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I'm OK, you're OK, all OK

Kannada actor Upendra comes across as a down-to-earth guy who just thinks a bit differently and not the outlandish hero he is in his films, finds BHUMIKA K., as she catches up with the new-age rebel who is a rare brand of director-turned-actor who believes in going with the flow

PHOTO: BHAGYA PRAKASH K.

LOOKING INWARD Upendra decided he needed to look inside the human mind for his subjects when everyone was obsessed with the external

Audacious would be the common word cutting across his dialogues, movies, hairstyle, attitude, clothes, acting, and direction. Yet it's that same chutzpah that shook the Kannada film industry and upped the adrenalin quotient of Kannada movie-going audiences to make a dada out of Uppi.

Upendra's unabashed songs and dialogues that almost border on the unrefined, his treatment of his heroines and views on women (which drew much flak from women's groups), his unconventional looks, the wacky names of his films like Sshhh, A, Om, H2O, Naanu Naane — all screamed "controversy" and set audience sensibilities and the box office crackling. He even made a film called Upendra, incidentally the last film he directed before switching full-time to acting.

He is now bang in the middle of controversy all over again with his forthcoming film Maasti. "I also wonder why it happens to me!" he says before flashing a wide grin. The actor who hails from Kundapura in Dakshina Kannada district is comfortable in his his trademark multi-coloured shirt with embroidery, at the launch of the website of his latest film Aishwarya. Directed by Indrajit Lankesh, with Deepika Padukone and Daisy Bopanna for co-stars, Aishwarya also hopes to create an image makeover for Uppi — sleek, streaked hair, ear-rings et al and a thoroughly believable role as that of an ad agency dude.

I begin the interview by asking him teasingly: "Yella OK, haircut yaake?" (Of course, the hair and beard are resiliently growing back to his old style.) He roars with laughter, and bursts into a torrent of phrases, just like his filmi dialogues: "Yaake? Because people should say OK. For a change. This film is about an ad guy and it's made by a stylish film director and he said I must have a different look. So I said, `Why not'?"

Image, he insists, is very important for an actor. "And I wanted to break away from my image. You always have an image in mind when you say Rajnikanth or Amitabh Bachchan. For an actor a certain `look' and identity is necessary. My fans can't digest me without my hair and beard." Upendra also believes that everything in life is just about OK; there are no extremes. And that's why he's quite obsessed with the word. In fact in Aishwarya, he's even sung a song "Yella OK. Maduve yaake?"

Which explains why UB Export (for whom Uppi is brand ambassador and whose beer sales frothed over when he did the "Yella OK. Cool drink yaake?" ad) co-hosted the website launch. He brushes aside any discussion on the improbable products he has chosen to endorse — beer and milk. "They are also like my films," he says, cheerfully dismissing the haalu-alcohaalu joke doing the rounds with a "Yen madodu?"

Uppi has taken a conscious decision to stay away from direction since the last five years. "I take nearly one-and-a-half years to complete one project if I direct it. I need six months to work on the script. I can do everything myself — write, direct, do the lyrics — but I feel it's not competitive enough. I want to win now just as an actor. I have to go into a "lonely" stage if I have to make a film. Even if I am in a crowd, most of the time, I'm a loner." Hardly what his fans have seen or would want to in him.

When he started his directorial career with Tarle Nanmaga, Uppi says he had wanted to make films that were different. "People had made films in genres — action, social, love stories. I didn't want to do that. These are all external subjects. I wanted to create my own path. I decided to take up the matters of the mind... what is inside, and sought a chance to narrate that differently. Everyone falls in love. I wanted them to ask themselves the question, `What is this love?' If you go deep, people start thinking and see the truth. I wanted other people to experience what I had seen in my life."

Memories of his earlier years that have greatly influenced his films haven't been very pleasant. "I have been through certain experiences in my life much before I should have gone through them. I have seen a girl commit suicide when I was five. When I lived in a vathara (a complex of small houses like a chawl) I have seen a father and son beating each other up. Ever since then I have been wondering what life is all about. In my own family, we never saw much love, all of us being swept away in the struggle for life and survival... "

While Upendra is acknowledged as having started a new genre of Kannada films portraying the complexities of the mind, the self and the ego — his pet subjects — he's been criticised for allowing style and presentation to take over the content itself, almost killing the purpose. "What I often want to say is something that goes over the head... it can't be understood by the layman. But I had to bring up the subject, and I had to think of the producer. So everything has to be coated with masala."

He insists he's been grossly misinterpreted, especially when it comes to women and rowdyism. "Most of the time if it's a statement in my film on women, even if made by a woman, it's taken out of context and highlighted. You have to show the bitterness of rowdyism before you can tell your audience it's a bad thing."

While he hopes to get back on to the director's chair this year, he's also starring in a remake of the Tamil superhit Pitamagan and an as-yet-unnamed film by Sai Prakash. His next release, Maasti, has landed in trouble because of the title, ruffling feathers of literature lovers who have a problem with associating a film with Maasti Venkatesha Iyengar's name.

But Uppi, used to the kind of brouhaha his films generate, says in his breathless style: "There have been films named after gods. There has been a film named Shastry. The director told me there was even a rowdy named Maasti. The film's title may change," his smile grows broader, "but people will remember it as the one that was changed from Maasti, anyway!"

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