads.

It was time to try and put the spotlight on the man behind Code Red films that has made Hostel and many such amazing shorts (search Gajraj Rao or CodeRed films on YouTube). Unfortunately Gajju Bhaiyya, as he is lovingly known as, prefers being behind the scenes, and is no fan of giving interviews around or even coming on PFC to write.

I first came across the name during PFC’s blogging off the sets on No Smoking where Gajraj Rao had a small role. Then I saw him as Dawood Phanse in “Black Friday”. It was later while going through the older movies that I realized he had acted in many significant ones, but being the actor in the background was never noticed.

Since it was quite clear that he prefers reading PFC than writing on it, I requested Kartik in Bombay to contact Gajraj Rao for an interview. Kartik mentioned it wouldn’t be possible since he had made the same request to his Gajju Bhaiyya countless times, each time being politely declined. It’s then I gave Kartik a secret “mantra”… to mention it to his Gajju Bhaiyya, if he declined to give an interview. As expected, Gajju Bhaiyya politely declined again, it was then Kartik uttered the “mantra” over the phone and Gajraj Rao cracked up laughing over the phone.

“Ok… ask oz to call tomorrow”…

The interview was more of a conversation lasting close to an hour, leaving me amazed to personally get to see the man’s energy, the passion and above all the down to earthiness of a simple human being who is a highly creative artist…

First of all congratulations on Hostel… the Bronze Lion at Cannes is an amazing achievement

Thanks oz… but you know, when I first made Hostel, I was worried… how do we get this film out to the public to see. It was then that Kartik suggested that we put it on YouTube and PFC. Infact, on the website for Hostel… Gift A Vision [link], we have credited and thanked PFC for helping us out.

Wow… Gajju Bhaiyya… thank you so much. So how was the reaction at Cannes to Hostel?

We all never knew the movie would reach so far ahead and be so highly appreciated on a global level. As is in Cannes, the entries are shown round the clock at it’s screening theaters. And as Hostel was being shown along this repeat schedule, people from around the world came out to see it. I’m amazed to see that people from US, Europe, Australia, Japan and from other parts of the globe saw Hostel at Cannes and have appreciated it in a big way. We won the award in the Fund Raising and Appeal Category.

Bob Scarpelli, the Jury Chief of Cannes, himself mentioned that the language of emotions in Hostel works beautifully. Akira Kagami, the Creative Director of Dentsu Japan, also came forward and picked up the movie to be shown at the prestigious & highly anticipated SEMINAR at Cannes Festival. The SEMINAR is a place where Mr. Kagami selects Asian ad films that he has liked. I still don’t know how he managed to find and watch the film and select it for the seminar.

I am deeply touched by these reactions and responses from Cannes. And to think the only thing we did was to put the film on YouTube and PFC.

Gajju Bhaiyya, it’s the amazing reach and power of the internet. I don’t think it’s potential has been realized by many. It’s still underestimated to a large extent.

Dude, that is so true. Did I know what impact would Hostel create when I put it up online? I did not have much expectations. I never realized it would turn Hostel into a global film. More than 250,000 people have seen it online so far… and each day about a 1000 more people come online to see it.

Truly amazing… And that’s what I try my best to explain to filmmakers I get a chance to talk to. The new age form of communication like YouTube or PFC… The direct contact. Reach out in real time… your thoughts, views, your questions, ideas, movies and get an instant reaction in real time from cinema lovers and fans. People are expecting a faster mode of communication and the traditional forms of media communication don’t work or aren’t there yet. Plus the communication that flows both ways quickly and in a matter of seconds. It’s so possible to gauge the pulse immediately and instantaneously…

So True. Take the example of Hostel. We chartered into unfamiliar territory. Normally, if a person hasn’t walked a certain path or hasn’t seen anyone else walk that path (in this case, the internet to show your film)… the general perception is this is a down-market. There is not much one can get from here. Even I had second thoughts, before putting Hostel on the internet.

Earlier, people would be apprehensive to mention that they have their film on YouTube. But now after Hostel, many around me, come forward to say that they have made a film and I should watch it on YouTube.

