It’s not every day that a young struggler from a small town gets mainstream Bollywood success. But with his courageous choice of films, Ayushmann Khurrana is hoping to crack the code, writes Ananya borgohain
They call Mumbai the city of dreams because it is believed that every day a lot of dedicated cinephiles reach there to run from pillar to post hunting for an opportunity to appear on the silver screen. And for every such youngster who makes it big, there is always an endearing life history in the background. Actor Ayushmann Khurrana, at 30, betrays the notion that only established, senior citizens reserve the right to reminisce and offer a guidebook filled with dictums of life for youngsters. Nevertheless, here it is, a handy guide on cracking the code to stardom which he has co-authored with his wife, Tahira Kashyap.
Tahira is a mass communication professor as well as a theatre director and published author. Married to Ayushmann — her classmate from college — she is elegantly sporting a blue dress with white polka dots. Ayushmann, after a quick refreshment break, returns to his seat, and we are all set to roll.
At Chandigarh in 1984, Ayushmann was born after five miscarriages, and with crooked teeth and flat feet. His father is an astrologer and practically threw him out of the house to shift base to Mumbai to become an actor as the hour was auspicious for it. Ayushmann chose to leave a day later as he wanted to have a parting moment with Tahira. His mother is a housewife, and brother Aparshakti is a popular radio jockey in Delhi. Ayushmann graduated in English literature and did his post-graduation in Mass Communication in Chandigarh.
He says that in school, he was the shortest in his class with an ostrich-like jumpy walk and was never the one whom relatives would cuddle, a fact that is astounding to learn because he does have a towering presence, given his tall and lean frame. This mammoth metamorphosis, however, couldn’t deter one constant factor in his life: The urge — and given his description in childhood, the audacity — to be an actor. He did become one, and with his debut film winning a National Award and Yash Raj Films signing a three-film deal with him, one can safely establish that this simpleton from a small town with no family history of the acting bug has designed a remarkable career graph for himself.
And thus comes his debut as a writer, a memoir he has penned to formulate certain maxims from his personal experiences for the aspiring actors. Ayushmann had first appeared on television as a teenager in 2002 in the talent hunt show Popstars, after which he had also won the second season of the adventure reality show, Roadies. But name, fame, and money came much later after a significant period of struggle and further education, which is why this book aims to break struggling actors free from all delusions of grandeur and help them embrace reality.
Cracking the Code (Rupa Publications, Rs195) is an engaging chronicle of his journey to stardom; from his days as a struggling teenager to earning his first salary of Rs60,000 as an RJ to being the sensation that he is today. He fondly recalls his participation in the vaanar sena in the local ramlila, his carefree days dipping samosas in red chutney in college, his stint with theatre, his auditions, pursuing higher studies in MICA, Ahmedabad, becoming the highest paid RJ in Big FM Delhi, and finally winning his big ticket to filmdom and everything else that came along with it.
At the same time, what makes the book all the more intriguing is that it is surprisingly honest and upfront about the industry he is still a part of. Ayushmann has critically mirrored the film industry, and its not so glamorous modus operandi, with personal adages. For instance, he writes about an ugly discord he had had with Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms. Not many know that Ayushmann had a miniscule role in one of Balaji’s TV serials, Qayamat. A payment of Rs1.5 lakh was due to him but the Balaji team wanted him to sign a contract for a new show if he wanted the money, he writes. When he left without signing the contract, Ekta reportedly threw a mobile phone at the executive producer’s face. Threatening calls to intimidate him were made as well. likewise, he also writes about being ruthlessly and rather crassly abused by Sameer Chopra of the Viacom team for messing a sequence while hosting a press conference for the film Ghajini.
About his own films too, he writes that Yash Raj’s film Nautanki Saala, his second, sounded enticing when the script was narrated to him but the final output on screen looked different than what was promised to him. Although, he is careful to also emphasise that director Rohan Sippy is not to be blamed in any way and that Aditya Chopra is one of his mentors. One wonders if it was tough to blatantly take names and share the experiences.
