The big Bollywood struggle

The big Bollywood struggle Aspiring actors continue to flood into Mumbai but less than one per cent actually find a toe-hold in this cutthroat industry. The saga continues… It’s a story of heartbreak. Countless young people, some just in their teens, reach Mumbai — the City of Tinsel Dreams — aspiring to achieve stardom. Of late, the aspirants have been arriving not only from the remote parts of India, but also from overseas. The third generation kids of Indians settled in New York, Los Angeles, London, Cape Town and Hong Kong, are increasingly jetting to Bollywood with their savings, to hang out at auditions day after day. Less than one per cent eventually find a toe-hold in the film industry. From California, 35-year-old Yash Mehta has chucked up his cushy executive job, a ‘luxurious car’ as he calls it, and his family ties. From London’s Southhall, Nayani Moorthy, has been showing her portfolio of photographs to film production offices, only to meet with the classic evasive response, “We will get in touch.” Binny Sharma, son of a prosperous Delhi family, works as a restaurant waiter to fund his struggle for fame and fortune. Most of the wannabes live in rented single rooms in and around Mumbai’s Lokhandwala complex, a thick maze of skyscrapers, and film and TV production offices. Of the thousands of hopefuls, a sizeable section enrols in acting schools. As many as 55 schools have popped up all over Lokhandwala and the surrounding neighbourhoods of Juhu, Malad, Goregaon and Borivli-Kandivli. In the course of making a 28-minute documentary, The Big Bollywood Struggle, I saw that the young dreamers long to be the next Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif and Priyanka Chopra. The males join gyms to sculpt their physiques à laSalman, while females dress in flashy faux designer wear. On facing rejection, the ‘strugglers’ have no choice but to stay on in Bollywood. An overwhelming number don’t return home. They are embarrassed to accept defeat. Lingering on in anonymity, some ‘strugglers’ do find consolation in the fact that they could at least be coached by leading Bollywood celebrities — at the few acting schools which are run on ethical principles. Currently, there are a handful of institutions which may not guarantee placement for their students but at least warn them, at the very outset, that show business can be like a game of roulette. In fact, this cautionary theme has been conveyed empathetically in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Guddi, Ram Gopal Varma’sRangeela and Zoya Akhtar’s Luck by Chance. Children of established actors find it much easier to make it in a system where star pedigree has been a scoring point over the decades. So producer-director Rahul Rawail’s school has been in the news since Sunny Deol’s son, Karan, happens to be one of its students. Rawail not only introduced Sunny with Betaab, but also gave the first break to Kajol with Bekhudi. The school is allied to the Stella Adler School of Acting, which honed the skills of such powerhouses as Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn, Warren Beatty and Candice Bergen. Anupam Kher’s Actor Prepares, with branches in New Delhi, Chandigarh and Chennai, is another professionally-run school with an in-house faculty and guest lecturers ranging from Mahesh Bhatt and Shabana Azmi to Urmila Matondkar. Theatre veteran Barry John from Delhi, who taught Shah Rukh Khan the ropes of acting, is now anchored in Mumbai, drawing students who want to make it in films or theatre. Roshan Taneja, legendary for coaching Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Ajay Devgan, Hrithik Roshan and Dimple Kapadia, continues to attract disciples at his 48-year-old academy. Subhash Ghai’s Whistling Woods institute doesn’t have a seat to spare in its acting department. The government-subsidised Film and Television Institute, Pune, has revived its acting course but its recent graduates have still to make a mark. Meanwhile, Mumbai’s Lokhandwala becomes more crowded by the day. Action director, Shyam Kaushal, points out that quite a few hopeful actors, finding no option, turn into ‘extras’ and stuntmen. They are not visible but do eke out a daily living. Similarly, girls drift into dancing in the chorus lines of the ‘item’ numbers, while many get married, their dreams extinguished. All the acting schools charge exorbitant fees, be it for short-term or yearly courses. Strugglers can barely afford to shell out the money, often exhausting all their savings and cheques, sent by an occasionally supportive parent, within a year. Yet the influx to Bollywood rises by the day, alas without a happy ending.