The road to Raghu Ganj is a convoluted one. The auto driver, who lives in Chawri Bazar, doesn’t know of its existence. When I tell him that Manoj Bajpayee is shooting there, he confuses him with Manoj Tiwari. I am shocked but before I could recover he decides to drop me at the Jama Masjid and because of my familiarity with his favourite Manoj decides to stop a cycle rickshaw. He doesn’t know the destination either, but promises to find the way.
The labyrinthine lanes lined by the network of electricity wires presenting a unique indigenous Matrix take us to a slim passage that opens into a rectangular market where some of the best wedding cards in the city are made. Look up and you realise that you are at the base of a shallow well. Always bustling with activity, today there is a manufactured silence. But can anybody keep Delhi 6 really quiet? Even as Manoj Bajpayee appears on the scene from a mysterious shop called Khuddoos Repairs, a lady cranes her neck from a tiny window of a multi storey building. “ Kabhi hamare yahan bhi ayiye. ” It leads to “cut” and co-producer Shuchi Jain doesn’t need to tell me the challenges of shooting in Old Delhi.
Avoiding a cat, who is trying to be familiar with her, Shuchi says, “Finding silence is the biggest issue,” and we take our positions behind the monitor and discover how the world of Khuddoos is like. It is a humid day, the last of 39-day shoot of In The Shadows, and one could see beads of sweat on Manoj’s forehead. There is a bidi between his scaly lips whose glow lends a surreal auburn colour to the otherwise dark frame. But while we could afford to appreciate the aesthetics, young director Dipesh Jain has something else playing on his mind. He could sense that somebody has turned on the motor to fetch water and it can disturb the sync sound. Well, that’s the price one has to pay for shooting in a real location.
Anyway, after a series of takes and retakes, Manoj returns to our world, puts his feet up on a plastic chair and nonchalantly underlines the obvious, “I am made to shoot in real world.” The atmospherics doesn’t exist for him as long he wants. It seems the elements have conspired to help him create what he describes his “darkest film” till date. “No, I rely on my preparation and my director’s instructions. It has never happened that summer or monsoon helped me portray a character better,” he chuckles. “The problem,” he adds, “is even if you get natural sweat, the make-up man wipes it off before the shot because it shines in camera. You have to remove the natural one and replace it with a fake one.”
Manoj studied in Delhi and learnt his craft in the city but till recently he knew the Walled City as a food spot. However, in the last five years he is shooting his third film in the city. Recently he finished Saat Ucchakkey , where he is doing comedy which he admits he is not known for and here he is drawing from the dark recesses of mind to conjure up an insular man that Khuddoos is. “Space is an issue here and it is beautifully used in In the Shadows because the narrative evokes a feeling of claustrophobia in the audience. You should feel that the place will eat you up.” Turning the focus on this suffocation is the lead character, an electrician, who likes to put cameras wherever he can. Among other things the psychological drama, says Manoj, also turns an eye on the increasing presence of CCTV cameras around us. “They open up a new world. All of us create our own worlds and the outside world becomes alien to us. Khuddoos is in search of something and for this he puts these cameras.”
A part of this ‘something’, as Dipesh puts it is his search for his roots. Dipesh used to spend two months of his summer holidays every year in Chipiwara and Dharampura area where his maternal grandmother used to live. “Among other things child violence remained etched on my memory.” The memories found their way into his story which he wrote in Los Angeles, where he studied. “I knew exactly where I am going to shoot. So Khuddoos hears sounds of a boy being beaten up. His cries push him to find him but he could not figure out where he is. It is part of the dark psychological drama which captures the mindset of the people living in the place.” Dipesh was offered many options to recreate the space in parts of Mumbai and Jaipur but he didn’t want to dilute the realism of the place. He hasn’t kept the locals in the dark and has in fact made the barbers, the chaiwallahs part of the frame. “It is not guerilla shooting. Everything was planned and put on paper.” Will the residents be able to access the film? “Of course. Indian audience is very intelligent, it is the filmmakers who judge them otherwise,” Dipesh retorts.
Talking of realism, Manoj who is sharing screen space with acclaimed Belgian actress Laura Verlinden, says his realism is different from hers. “Our way of responding to emotions is very different. We tried to understand each other’s rhythm between takes. When I say we are different, it doesn’t mean that our reaction is a bit exaggerated. The point is our cultures are very different. Like the way they mourn somebody’s death is completely different from what she has experienced.” Backed by Germany-based independent Swiss producer Lena Vurma, it is Manoj’s first international venture. “My hope is that the film goes to many corners to the world. I sign a film on the basis of the strength of the story. How far it will reach, is beyond my control.” Does Khuddoos trouble him at night? “Not any more. I have evolved. I no longer take my characters home. There was a time when I did. And it is good that I did. I am reaping the rewards of that hard work. But still after the shot, it is difficult to come out and talk about the character.” He makes me feel guilty and then says, “ aur batao .”
At 47, he has found a new spurt in his career. Every month, he says, young filmmakers come up to him with something challenging. Does he regret the lull phase, considering every passing year is crucial for an actor? While many of his seniors from theatre world got blinded by Bollywood, Manoj preferred to wait. “They must have had their compulsions. I have tremendous amount of patience. I was born with it.”
Time to reap the rewards! “Indeed. One of the conditions that Dipesh put was that I have to lose weight. Now I will party for two-three days.” What it is like? He opens a mithai ka dibba lying on the table and finds one piece of chamcham in it. He breaks it into half and offers the rest to me. “This is it! My sister brought it in the morning for Rakshabandhan.” A day in the life of an actor.