Ayushmann explains, “Cracking the Code is not for the people in the industry, but for the people who aspire to join it. Every day, many youngsters arrive in Mumbai to pursue their passion with colourful dreams in their minds. This book is to guide them to be careful in the edgy tread. It’s also for the ones who are packing the bags to return home after having failed to make it big. These are my target readers more than the ones I have named. And I am not being critical as such, I am just providing my account of the experiences I have had. For example, it was a faux pas on my part as far as the Balaji contract was concerned. Things go wrong at times, which is why I have made notes of all my good and bad decisions for the beginners.” Tahira intervenes, “I don’t think he is crticising his colleagues but offering a critical account of how the industry operates.” And true that, as Ayushmann recalls in the book, Balaji had scheduled talks with him last year for their project Milan Talkies, which however got shelved later. In all chapters, he adds a code for the lessons learnt in his journey, and in this context, he concludes thus: “Code 7: There are no permanent friends or permanent foes, only permanent interests.”
In another chapter, he describes the glitzy parties Bollywood is famous for. He recollects a party which registered the who’s who of Bollywood bigwigs and he felt absolutely out of place and made a quiet exit. A striking line in the chapter reads, “That night was an eye opener for me. The elite world I aspired to enter had depressed me — not because I wasn’t a part of it but because I was being forced to be a part of it in order to become an actor.”
Today, he still sounds as detached from the extravagant revelry his industry frequently indulges in. He says, “I am a simple person. I would prefer to have chai at roadside or eat a meal at a dhaba in sunlight. My idea of having fun is to probably have a house party, jamming session, or go for a drive. Tahira and I are both teetotalers. We extract joys of life from art, not from an image. It’s important for an actor to switch on and off and to pretend all the time to just keep up an appearance. A lot of professional machineries today keep up an actor’s image. You’ll suffer from a mental turmoil if you are acting both onscreen and offscreen.” So does he have friends in the industryIJ “I do have friends in the industry. My mentors Shoojit Sircar, Aditya Chopra, John Abraham are all friends. But everybody is busy and deeply into work, you see. Every relationship commands time, and that applies to friendships as well. My childhood friends know me inside out and they are my real friends. My friends from my theatre days or Rochak Kohli, with whom I have composed my songs, are all my thick friends.” Tahira chooses to be reclusive too. “At this age everybody is busy. I like to be there where work demands. I refuse to be his arm candy. I am there for him when he needs me but apart from that it’s not my life.”
Ayushmann repeatedly mentions being swayed in the journey frequently, creating turbulence in his conjugal life. A few times, disengagement was created between Tahira and him. As he writes in the book, on one instance, he had walked in hand in hand with her but had to let go of her hand as excited press accosted him. He remembers trying to locate her after a good 20 minutes, finding her on the same spot where he had left her, with tears welling up in her eyes. Earlier too, he mentions how his pursuit has had shaky consequences on their relationship when at times he had decided it to be against his favour in his journey, contemplating if the relationship was distracting him from higher ambitions.
Tahira recalls, “I remember it predominantly happened with Vicky Donor. Both of us were not prepared for the response that flooded in after the film’s release. It was his first film and everything was new to us. It is unfair to say that he was responsible for the distancing. I remember him receiving incessant calls. We were in the bedroom and I didn’t have the opportunity to even congratulate or hug him. His calls wouldn’t stop and his battery died. It was our moment too, rightIJ But we didn’t get that bit to congratulate each other. Now he has become detached from both success and failure.” Ayushmann says that now she reads every script that comes his way and her opinions matter to him implicitly.
A constant theme throughout the book is disillusionment. As mentioned earlier, he was disillusioned by the film fraternity’s gargantuan gatherings, he was also disheartened by Nautanki Saala’s final outcome, and dejected by Balaji’s menacing tactics, but he particularly laments the fantasy that reality shows in India generate. He elaborates, “I think I am a realist. I live in the present. As far as reality shows are concerned, I started with Popstars in 2002. Soon after, Roadies followed but it wasn’t psychological warfare then as it is now. The reality I have seen has made me a detached person by nature. I have seen reality shows from three perspectives: Participant, anchor, judge. Reality shows are real but you shouldn’t live in a fantasy world that you have made it big. You should be objective to yourself. You should constantly evolve yourself, rather than living in a bubble.