(laughter)

Sites like YouTube and PFC are such respectable platforms and even if a few use it for things we may not like, I would urge the younger filmmakers to make use of such platforms to the maximum extent as possible. Young people from towns like Gwalior or Jaipur who have dreams to become a filmmaker someday, should actually take a camera make a movie and upload it online. Show the world what they have got. The internet has vastly reduced the journey to make a film. What are they waiting for?

And it is happening Gajju Bhaiyya. People are making short films even with their camera phones and putting it online.

Yes. There is nothing bigger than an Idea. Whatever advancements be there in technology, the language of emotions will always remain the same. The language of tears will be the same. So if anyone has an access to a camera and the internet… use it to make your movie. It’s funny to see that friends, colleagues and relatives, after seeing the success and global response to Hostel, seemed to have some bell ringing inside them to see the use of the internet much more clearly. Now many of my own staff at CodeRed is making short films which they would like to upload on the web.

Ok, I’ll change tracks here. You are a mystery to most of us on PFC. How did the journey start?

Well, I was doing theater in Delhi. We had a group called Act One, which had Piyush Mishra, Manoj Bajpai, Ashish Vidyarthi… some 10 - 12 people were in this group. Act One exists even now. We started around ‘89 and did some amazing plays. The equation was fun and fulfilling. But then there is also something called Rozi Roti (daily Bread and Butter)… so while I did some writing for Television, it wasn’t enough. There is this phase when you don’t have any money in your pocket and neither do your friends. It’s a dark phase which leaves you confused.

To get away from all this, I took up a regular day job at a Garment exports firm in Delhi where I worked for about six months and then for a year I wrote for a newspaper. So I had those small bumps in life around that time… even my dad, who was in Railways, suggested that he could get me a job in there… you know the whole experience a typical Middle class Indian youth goes through…

But in the end I realized that… Nah… I just wanted follow my passion for art… so drifting ahead, slowly… I started writing for television again… I wrote a few episodes for ‘Bhanwar’ a television serial… then Bandit Queen came along… things started happening in spurts… there wasn’t a target as such that I was aiming for… all I wanted was to survive and do some good work, where I could work on my terms and conditions and be respected… and ofcourse the food on the sets should be good or atleast fine…

(laughter)

But Gajju Bhaiyya, if one takes a look at your filmography… it’s simply wow… You’ve worked with, and only with, some of the most respected and talented directors. Shekhar Kapoor, Kundan Shah, Sudhir Mishra, Hansal Mehta, Anurag Kashyap and of course Mani Ratnam… Was it simply destiny or did you just have this strict principle of working with only those who’s work you loved and respected?

oz, it’s a mix of a lot of things. The group (Act One) I was working with… had spoiled my habits… with respect to the quality of Art and Cinema. Working with such a passionate group, you tend to adapt to a peculiar sensibility… our director at Act One… N.K. Sharma… a stickler for quality, he spoiled us. So take for example if we went to a play or a movie and it wasn’t upto our view of quality, we would walk out in fifteen minutes. We ended up rubbing a lot of people the wrong way because of this. (smiles)

That phase taught us some philosophies about our life as an artist. We just wanted to see that our basic necessities in an everyday life were fulfilled, like the two square meals a day. Beyond that we weren’t too concerned. Hence, we never ended up doing trash roles or projects, that didn’t appeal to our sensibilities. And it applied to the whole group. Look at Piyush (Mishra)… even in those days (of Act One) he was a sharp shooting straight forward guy… as he is today, no change… same for Manoj (Bajpai) and the rest. So because of this attitude, there didn’t come an occasion where we would land up doing a movie that didn’t work for us. Even when we were called for such movies, we wouldn’t go.

On the other hand, yeah… I wanted to work with Mani Sir. Tigamanshu Dhulia from our group took me to him, before that he took us to Shekhar Kapoor for Bandit Queen… and through the group I came in contact with Anurag (Kashyap) and landed up in his movies.

We (all in the group) were very clear about what we wanted to do and not do.

