Rajinikanth has rubbed off on me, says Mayur Vyas

It’s every professor’s ardent wish to have the group he’s addressing pay full attention to him, instead of staring at their smartphones, or worse, dozing off. For Usha Pravin Gandhi College’s Mayur Vyas, today is the day of wish fulfillment. Soon, his voice will be blaring in Dolby sound across packed theatres in almost every corner of the country. Not just that, it will also command every ounce of attention from those present, for it will be superstar Rajinikanth himself who will add life to his voice on the screen.

Mayur, who will be the voice of Rajini’s Kabali in Hindi, has already lent his voice to the superstar in his last three releases — Lingaa, Robot and Sivaji. While it clearly is a tall order, the established voice-over artist, who has Hindi versions of the likes of Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr to his credit, tells us about the challenges of being a voice-over artist and how it was Rajini himself who helped him pull it off.

“I still haven’t had the chance to meet him personally,” says Mayur, clarifying that the help he got was not from the man himself, but from the persona. “But it instills a lot of confidence when you give voice to his characters and the dialogues he speaks,” he explains. While he hasn’t got the superstar’s feedback yet, he adds that every film he gets of Rajini’s, is an approval from the star for the previous one.

Mayur tells us how he got the opportunity to do Kabali and says, “Before Kabali, I had only worked on his films that were made by Shankar sir. So when I heard that Kabali was happening, I was hoping I would hear from the team. It was then that one of my very close friends, Mohan Nair, called me and said that he was doing the Hindi dub of Kabali and wanted me on board. We went to Chennai to meet Pa Ranjith (the director) and the team really liked my voice and I ended up doing Kabali.”

Mayur says that the tough part is to keep the dialogues, which were originally meant for Tamil from sounding caricaturish. “If you look at Rajini sir’s original renditions, even his Tamil isn’t authentic and is heavily accented. So I decided to focus less on the language and more on the nuances and the style.”

While the superstar himself has dubbed in Hindi for many of his Hindi films in the 80s, Mayur adds that his style doesn’t take from Rajini’s Hindi. “I tried to take from some of his films, such as Chalbaaz. But even there the Hindi he speaks is heavily accented. Everyday, people from the voice artists fraternity ask me things like, ‘Arey kaise karta hai yaar ’ (How do you do it ) and ‘How do you find the conviction to say those lines’. The problem is many in this fraternity are predisposed to the opinion that Tamil cinema is over-the-top and for them the dialogues almost seem funny. I didn’t want that to be the case because here Rajini is the hero and he needs to be taken seriously.”

“He rubs off on you,” says Mayur on the effect that being Rajini’s voice has had on him. “To say lines like ‘Jhund mein to suar aate hain, sher akela hi aata hai’ (Only pigs come in a group, lion always comes alone), you need tremendous confidence. And over time you imbibe some of it,” he adds.

While it may seem easy on the outset, being a voice artist is quite a difficult art, says Mayur. “Even though I consider my teaching profession to be my first priority, I am also very passionate about being a voice artist,” he adds. Telling us how he started out in the industry, he says, “It was in 97-98 that the Disney hour first came up and that’s when voice artists were in demand. I started with animation and since I had always been interested in drama in college, I felt that this is a field I can use my potential in. I like doing documentaries and ads too, but films are my favourite. There is no other medium that offers such a big canvas for storytelling.”

While managing two jobs is a difficult task, Mayur says that there are perks of being a voice artist as well. “Well for one, I can regale my students with a dialogue or two to keep their attention intact after a 40-minute lecture. But apart from that, when we went to Chennai and people got to know that I was to be Rajini sir’s voice in Hindi, I was treated with a lot of love. Day in, day out people associate me with Rajini sir’s characters.”

While being Rajini’s voice is his most famous work yet, Mayur adds that he also does documentaries, ad films and animations. But by his own admission, Rajini is also his favourite among the stars he’s given his voice to. “That’s why I’m really excited. The response that his films get is always gratifying for me too,” says Mayur as he signs off.