I came to know that a lot of things are predetermined in reality shows. Sometimes even the judges’ decisions are diluted if the channel wishes. The channel always has the last word. In Music Ka Maha Muqqabla, for example, Himesh Reshammiya and Mika were asked to speak their minds without thinking, to grab both eyeballs and TRPs. The show’s winners too would be given such false dreams and lavish praises that they would feel like stars already.”
Tahira adds, “Many youngsters have turned it into a profession; hopping from one show to another. It’s crucial that you understand the unreal in what is being packaged as real. It’s important to understand that life doesn’t come to a standstill if things don’t work out the way you had anticipated. Maybe there are other avenues you should seek instead.”
Having juggled multiple avenues himself, what code does Ayushmann follow when he accepts a role thenIJ “At the time of Vicky Donor, I was much active on television. Anchoring is when you have to talk to the camera. Acting is when you ignore the camera. So I had to unlearn a lot of stuff. For Vicky Donor, I revised my theatre lessons. I lived in Delhi for two months and roamed on the streets of lajpat Nagar. I attended theatre workshops, voice modulation and face distortion sessions. In the film, I also inserted a lot of words which were not used in Bollywood otherwise.”
And indeed, his films have been substantially different from one another. While Vicky Donor was about a sperm donor, Hawaizaada was the biopic of Shivkar Bapuji Talpade, and his latest release Dum laga Ke Haisha is about a Kumar Sanu fan unhappily married to an oversized woman. He says, “I can't take cinema lightly. Your decisions make or break you. I won’t intellectualise debacles but I know how to bring out the artistic elements in ‘commercial’ cinema too. I want to be part of good cinema. Madras Cafe had no role for me but it felt so right that I offered to assist the director (Shoojit Sircar) in its making”.
He says that one simply doesn’t say no to Yash Raj Films. So, does that mean that he did Dum laga Ke Haisha by default or does he genuinely endorse the innocence of the filmIJ He replies, “No, Dum laga Ke Haisha is something I read in one sitting and had my heart set on. There was no fatigue while reading it. The setting in itself was so fascinating. It was so unusual of Yash Raj and so un-territorial for Bollywood too. It’s straight from the Indo-Gangetic plains, about this simpleton from Haridwar married to an oversized girl. I think you should be fearless as an actor. All of my films may not have been successful but they were all different. Things like this happen. Even last year, my films didn’t do well, but my music soared charts.”
Music is indeed an uncanny knack he possesses. His songs have always been met with adulation. They are poetic and mystically lyrical. So as a musician, what would be an indispensable element for him while creating musicIJ He reveals, “I do riyaz early in the morning daily. Most of my songs were originally college compositions which my friend Rochak and I had made. Paani Da Rang and Saddi Gali were composed in 2002 and 2003 respectively. It’s more to do with earthiness. Punjabi is an expressive language. If you jam or fuse the language with contemporary programming, it could make a great song. I think Rochak and I cracked that code.”
A significant part of Ayushmann’s life has been education. like his wife, he too has a Masters in Mass Communication and he writes that Tahira too comes from a family of journalists, bureaucrats and educationists. It goes without saying that being well educated has only worked in this couple’s favour. Ayushmann is active on social media sites and is a regular blogger. He says his publishers approached him to write the book on these very grounds. Tahira says, “Ayushmann is academically inclined. The academic years bring about wisdom. A lot of youngsters quit studies after Class 12, and focus on shedding weight and makeovers to become overnight sensations. Wisdom extends to the choices you make in life. And either experience or education makes you that, which is why formal education is so crucial.”
At a point in the book, Ayushmann also mentions that stars have felt demotivated and lonely even at the peak of their careers. He shares with his readers that both Mithun Chakraborty and Amitabh Bachchan have been privy to this feeling of wanting to break free from everything. Although Ayushmann says that he has a long way to go, one can only hope that it turns out to be a glorious journey for him never having to share the deluded and disillusioning sentiments.
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