Honestly, I came to know about you and your acting capabilities after watching you play Dawood Phanse in Black Friday. Was it a conscious decision to give a comic underline to the character of Phanse?

No there was nothing like it. I had read the script and read about Phanse in there. I knew there was one big scene where Phanse would meet Dawood Ibrahim. There were two options. Either I could play Phanse as the usual arrogant type guy who meets Dawood or I could underplay the character, bring in the elements of fear in him while meeting this big don - which inadvertently would lift the persona of Dawood Ibrahim in his first scene itself. Hence we made a spontaneous instinctive decision right before the scene, to go for option two. Since Dawood Ibrahim’s character just has a few scenes in the movie, option two would portray very distinctively Dawood’s real life power and fear in that scene.

I rehearsed it in front of Anurag and showed him this is how Phanse would react at Dawood’s house and in front of Dawood. Anurag liked it and accepted my suggestion. Of course there is a possibility that in real life, Phanse may have spoken and acted quite differently in front of Dawood.

So it was spontaneous. For example Phanse looking in the mirror in Dawood’s house, that was made up on the spot while doing the scene. The goal was to show the fear that looms over someone visiting Dawood’s house. And Anurag gladly accepted my suggestions.

It helps when directors have been or are actors and are down to earth. Shekhar, Mani Sir, Sudhir, Anurag and others… it helps to convey our understanding to them and be accepted if they think we have a positive input to raise the film’s impact.

Now all these directors that you have worked with have their own individual styles. On the other hand an actor has his own process or method for working in front of the camera and then there’s an environment he works best in… How do you adjust your own adept styles to each director? Is it possible, as an actor, to keep the same quality of output in such different environments?

Well for me, I worked with directors who aren’t insecure. They don’t come on the sets and act like a big boss. The directors you’ve named that I’ve worked with so far, none have any insecurities. They have natural leadership qualities and they know what they can achieve. They get the respect from the work they do. They aren’t the kind who need juniors, newcomers or strugglers to come and bow to them and touch their feet.

So these kind of modern thinking directors, makes it very easy for actor. Take for example Sudhir Mishrajee. It was around 5 am in the winter morning… its terribly cold. I’m on the set (Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi) talking to other actors about the scene we are supposed to shoot and I find there’s this guy standing next to me, carrying breakfast in a tray waiting for me to finish the conversation, so he could offer the breakfast to me. I look around it’s Sudhir-jee!!! I was embarrassed to see a person of the stature of Sudhir Mishra carrying my breakfast waiting for me… I had to blurt out “What are you doing Sudhirjee?” in an attempt to discourage him from doing this… but in his usual non-chalant way Sudhirjee replied “Oh come on, have some food, it’s quite cold”

That man is so informal, that he actually walked with the food to the actor… it’s amazing. Now with that kind of environment, you forget the cold, the early morning and everything else. You see a great leader on set and now you want to do your very best for him.

And everyone else too… Shekhar, Mani Sir… take Mani Sir… a great leader. His style is different. He’s more silent on the set than the other directors. He has certain planned ways he works on sets. He has this concrete design of what and how he will be be shooting the scenes on that day. But again, if you have a suggestion and he likes it, he will accept your input. The other thing about Mani Sir, is he doesn’t put weight-age on an actor “to act”… like the usual spoken sentence of many directors “show me how you will act in this scene”… No… nothing like “do this”, “show this emotion”, “do that”… Mani Sir and all my directors I’ve worked with, don’t follow this method. The only thing they look at is to be the character, stop “acting” and be the character. That is one of the strongest positive points each of my directors have shown.

How did CodeRed Films come into being? And what is it doing now?

After doing a whole lot of television in Delhi, I was thinking of moving forward and doing something different. That’s when I came in contact with Pradeep-da(Pradeep Sarkar). He was about to start his own production house, and he invited me to work with him. I assisted him for the next six to seven years making over 400 ad films and half a dozen music videos with him.

