MUMBAI MIRROR (December 12, 2018)

Sohum Shah was a teenager when he fell in love with the movies. In the only theatre in Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan, he’d give in to the magic of a Shah Rukh Khan romance or Salman Khan’s charm. “These films were my window into the world. They inspired me to dream bigger and be more,” the actor-producer explains. It was this drive that brought him to Mumbai and made him persevere for six years to make one of this year’s best Indian films—Tumbbad.

Named after a village in the interiors of Maharashtra, Tumbbad is a monster film, a treasure hunt and an allegory for the consequences of endless greed. “When Rahi (Anil Barve, writer and co-director) brought me the script, I was immediately on board. He had even created a printbook with reference images of what the film would look like. It was a very relatable and rooted Indian story; the kind our nanis and dadis would tell us when we were kids.”

Only Sohum didn’t realise how difficult it would be to bring what seemed like a simple folktale to screen. “The idea was to make a small film quickly, but the film kept evolving and growing bigger. Every time someone came up with an idea that could improve the film, it would get added. Most films get made in three stages—writing, filming and editing. In our case, we lost count of the stages,” he says, with a laugh.

One of the biggest changes was what Hastar, the disgraced demon God looked like. Initially, due to budget constraints, the monster was created using prosthetics and the space he inhabits was a cave. “We tried twice to get the prosthetics right but it just didn’t work. Somewhere along the way, someone suggested that the cave should be changed to a red womb. We eventually used VFX to create Hastar and the womb.”

The ‘do what’s right for the film, regardless of the budget’ ethos meant that an expensive scene depicting Vinayak (played by Sohum) and his son walking through the Independence Day celebration in a marketplace got left behind on the editing floor; a crew of 200 people would wait for the rains because the film’s director and cinematographer thought it should always be raining in Tumbbad, and also wanted the right lighting; and, from the motorcycle to the marketplace, the production team meticulously recreated the early 1900s.

Six years of single-minded focus gave Sohum a film that continues to be in theatres almost two months after it’s pan-India theatrical release. Tumbbad was the first Indian film to open at the prestigious Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week. “In these six years, there were days when I was frustrated with how much time the film was taking but I knew that we had something special on our hands. One of the lessons I have learnt from Aamir Khan has been to give as much time to something as it needs. My audience doesn’t care if the film was made in six months or six years; all they’ll care about is how well it’s been made.”

He was so focused on getting Tumbbad made that Sohum even refused acting jobs, which had been the main reason for him to come to Mumbai. “I was emotionally and creatively so invested in this film that I passed up quite a few acting opportunities. I only did Talvar and Simran during this period because Tumbbad remained my top priority.”

Sohum’s single-mindedness has been the keystone of his success. The son of a commodities trader, he started helping his father at age 13. In just a few years, he had almost completely taken over the business and continued to ace at college. “My only aspiration was to earn money. I had grown up in a family where we had the basics but never anything extra. I had two sets of clothes and that was considered a luxury.”

By 27, Sohum had diversified into other business, including real estate. “I worked very hard and I was fortunate that success came to me early. That’s when I decided to follow my passion for acting.” Interestingly, Sohum has never acted before he landed up in Mumbai. “I had acute stagefright,” he confesses. During a two-month course in Mumbai, he found the actor within.

For his sophomore effort, Ship Of Theseus, Sohum won the National Award for Best Feature Film. It was a bittersweet win for him because his father had just passed away before the awards were announced. He wished he was present to see him win the honour. While his most ambitious film Tumbbad continues to wow audiences on one of the online streaming platforms, he is back to his first love, acting, and 2019 is already sounding extremely busy for the actor. “I am currently shooting for a series for a popular online streaming platform. There is also Batuni, a comedy that Adesh (Prasad, Tumbbad’s co-director and writer) is directing and I am producing. There are two more very interesting films that are being discussed but I can’t reveal yet,” he signs off.