Sohum Shah recalls his ‘unique’ Mumbai journey
Back when he first came to Mumbai, Sohum Shah wanted to be the guy insouciantly ordering a cappuccino. Two decades later, the actor-producer says he is content being the masala tea loving small towner making films he likes and acting in shows he wants to.
The somewhat fancy cappuccino and the humble masala tea capturing his struggles in the frenetic showbiz world of Mumbai, the Tumbbad actor and producer from Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan said he has realised he is better off being authentic.
“I drink masala chai with a lot of milk. They say milk is harmful and masala chai is more harmful... That’s life’s journey... You should know whether you are a cappuccino guy or a masala tea guy. I am not the cappuccino kind of guy,” Shah said.
The 41-year-old, who ran a real estate business in Sri Ganganagar till the arclights beckoned, has backed the unconventional Ship of Theseus and Tumbbad and is familiar to OTT viewers for his roles in hit shows such as Maharani and Dahaad.
The journey from being the unsure, primarily Hindi speaker trying to establish himself in a city where you were judged by your English skills to who he is today has been unique and he would not trade it for anything, Shah said.
“I have grown from a zero to a hero… I find my journey beautiful. There are many people who come from outside, many producers also come in. Rich kids say ‘Papa will invest money and I’ll act’ or they come on their own. But they make only one film and go away. In this regard, I like my journey a lot,” the actor said.
The pressure to fit in - with people telling him ‘you don’t know anything, even your subordinate is better than you’ — was enormous and took a toll.
“I have visited therapists and spoken to them at length for hours. You have sort of absorbed that if you know English you can mingle well… Bombay is a city where everything is vertical, so a certain isolation tends to creep in. But at the same time, Bombay is a meditative city, it helps you evolve.”
In the initial years, he would wake up every day with the question — should he leave Bombay?
“I remember there used to be a CCD cafe. I didn’t have the courage to even order a cup of coffee for myself because I didn’t know how to say ‘I need a cup of cappuccino.’ I used to feel shy... My bread and butter didn’t come from Bombay. It was only my passion. I used to think my children, my wife and I were suffering because of my passion. I would feel like a king in Ganganagar, here I’m nobody.
“A whole decade of my life went away thinking about this question. I was fortunate that I had the support of my wife and friend Adesh Prasad, who co-wrote Tumbaad. We work together. He asked me to not leave because of fear.”
While money was not an issue, the language barrier was a difficult one to overcome. — PTI
