Mohenjo Daro let me play a human: Nitish Bharadwaj

When you are in the same room as Nitish Bharadwaj, you can’t help but be charmed by his iconic smile, the one that set many a female heart aflutter during the ’90s. At 53, he’s already an indispensable part of Indian pop culture courtesy his act as Lord Krishna in B.R. Chopra’s Mahabharata. He has been a member of the Lok Sabha, has directed a critically and commercially acclaimed Marathi film, Pitruroon, authored a book, and still has the fitness and infectiously charismatic flamboyance of a 20-year-old. Nitish dropped in at The Asian Age office before his big-screen comeback with Ashutosh Gowariker’s magnum opus, Mohenjo Daro, which releases today. Excerpts from the chat:

How did the movie happen Ashu and I go back a good 30 odd years, when we both would hang out together during our ‘struggler’ days. He called me up last year, and said that he needed me in Bhuj. I was aware he was shooting for Mohenjo Daro; he told me that he had a role for me, which he believed I’d be able to do justice to. I went to Bhuj, where he narrated the story and told me about the character, Durjan, that he wanted me to play. It was a character that had a prominence and had a definite role to play in the life of Sarman (Hrithik Roshan). Durjan is an indigo farmer, who raises his orphaned nephew, Sarman. Durjan keeps secrets to himself; a mystery that unfolds as the film progresses and has a huge impact on the narrative of the film. This makes him a very mysterious character, bordering on being grey, yet emotionally rooted. The opportunity to play someone ‘human’ for once appealed to me.

Were you sold on the script immediately No, we discussed a few aspects of the script — the period, the lingo and my look in the film. I had to look convincing as Hrithik’s uncle and we were successful at it thanks to a good makeup team. The dialect was a hurdle and I needed to work on it, but once all of those were sorted, we were on. How was it working with Hrithik Hrithik is a fabulous actor. He has assisted his father on multiple films and understands cinema as a technique. He knows what preparation needs to be done for a role — both from a technical perspective and as an actor. He is very dedicated and comes on the sets prepared. Sarman’s was a physically demanding role and he had to look macho; he would constantly be pumping iron before shots, which is exclusive of the two and a half odd hours he’d spend in the gym, everyday. He’s also open to impromptu ideas and improvisations and doesn’t mind rehearsing multiple times. He’s a simple boy with no starry airs about himself who’s easy to talk to. He’d watched Mahabharata in school and he’d ask me questions about Krishna. The discussions would then slowly transcend into spirituality. I was pleasantly surprised to see that despite belonging to a typically filmy background and household, his upbringing wasn’t filmi.

You have been synonymous with Lord Krishna for far too long now. Was it ever too hard to move out of the mould I can’t speak for other people, but Ashu, at the time of Jodhaa Akbar, had told me that he doesn’t want to cast me in that mould. He wished to cast me in a different mould. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen back then, but it did work out in Mohenjo Daro.

Could you relive your struggle days with Ashutosh We would go for auditions together. In fact, we were once the final contenders to play the lead for a certain Indo-Canadian joint venture. We went for the final auditions together, and he ended up getting selected. He used to sport a very dense Afro back then. Govinda, Aamir Khan, Amole Gupte, Deepak Tijori, Makrand Deshpande and Raj Zutshi were part of the ‘struggler’ gang. We had common ‘addas’ at Mithibai College or Prithvi Theatre or predominantly, Ravi Baswani’s house. We would land up at his house; he’d guide us, enquire about our progress and feed us. Irrfan Khan too would end up there. Later on, I ended up casting him as Kans in my TV production, Geeta Rahasya.

What are your forthcoming projects I have finished a psychological drama helmed by Mukul Abhyankar called Yaksh. I’m also gearing up to direct my second movie, my first being Pitruroon. It was an adaptation of a Kannada story by Sudha Murthy and starred Tanuja and Sachin Khedekar in lead roles. It was well received critically and commercially and won quite a few awards. My second film will be a Hindi period drama, an amalgamation of two short stories from ancient Indian literature. I’m working on the script, currently, setting it in an ancient Indian period. As for acting assignments, I’m waiting to see how the response to my performance in Mohenjo Daro is, and then take it from there.