True to his name, actor Joy Sengupta’s craft in any format is a delight to watch. . Having essayed a wide range of roles, he moves effortlessly between different genres and formats imbuing each character he plays with nuances learnt through years of training and observation. This was evident at the recently concluded Old World Theatre Festival, where the Delhi audience got to see the local boy in two plays which represented diverse ends of the spectrum.
We meet for dinner at Depot 48, a cosy restaurant inSouth Delhi, just before Joy’s scheduled rehearsal for Ladies Sangeet yet he remains unhurried throughout the interaction. “Being passionate about acting and food, I enjoy both, never finding either of the two tedious or taxing,” he quips nibbling the spinach and artichoke dips with homemade tortilla chips . To prove his point, he explains, “Both food and theatre are related to nava rasas helping in awakening and enticing our senses and aesthetic tastes."
Talking about the festival plays, he says, “I am delighted doing them as they are totally different from each other. While ‘A Doll’s House’, is an experiment with a classic as it goes toa tangent doing things with Ibsen that have never been done before, ‘Ladies Sangeet’, is contemporary, written by today’s playwright – a conventional proscenium theatre with music, song and dance. In a way, I am straddling two different worlds, time periods and forms.”
Though attending to assignments in Mumbai between the performances, Joy does not look jaded. “I do not find this life hectic as after all I chose it. This journey of moving from one time frame to another, getting under the skin of varied characters and texts is my second nature. That is why I became an actor as it gives me an opportunity to do so many things that enriches me in a short time.” Pausing for a second, he adds, “My father told me that happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby and and that is what I am doing.”
Acting seems to have been Joy’s destiny right from childhood. Early initiation into literature by his father introduced him to English classics by O. Henry, Guy de Maupassant, and others while mother made him familiar with Bengali works by Ashapurna Devi and Bimal Mitra. His grandmother read to him epics Ramayan and Mahabharat and fairy tales. “All this seeped into my personality making me interpret the stories and characters and enacting the tales in front of the mirror.”
Spotting young Joy’s talent, his school and college teachers encouraged him to hone his skills in acting, writing and directing plays. “I am grateful as it allowed me to explore the world of theatre. Stage was the best thing that happened to me. Shy and introvert, I spent hours reading and stage unleashed another side of my personality, giving me a certain sense of being, belonging and identity.” Out of college, Joy formed Act One which still stages plays and wrote articles in India Speak. Comfortable working with children, landed him a teaching assignment at Blue Bells International. During this period, Joy had a fruitful association with Safdar Hashmi’s Jan Natya Manch, a cultural movement enabling him to meet historians, sociologists, political scientists, activists, writers, poets, painters and sculptors. “This triggered the discovery of the larger purpose of acting. Meeting all those inclined towards creating expression, one came across questions like the meaning of art, relevance of theatre and what is the correlation between art and society. Before that art was more about pleasure, entertainment and regaling the audience but now one realised that art had a higher purpose — that of transforming the society. For me this was a quantum jump,” reflects Joy.
Depot 48 staff quietly serves duck confit tostada and Spanish ham and cheese quesadilla . Tasting small portions, he gives a thumbs up sign up to the smiling attendant who looks relieved.
Talking about his acting journey, Joy feels that over the years his craft has improved. Working with different directors their individual processes, objectives and intellect has left an indelible mark on him. “Ebrahim Alkazi under whom I studied for my diploma in drama at the Living Theatre Academy, taught me the holistic aesthetic approach to art. He said one must touch people’s soul and stimulate their mind. Habib Tanvir whose theatre rooted in grassroots could move the elite, taught me social pragmatism and never to become subservient to the establishment. Tanvir Sahib used to say the hilsa in Bangladesh was the best when it swam against river Padma’s current. Feroz Abbas Khan drummed into me the instinct to bleed for the theme, character and the story as he believed a theatre person had to be affected by all this to have an effect on the audience.” Likewise, Lillete Dubey made him realise the need to take theatre beyond the self indulgent space to maximum audience.
Just as diverse directors impressed Joy, so have different Indian and foreign cuisines too. “Pointing my favourites is a tough one as I love almost everything,” he jokes. “Even though most people link Bangla food with fish and meat, many are unaware that their vegetarian dishes outnumber the non-vegetarian ones.” He lists mochar ghonto, bati chorchori and water spinach among his favourites. Among fish dishes, he likes magur and shingi. “These made with raw bananas and papaya are apt when one is sick as it is light and healthy.”
Brought up in Delhi, Joy relishes korma with roomali rotis, seekh and shammi kababs and also Punjabi preparations like rajma, khadi, tandoori chicken and Amritsar fish fry. Recalling the Navtratras which just got over, Joy, says, he finds the puri chhole and halwa prepared during the festival simply delicious.
Theatre worked wonders for Joy in more than one way. Giving him personal satisfaction, it shaped his career in television and films. He hosted Super Quiz and Question of Cricket , anchored Doordarshan’s Superhit Muqbala besides acting in serials and telefilms like Waaris and Antaral . In Mumbai, Govind Nihalani spotted him in the play If Wishes Were Horses and offered Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa . “Theatre got me introduction to so many people. Directors would see plays and seek me out. Otherwise, they would have probably never met me had I approached them,” remarks Joy. He went on to do Nihalani’s Deham. Bangla films too came his way and notable ones he did were Abhijit Chaudhuri’s Patalghar which win two National Awards.
Savouring his lamb burger, Joy says TV serials and films made him move to Mumbai and also honed his cooking. “I would call up my mother, who is, of course, a grand cook for recipes. I experiment by using less oil and more steam to cook dishes. Like for hastening cooking of chicken, I liberally use big pieces of onions and tomatoes to soften it. So I became an expert through this process of trial and error,” he jests.
Passage of time has made Joy less inclined to TV. Was it due to his preoccupation with films? “No. Having worked in the golden phase of TV when some of the best talents like Ravi Rai, Anurag Kashyap, Anurag Basu, Sriram Raghavan and Shivam Nair were there, I could not cope up with the grossly and crassly commercial makeover of TV. Even though I was earning fabulously, I did not want to kill the actor in me,” says Joy. Earnest hoping for its revival, Joy quickly bids goodbye to catch up his co-actors to play “Ladies Sangeet!”
