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Laugh Lines
Rakesh Bedi entertains in `Shatranj ke Mohre'.
" While I was in the chemistry lab, one of my teachers told the examiner I was a good actor, that I had not prepared for my exams. The examiner took the cue and asked me to entertain him for some time. I made him laugh for fifteen minutes during the exam!AndI scored 43 out of 50 in the subject and got through!"
RAKESH BEDI, looking a little more burly than usual in shorts and dead tired with back-to-back performances and lots of travelling and on way to Dubai with his troupe, warms up to the interview, talking about his childhood interest in theatre. As one of the best-known comic faces on the big world of Indian small screen from its first generation days of lonely Doordarshan, his popularity curve shows no signs of dipping. Nor does his zest for theatre, his original turf. He juggles with his fairly busy television and film shooting schedules to find time to rehearse and perform with his fellow IPTA (Indian People's Theatre Association) members in Mumbai. And they also tour within and outside the country almost every other week tirelessly.
He gets nostalgic talking about his Delhi days and early career. "Because I used to win a lot of prizes for them at inter-school competitions, they gave me a lot of leverage at the Kendriya Vidyalaya - free holidays, extra marks. And I was very active in theatre. Even during the exams season, I would rehearse for plays."
"When I told my dad and family that I want to become an actor, they were encouraging and asked me to join proper theatre . And then I opened my own theatre group `Ankur Arts' and did about a dozen plays and then joined the Film and Television Institute (FTII) at Pune. I have been with IPTA for 27 years now. ."
How has IPTA, once a bastion of strictly progressive (even if it was entertaining stuff) plays and to quite some extent a mouthpiece of the Communist Party of India, adapted itself to the changing tastes of the audience? "The times have changed to the extent that today you cannot give a lecture as such asking people to do or not do this or that. Everyone knows where the corruption is, where the fault lies. You are not enlightening anybody today. So you have to tell all such things in the garb of humour. Atleast, satire. Otherwise nobody is willing to listen to anybody's sob story," he replies.
You seem to believe that theatre helps greatly in the making of a personality? "Oh, hundred per cent. Theatre keeps you always active. It keeps you aware of the happenings, and more than anything else, it keeps you tested all the time. Let me go a little off-track. I just did a play called Massage last month. It's a one-actor play for two hours and I am trying to bring it to Hyderabad.
It's written by Vijay Tendulkar and I have done the Hindi adaptation. It took me nine months of rehearsals to get this very tight play onto stage. It has been such hard work, it keeps me fit. When I am doing a character on stage, for those two or three hours I am so absolutely focussed on it, to get everything right, that it's more than any meditation can give you."
In Bombay, he got a break in films through G.P.Sippy's Ahsaas. Among his early films was Sai Paranjpe's Chashme Baddoor in which his role as Omi is still fondly remembered. Despite hits like Ek Duje Ke Liye, he hasn't been able to make it big in the film world. The film industry has not given him a fair deal to realise his potential, he feels. And then Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi happened in the early 80s. His batchmate from FTII Kundan Shah called him and told him of this comedy serial for TV. "Actors still looked down upon television those days. But when I heard the script I grabbed the opportunity."
Overnight he became a national celebrity along with fellow actor Satish Shah. The rib-tickling series drew nearly 93 per cent viewership in 1984-85. For Rakesh Bedi, it was followed by all top-rated stuff like Guniraam, Basera, Yeh Duniya Gazab Ki, Tara, Shrimaan Shrimati, Jane Bhi Do Paro, and Hum Sab Ek Hain.
The number of serials he has acted in is not very high, just about a dozen or so, but since they have all been long series, he is always there on the telly.
"I believe that one should change with the times. So the change doesn't really trouble me. But I have one regret, and I would like to voice it too.
They are exploiting only one emotion, and that is the saas-bahu emotion. They are so stuck by it because it is paying them dividends, they have forgotten all other emotions. And in the process, comedy has lost out."
How long do you think we will continue with the infancy of television? "Abhi to bahut hai! We are still in the first stage of infancy! But seriously, I think things should be very, very different in the next five years in the television industry."
What happened to your production company WE R Entertainers? "I have started it but I couldn't run it for the simple reason that I am a very, very bad businessman."
What would be your dream act? "At the moment I am writing a film script, which I would love to direct given a chance!"
Rakesh Bedi also happens to be a very good poet in Urdu. So why is he keeping his poetic output under wraps? "Actually I haven't opened that chapter of my life.
I have some forty nazms. I feel I am short of another 50 before I can bring out a book. It will come," he wraps up.
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