For a man facing flak from his peers and students, Gajendra Chauhan comes across as unusually unflustered. He agrees his selection is politically motivated. “I am not denying that I have got this post because I am a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party but so has been the case with previous dispensations. Give me a chance to prove myself. FTII is facing a lot of problems. My primary target is to get an audit done and streamline the process of admission. I want to tell the students that judge me by my work and give me a year to prove myself. I could be a welcome link between the institute and the Government. I have come to know that the previous chairpersons used to spend one or two days in a month in the institute. I will be a full-time chairperson. I want to ensure that the students get proper budget for diploma films and their works are screened on national television.”
Chauhan insists he is not there to implant a particular ideology in the institute. “I understand that cinema has it own grammar and here people of different ideologies work together to make a film. When we shoot we don’t ask the director and the cameraman which political party or ideology do they support. And these values should be inculcated in the students. Anyway the governing and academic council is full of eminent people. One Gajendra Chauhan can’t do anything. As I said I am going to be an active link between the Government and the institute and some members have already spoken in my favour.”
He reminds that he has served as the president of Cine and Television Artists Association for a long time. “And I have no case of corruption against me.”
His credentials are being repeatedly questioned. “There have been chairpersons with illustrious background in the past but still the institute has not been getting its due from the Government. I have been getting phone calls that I don’t know enough about FTII. I agree I have been to the institute only once. It was in 1984 when our teacher Roshan Taneja took us to FTII for some acting exercises but that doesn’t mean I am any less than an alumnus. And if you are going only by bio-data who would have thought a chaiwala will hold the chair of prime minister with such confidence and ease. My detractors say that I didn’t do anything big after Mahabharat . I want to ask them where one should climb after scaling the Everest. I came through the audition route. First I was selected for the role of Krishna but was later asked to play Yudhishthir,” says Chauhan who hails from Khanpur in Delhi.
“I have a diploma in radiography and was among the first students to work on CT scan. However, theatre and films have been my first love and was active in creative field since my college days.”
His detractors also remind of the choices he made early in his career. Films like “Khuli Khidki”, “Vasna”, “Jawani Janeman” do not match the efforts of a seeker of Everest in his field.
“See, every creative person has to compromise sometimes on the quality of roles to make the ends meet. You have to realise that I am a self-made man, and have achieved, howsoever little it is, everything through my hard work and persistence.”
