Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; October 24, 2018)

Late actor Vinod Mehra’s son Rohan Mehra, is gearing up to flag off his acting career with Baazaar. He might be a star kid, but he grew up in another country, far from the glitzy bylanes of Bollywood and the conversations of film industry insiders. The young actor, who had to work hard to land his first role, speaks to BT about his father, finding his way back to Bollywood and realising his true dream of being an actor. Excerpts…

Are you excited about the kind of reactions your debut film, Baazaar might receive?
I wish the film would open tomorrow and not on Friday, because I am really impatient. I want everyone to see it right away and I am so blessed to be in this situation. Not everyone gets a chance to experience this. I’ve waited a long time for it. Yes, waiting in the wings made me anxious and I doubted what I was doing. In retrospect, maybe this is how it was meant to be. In the process of waiting for the film, I grew up, matured and I developed a sense of what life has to offer.

You grew up in Kenya, far away from the film industry in Mumbai. Did those experiences have any impact on your dreams and aspirations?
I grew up in Mombasa, Kenya. It’s a small town, far away from arts of any kind, where everyone aims to follow typical careers like banking, medicine or engineering. I wanted to be an investment banker. Funnily enough, my first film revolves around the stock market. At 18, I moved to England to study mathematics and economics and I did well. But, my heart wasn’t in it. I wasn’t as passionate about numbers as I was about music, movies and stories. I decided to make a career out of that. I came to Mumbai, after completing my education, to work in the film industry. I was ready to work in any capacity – assistant director, photography, music, acting – I just wanted to be a part of the storytelling process. I tried a bit of everything, believing that it will help sharpen my skills.

You weren’t the first choice to play Rizwan in Baazaar. How did you land the part when the makers weren’t keen on casting a newcomer?
I was auditioning for films and had put up a couple of photos from a shoot on my social media page. Gauravv K Chawla (director of Baazaar) saw those and called me for an audition. That film didn’t take off, but the company was keen to do something with me. Maybe, I had created an impression. I remember reading about Baazaar, which was Nikkhil Advani’s (producer) homage to Trishul (1978). It fascinated me. I approached Nikkhil to cast me in it, but he didn’t want to even talk about it. After a lot of persuasion, he gave me a scene to enact, just for fun. I kept working on the scene with his inputs for months and kept reading that the role had been offered to several actors. Eventually, he decided to cast me because he was convinced with my audition videos.

Baazaar does not seem like the traditional first film for a star kid. Did you consciously opt for an unconventional debut?
I don’t think I would have wanted it any another way. Maybe, the unconventional nature of my debut will make it stand out a little bit. It’s given me a chance to step out of the song-and-dance routine. In Baazaar, I have worked with some really big names, right at the beginning of my career, and that has been scary and nerve-racking. But, it’s all turned out to be fine eventually and the entire team made me feel comfortable.

Your father Vinod Mehra passed away before you were born. Do you think your journey would have been different had he been around?
I don’t know how to answer that. Honestly, while growing up I didn’t ever get a chance to know him. From everything I hear, I realise that he was a really lovable guy. My mother was still pregnant with me when dad passed away and she moved away from Mumbai, when I was a toddler. I’ve grown up watching my mother closely. Had I lost her, I would have really felt the pangs of separation and missed her immensely, because she’s part of all my memories and we have shared a life together. It’s difficult to imagine how my father would have reacted to watching me on the big screen, but trust me, I did think about that a lot. Especially, the day we were launching the trailer.

Which of your father’s films are your favourites?
Anurodh (1977), Ghar (1978) and Bemisaal (1982). I rooted for him in Bemisaal, even though his character had grey shades. Ghar was such an unconventional love story and far ahead of its time. Anurodh is a film you can always empathise with. My father had a pleasant screen presence and that’s something I have tried to imbibe, too.

You are the son of a Bollywood star, but your story and upbringing don’t really fit into definition of a star kid.
Every clique or circle has the insiders and the outsiders. I am on the fence looking inside. I am an accidental star kid, because I grew up away from Bollywood, in a neighbourhood where there were no stars or their families. No one treated me like a star kid. So, I’ve never started a conversation in my life talking about the fact that I am Vinod Mehra’s son. People within the industry weren’t affected by that either. Even when people found out whose son I was, they continued to do their job, unaffected, which is great and that made everything seem normal to me. People did tell me that they’re huge fans of my father’s work, but gladly it didn’t change their attitude towards me.

There have been rumours, romantically linking you with Tara Sutaria who makes a debut in Student Of The Year 2…
That’s an occupational hazard. You will always be watched and people will try to gather stuff about you all the time. But right now, I don’t know if I have time to fall in love with anyone except for my work.