The Bose Principle

Actor Rahul Bose has proved that it is possible to survive on the fringes of big, bad Bollywood on one’s own terms, writes Saibal Chatterjee

India’s new-fangled urban English-language cinema draws much of its visibility and commercial clout from the multiplex star status that Rahul Bose enjoys. Having built his seven-year-old acting career around a series of edgy, angst-ridden characters, starting with the memorable Agastya Sen in Dev Benegal’s widely applauded screen adaptation of Upamanyu Chatterjee’s critically acclaimed novel, English August, he has created a niche that is entirely his own.

But Bose is more than just an actor. His first film as a director, Everybody Says I’m Fine, released a little over two years ago, pushed the envelope just a little, showing many young English-speaking Indian filmmakers the way forward. As Chandigarh girl Vinta Nanda, the debutante director of Bose’s upcoming release, White Noise, says, "ESIF inspired me. I saw the film in a Bandra theatre. It was such a thrill to see a film about us. There was no viable outlet of expression for urban, globalised Indians like me until the English-language cinema movement was bolstered by Rahul’s remarkable film."

Indeed, that is how crucial Bose’s contribution has been in the context of the emerging trend of multiplex movies that break free from the tyranny of mainstream industry conventions. Even as an actor, he has dared to do something that Bollywood usually frowns upon: played quiet foils to stronger, more vocal women on a number of occasions. In Aparna Sen’s Mr & Mrs Iyer, he was wildlife photographer Raja Chowdhury in a constantly reactive mode in relation to the film’s Tamil Brahmin female protagonist, Meenakshi Iyer. Earlier this year, Hindi moviegoers saw him in the garb of suave but tentative Mumbai investment banker Aman Kapoor grappling with an accidental brush with a foul-mouthed young streetwalker in Sudhir Mishra’s Chameli.

"With White Noise," says Bose, "I complete a trilogy of strong, silent characters." Nanda’s English film has the actor playing the part of Karan Deol, a US-returned sound engineer who wants to be a filmmaker in the Satyajit Ray mould but finds himself trapped in a television industry job that sucks. Once again, Bose has a strong
on-screen female presence to contend with – that of a hard-drinking, strong-headed scriptwriter (played by his ESIF co-star Koel Purie) who creates a reactionary soap opera despite her progressive moorings.

So, isn’t Bose in danger of being typecast? "No," he asserts. "These three characters may appear to be identical but they are not. Each has distinct qualities." He insists that he will never play a role that he has done before. "After the success of Jhankaar Beats, I got several offers to play flirty, light-hearted characters. I turned them all down," Bose adds.

The novelty of a role is what draws this actor. "If I not happy doing a role I cannot do a good job," he says. "I really envy actors who can keep repeating themselves in film after film and still be big stars. That surely takes some doing. I do not have that sort of talent," adds Bose, who maintains a fair distance from commercial Hindi cinema.

It is the profit motive of mainstream Mumbai movies that he finds particularly unacceptable? "When you make a film, a shirt or a cricket bat for commercial purposes, you copy the last thing that sold. You are in the business to make money, not to break barriers. While that is a reasonable, logical approach, it is anathema to me. I don’t believe in any formula," Bose explains.

"When I am in a mainstream set-up, the role has to be especially challenging for me to be excited enough to give it a shot, as it was in Govind Nihalani’s Thakshak (co-starring Ajay Devgan and Tabu)," he says. That explains why the roles that he has played to date in so-called commercial Hindi films have been anything but run-of-the-mill. "Jhankaar Beats was a formula film all right, but my role in it was the sort that I had never done before," Bose says. "And Chameli wasn’t really a mainstream film. All the characters in it were real."

Bose admits that Mumbai Matinee was the only "wrong judgment call" he has ever made. "The film did not shape up right," he says. But his performance as a thirty-something man thirsting for sex in the city did have its moments. It added a new figure to his on-screen gallery of anguished souls seeking salvation against all odds much in the manner that his star turn as a slum-dweller involved in a cat-and-mouse game with Mumbai’s water mafia in Dev Benegal’s Split Wide Open did. "The Split Wide Open performance fetched me the only Best Actor award (at the Singapore Film Festival) that I have won so far," he declares.

Bose is looking forward to the late-November release of White Noise, which, he says, is close to his heart. "It is the first-ever Mumbai film that is set in the world of television. It also has a strong feminist sensibility. And like Sujoy Ghosh (director of Jhankaar Beats), Vinta is a person I hit off with instantly. She is honest, unassuming and always open to ideas," he says.

With White Noise out of the way, Bose will return to his search for US funding for the international project that he is currently in the process of scripting. "I have been slowed down drastically by my acting assignments and rugby commitments," says the actor who has famously made a mark in the contact sport. "It is going to be an entirely international film with no Indian characters. The only thing Indian about the film will be me, the writer-director," he reveals.

But before his second directorial venture does roll, Bose has three acting assignments lined up for the next few months. Predictably, neither is what one would call a mainstream job. Apart from an English-language arthouse film, Rajiv Virani’s The Whisperers, Bose has been signed up by internationally acclaimed Kolkata director Buddhadeb Dasgupta for his next Bengali film, which is set to go on the floors by end-October.

This will be his first film in his native tongue and he is understandably excited about it. "But I don’t want to jump the gun," he says. "I will leave it to Buddhadeb Dasgupta to make the formal announcement." A directorial venture in the US and a film role in a language that he has never attempted before — Rahul Bose’s career, as always, continues to move in new directions.

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