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Rahul Bose wears many hats

Rahul Bose has just finished a movie with Santhosh Sivan. He calls it the greatest filmic experience of his life

ACTOR, RUGBY PLAYER, BRAND AMBASSADOR Rahul Bose: `Rugby has taught me to have a hot heart and a cool head' Photo: V. SREENIVASA MURTHY

He's a champion: At his game, in his craft and of causes; a maverick actor and writer in Bollywood who's given Indian art house cinema a new metapho; a rugby player and an activist who worked quietly for victims of the tsunami in the Andaman and Nicobar islands; an actor with a razor sharp mind and tongue to match, an unlikely man in an unlikely place.

Rahul has just brought back with him much critical acclaim from the Berlin Film Festival where Budhdhadeb Dasgupta's Kaalpurush — Rahul's first Bengali acting venture — featured in a special panorama.

"It's a very moving film Budhdhadeb has made and I'm proud of the film and my work in it," he says, getting seriously down to business. "The film is in the Satyajit Ray mould, not the kind you will stand up in the end and clap loudly for. In Berlin the hall was quiet after the film and I thought `O My God, has the film gone badly?' But each of them came up to say they liked it. It's very gratifying to note that cinema and creativity can cross boundaries. As long as there's a heart."

Turning choosy

Rahul is now really picking his films carefully. He's very conscious of the women in his films and his role in their context. He's almost finished shooting his second Bengali film Anuronon. And the man who hates labels says: "You can't classify films by language, but in terms of films I have chosen in that language, yes. Very arthouse, very world cinema."

He adds: "After White Noise, Chameli and 15 Park Avenue, there was a perception that I was happy playing the elegant prop to very powerful female actresses. Which, at that time I was. Now I don't want to do that. So I carefully chose four films, each of a totally different genre than the other. In all of them I have a central role and I'm carrying the film," he says.

He's also doing something considered freakish by his standards. Pyar Ke Side Effects with Mallika Sherawat! It's a classical romantic comedy, he says. But why do something like that? "Because I've never done one," he says with an incredulous look. "I said I must try this genre once before I die. It's a Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan kind of romantic comedy. Witty, contemporary, clean." This is not a mainstream film, he begins to explain. "My definition of arthouse is a film that's not formulaic. Where you don't know what will happen next. . But this film is not illogical. That has been my major problem." So there's no singing and dancing? "No there's no changing of clothes in the middle of a scene, no singing... nonsense!!" No item number? "No. It's contemporary. Is there an item number?" he thinks hard as he looks at the ceiling.

But clearly, what he's really taken up by is Santosh Sivan's English film. A period film set way back in 1937, it's a story of friendship between a Malayali boy (Bose) and a British tea planter, who wants to build a road that will open the spice route to the village, in the backdrop of the Indian freedom struggle. "The greatest filmic experience of my life is this. No question. What was not special about that film? It's a Hollywood production. But thank God there are still some companies in Hollywood that make sensible cinema. American producers can be a nightmare. They have tremendous control over a film, unlike in India where the director calls the shots. So I dread it, the interference of producers," he says with wide eyes. But these guys were anything but the stereotype. I can say it to you truthfully, they were fabulous. They were compassionate, and passionate. They were involved yet not interfering, they were constructive and never trying to be director. Great character. And I'm the lynchpin of the film," he says. Obviously he had great fun filming for it in Munnar: "Six thousand feet, two degrees centigrade at night, playing squash every evening after shooting. I was in heaven! Away from the madding crowd, journalists," he smiles wide.

He's also back after a hiatus of four years when he wrote his first film, the wacky Everybody Says I'm Fine. He wrote The Whisperers, a two-man psychological thriller that Manoj Bajpai and he are carrying together. Classic sleuth death-trap kind of film in English is how he describes it. So is writing the bigger draw? "I hate writing. Make no mistake about it." Then why write? "Because I have to do it. It comes out of your body. It starts embarrassing you in public places, you know... It's like a growth. Writing's the most tiring thing I've done."

The big teacher

Rahul Bose is also the only actor in the world who straddles both the world of professional rugby and acting. And he's breathless about his game, which he considers a way of life in itself: "It's the single biggest teacher of my life. It's taught me more than my parents; taught me humility and to be a team player. Essentially I'm a loner. It's taught me how to lose. It's taught me to have a hot heart and a cool head. It's a great combination." It's given me my best friends, made me play for my country, made me see the world. It's taught me pain and how to bounce back... I mean what hasn't it taught me? It's a way of life" I play three tournaments now This year he will play in Germany, Belgium, India and then in England. "And that's if I make it to the Indian team again this year!"

At 39, Rahul has led quite a life. He was creative director at ad agency Rediffusion at 26. He quit to act. "I loved advertising. I liked acting more. That's all." He's won accolades for his acting and direction. He's the king of international film circuits; Indians in the U.N. even organised a retrospective of his films recently!

Does he fear a burnout?

"I don't fear a burnout. I'll do something else then. I'll build a road in Rajasthan or something. I don't know. What's the fear? The fear that the fame will go? Sometimes it's like, `Uh... I wish the fame didn't go. I wish the popularity and the smiles... ' But you realise after those two minutes of weak thinking that the ones who love you will always love you. "

BHUMIKA K.

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