Then started the usual seven year itch… (smiles)… so what now? What next? Either I could continue being an assistant director or I could create something on my own that would put forth my thoughts and whatever I had learnt so far. It’s then I along with Subrat Ray, who also worked with Dada (Pradeep Sarkar), branched out and started CodeRed films.

Of course in the beginning we got our asses kicked. (laughter)… oz seriously… you know at that time we were past our mid thirties… and we were going around asking for work to make ad films… people discouraged us. They would be surprised that we had left our cozy, cushion jobs and instead wanted to struggle to make ad films on our own. Even my friends were shocked. Because Pradeep-da is one of the best paymasters in this town. I’ve met very few people like him who will give you more than what you deserve.

You see? It had gotten very cozy… imagine in winter you have two warm blankets over you and you just don’t wanna come out… the situation was just like that. That’s when the “Act One” ingrained philosophy came to play… “What difference would it make?”… well if it doesn’t work out we would go back and do what we were doing. We took the plunge.

It was risky. But it was worth giving it a try. We weren’t too experienced in what we were going to do. oz, I don’t have any formal training from any film institute nor have I read many books on cinema. Just what I had learnt from Pradeep-da. He was my school.

Fortunately or unfortunately, whatever we learnt has worked for us plus our understanding of portraying human emotions and using humor in different forms has been our key asset.

Your films have this subtle twist in the end? Is this your story telling style or something again which simply comes up while writing the script?

Oh no oz… this is deliberate. I hate those “SPEECH” portrayals, it’s just doesn’t look right to me. I don’t associate with story styles on the lines of Krantiveer or Tiranga. I don’t have anything against such movies or such story telling styles. I don’t have any problems with such films finding good success. But the grammar of these films has never worked for me.

During my Act One days, we would always adapt plays from the English literature and even in that we would try to modify the stories bringing in our own versions and ideas in a sincere attempt to make the play as fresh as possible. But if I make Hostel in the usual speech-y way, it would look like someone who’s giving a speech loudly saying “dude donate eyes… “. It doesn’t fit in my grammar. But I’m not saying that even the style we used in Hostel will have millions coming on the street to donate their eyes.

My job as a filmmaker is to knock on the doors. Now it’s upto the people inside the house to see outside and decide how they want to react. As a filmmaker I don’t wanna scream, shout and catch people’s necks to shove a message down their throats.

(laughter)

So what’s the future of CodeRed, now that you’ve tasted Global success? Is it going in the direction you would like it to?

Absolutely it is moving in the right direction. The field of advertising is absolutely ruthless. While in films, careers go topsy turvy every friday, for us ad film makers, life changes every 30 seconds.

Final Question. As a strong actor, what are your plans? Black Friday, The Cannes recognitions, Code Red moving ahead with tremendous energy and force… where does this leave Gajraj Rao the actor, among these different caps that you now have to wear? Specially now, after Black Friday, cine-fans are looking forward to your next projects?

Well, that’s usually what happens. But firstly I don’t put myself forward as a “regular” actor. In fact after starting Code Red, Subrat my business partner and I have this understanding that I’ll only work in those films where I’ll have the most fun. Projects which will tap my potential. I don’t need to work as a professional actor to earn my daily bread anymore. But I’ll always be there, working on projects that are at Act One or projects being directed by friends like Anurag.

But for mainstream commercial, there has to be something in it for me. After Black Friday, my phones have not stopped ringing, producers and filmmakers want to offer me similar kind of roles. The same kind of cameo and comedy. I’m not interested. I have CodeRed and I’m enjoying working with my Subrat and my dozen odd staff in the company.

You don’t know how depressed many PFC readers will be…

Oh no no… I’ll always be there acting… infact I’m always on the lookout to work with new filmmakers who have no money and want to make good meaningful cinema… for me there is no big or small filmmaker. I enjoy working with them… I’ll be around (smiles)

Thank God… and thank you for your time… before I eject myself… when are you coming to write on PFC?

Dude so many big heavyweights are writing there… and what great articles… I love reading PFC everyday… but there isn’t much to say from my end as of now… the day I have something to speak about, I’ll definitely write on PFC…