‘Good is boring’

Nonika Singh

Just as a tiger won’t change his stripes, don’t expect a Haryanvi Jat to ever shed his attitude. So, there he is—Rohtaki Randeep Hooda with his chutzpah, swagger and sardonic sense of humour in place who by his own admission is wearing sheep’s skin.

Deep beneath is this suave intelligent actor who parries a volley of questions with wit and wisecracks, partially mocking and partially charming but not a wee bit apologetic. As he gets into the skin of notorious criminal Charles Sobhraj in his soon to be released film Main Aur Charles, we wonder why he is the first choice to play the bad guy? He ponders, but just for a fraction of a second, and pat comes the reply, “May be because I carry them off well. But I don’t play a villain only the good bad guy and what in Bollywood parlance is grey.”

Sure, even while playing a criminal one has to empathise with the character. Randeep was 10-year-old when he first heard about Charles’ famous escape from Tihar jail which by the way is what the film focuses on. To understand Charles better just when he decided to meet him in person he was dissuaded by former cop Amod Kanth. Kanth, who incidentally is the Main (in the film he is played by Adil Hussain) told him, “Once you meet him there is no other way you could play him but the way he would want you to.”

So devious was his charm that Randeep echoes, “You can’t escape his enigma.”

The film, however, doesn’t flirt with reality. He and the producer Rahul Mittra promise it is very authentic, based on newspaper reports as well as Kanth’s account of the serial killer who was seen with different eyes by different people. Charmer he sure was in his heydays and especially had a way with women. How many he wooed, even Randeep lost count of in the film which he insists is not a dark film and credits the director Prawaal Raman for pulling off the impossible feat for making an entertainer out of such a subject.

Randeep, however, counters the aspersion that such films glorify crime. He scoffs, “It would be damn boring to make a film on an accountant. Cinema is larger than life and has to be about interesting characters.” Besides he says, “There was this series on Ramayan. Now did that make people into Ram and Sita… do Hirani’s films on Gandhigiri make everyone turn the other cheek?”

That’s why it’s not just this question but also the Vancouver police’s response to Deepa Mehta’s film Beeba Boys in which he plays the lead gangster peeved him no end. He shoots off rather angrily, “Just a few day before Johnny Depp-starrer Black Mass, which is also about crime, released and there wasn’t so much as a whimper.” He rationalises his point of view further, “Look at the way Indians are portrayed in Hollywood films. They are either taxi drivers or janitors or some dreary doctors. Here Deepa Mehta has made a beautiful realistic film and they have a problem.”

This Haryanvi Jat interestingly too has a problem with the way his jatland is portrayed in cinema and he hopes his movie Yeh Lal Rang for which he shot in Karnal will make amends and rectify the distorted image of Haryana as the land of brainless people and tyrannical Khaps. For him it was a liberating experience to play a Haryanvi jat for the first time and be able to speak in the dialect that comes naturally to him. But even when he has to acquire an accent as with Charles’ half Vietnamese and half Sindhi diction, Randeep leaves no room for error. No wonder Rahul is all praise for his actor, “He is a classic example of a man becoming his job and has reconstructed the DNA of Charles to become him unerringly, almost dangerously, close.”

From Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding to Deepa Mehta’s Beeba Boys, life has come full circle. And this time he didn’t miss the Toronto Film festival where Beeba Boys premiered. So is this his best phase? He winks, “I hope not.” More from his stable…

Who would mind that? Certainly not his producer who will be casting him again… may be a sequel to Main Aur Charles. Even if this one doesn’t work? Deadpan Randeep quips, “Certainly not.” To say it the way it is …. that is his wont and style. To see more of him watch his screen take on Charles which in his words, “has a lot of me in him.”