Anupam plays himself on the stage
V. Gangadhar

AS the lights flicker, dim and then brighten on the stage, a figure runs here and there. Who is he? Superman, Spiderman or Charlie Chaplin? Look carefully, it is our own Anupam Kher, and he is playing himself on stage. Kucch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai produced by Anupam Kher was previewed in Mumbai recently.

The play does not hide the fact that Anupam’s life was full of failures. It shows Anupam struggling in school, college and then in life. But Anupam uses his failures to laugh at himself. "It is a fun play, something which cannot be labelled," asserted director Feroz Khan, one of Anupam’s close friends who had directed his earlier stage venture, Saal Girah. "We did not see anything wrong in people going to the theatre and enjoying themselves. That is what this play is all about."

Anupam Kher had earlier toyed with the idea of writing his autobiography. But that did not work out. He used to relate anecdotes from his life to his close friends and these were frank and funny. Feroz Khan wondered if these could be retold in the form of a play and began to work on the first draft by Ashok Patole.

For Feroz, it was a challenge to structure the play in a way that would have universal appeal. "The play must work even without Anupam Kher," he said. This was possible because the things that happened to the actor could have happened to just about anyone. A happy childhood in a Shimla, a joint family, a poor academic record in school, the thrill of having a girlfriend and of the first kiss, the goof-ups in a school play where Anupam presented his own version of The Merchant of Venice, an unhappy love affair which included a futile attempt at stopping the wedding of a steady girlfriend.

The failures continued in his professional life with long periods of idleness in Mumbai. He lost the role of Jawaharlal Nehru in Attenborough’s Gandhi to Roshan Seth and was equally upset that the stately lift operator at the hotel where the film unit was staying was chosen to play Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. As a struggling 27-year-old actor, he almost lost the chance to play the 60-year-old B.V. Pradhan who loses his only son in Mahesh Bhatt’s Saaransh. Saaransh received wide acclaim, but Anupam lost out on the National Award for Best Actor. It was bagged by Naseeruddin Shah.

Anupam played the role of the hero in only one film, Swati. However, he was in demand in the commercial cinema circuit as a character actor. Anupam felt he was going stale and launched into TV serial production and hosted a quiz show, Sawaal Dus Crore Ka, which flopped badly. Back to square one, he had to fight off creditors. "Anupam was having a bad time, but was determined to fight back," recalled Feroz. "He was smarting under one failure after another and welcomed this play as a new challenge." Feroz himself was looking out for some comic relief after doing two serious plays, Mahatma vs Gandhi and Salesman Ramlal. He knew he could get the best out of Anupam, and the project was launched.

"The play did not have a definite form as such," explained Feroz. "But do we need one? Theatre is flexible enough to accommodate a fun-filled narrative which has some funny and some sad sequences." Kher plays Kher with gusto, reliving and relishing past incidents from his life. Not all of them are comic. We feel sorry for him when he loses good roles or the girl he wants to marry. But no one can deny that such things happen in real like and that makes the play true to life.

Stars from Bollywood poured in to watch the preview of the play. They apparently enjoyed the well-intentioned digs at Bollywood. "They came as famous film stars, but left as humble human beings," pointed out Feroz Khan. "They must have been able to relate to some of the incidents in the play." Amitabh Bachchan lauded the effort. Dilip Kumar said that after a long time, the play rekindled in him the urge to act. What more can a producer, director and actor ask for?

Photo: Vinesh Gandhi