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Honey times

Photo: R.V. Moorthy

Seriously funny Manoj Bajpai

So, what’s the big deal? Why suddenly it has become a point to ponder over, I find it so funny.” This is Manoj Bajpai’s first reaction when you congratulate him for exploring his talent in a comedy flick — Ganesh Aacharya’s Money Hai Toh Honey Hai, released this week. “See, I am an actor and I have to explore all kinds of role. It is the media which categorises a film as serious, comedy, emotional, etc. We, in the film industry, don’t do that. For us, it is just the script — good or bad,” he asserts. It seems wise to go back to the clichéd but ‘must ask’ question: What is his role in the film that has Govinda as his counterpart, apart from Aftab Shivdasani, Upen Patel, Sumit Arora, Nitin Arora, Esha Deol, Celina Jaitley, Hansika Motwani and many others?

Manoj seems at peace with the query. He shares, “My character is called Lalabhai. He comes from a small town and wants to make it big in a city. He wins a lottery too, invests all the money in business and loses it all. This loss and gain has become a sort of habit with him. One thing great about Lalabhai is that he never gives up. He keeps trying his luck at every possible venue.”

So, acting opposite Govinda must have been a task, as he is considered the king of comedy and one always has an apprehension of overdoing it with such actors…The question offends the actor. He fumes, “Look, I am acting for the past 25 years. So, nothing is difficult for me.” Mention television and the bitterness comes back. “I don’t see any entertainment programmes, reality shows and all that. I only watch select English news channels. Most news channels have made a mockery of news — their anchors are bad, presentation is bad, language is bad, news is bad. It puts me off,” he grumbles.

His forthcoming films include Sanjay Gupta’s Acid Factory, Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti and Anand Kumar’s Jugaad.

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