Raat Akeli Hai and Shakuntala Devi's background score composer, Karan Kulkarni says to do what he does, you need to love movies as much as music
Aastha Atray Banan (MID-DAY; August 2, 2020)

"Making background scores… it all happened by accident," says Karan Kulkarni. A fortunate accident it would seem, because Kulkarni is the man behind the scores for Abhishek Bachchan-starrer Breathe -  Into The Shadows, and now, Amazon Prime's upcoming film Shakuntala Devi and Netflix's Raat Akeli Hai. Both released this Friday. The Punekar, who moved to Mumbai to make it as a musician, tells us why he shifted tracks.

"I would have liked to do songs, and I have done many, but things are so controlled in the Bollywood music industry, that only a few directors manage to get their songs into movies. So here, I am, doing background music," he laughs, adding, "I guess, it's best to adapt."

Since Kulkarni moved to Mumbai nine years ago, he has given music for a short film directed by Vasan Bala. This was after he returned from Australia where he signed up for a music production course. He then started assisting music director Amit Trivedi, but it was with Bala's Peddlers in 2012 that his career truly kicked off. "That movie never released, but it gave me the chance to do something. Then I did Aligarh and Shahid, and it all took off from there."

He also may have been well accustomed to the wily ways of the music industry, and thus, started composing jingles for brands like Amazon and Flipkart. "I did Tumhari Sulu and Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota, but as I said, it's all very controlled here—how much work a person actually gets [depends on other forces]. Web series have opened up the floor, and the bar is raised high, since you are competing with the best in the world. For example, Stranger Things, which has a great background score, is available to watch on the same platform as my work," says the 34-year-old.

Ask him what makes a music composer different from one who makes background scores, and his answer is deceptively simple. "You need to love movies! Otherwise, how will you know what fits with what? You also need to be able to tell a story through music—and be aware that change is constant, as emotions keep changing. So your music has to based on what's happening on the screen."

Keeping this in mind, Kulkarni's score for Breathe is more "psychological", with character themes for everyone. For Raat Akeli Hai, which is a murder mystery starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte, the music had to be darker. "For Shakuntala Devi, everything was more upbeat and positive. There is a certain brightness to it."

Personally, Kulkarni is inspired by music that is technology-driven, so composers like Trent Reznor are high on his listen list. After all, who can forget the brilliant score Reznor gave for Social Network, where the piano melody harbours the power to give rise to an emotion. And Kulkarni has made good use of technology this Coronavirus lockdown. He and his team completed the full score for Shakuntala Devi in four months of lockdown, sometimes going to a studio, but mostly working out of their bedrooms. "It was quite tricky, but we managed. We exchanged samples, and put it all together. It has been a lesson."

Here on, Kulkarni has decided to take on less work. "There are a few projects that have come up, but I am going to take it slow. I am utilising this time to study. I am practising guitar, and also working on the tabla, which is a brand new instrument for me. After a very long time, I am a student again, and I am completely enjoying it."

Prashant Singh (HINDUSTAN TIMES; July 14, 2020)

Due to the Coronavirus scare, film theatres were among the first ones to down their shutters. Immediately after that, when certain filmmakers chose to go towards OTT platforms, a debate around ‘OTT vs theatres’ started to rage. Hansal Mehta, for one, feels “theatres aren’t going anywhere”, but also adds that OTT has come as a boon for many.

“Honestly, the magic of big screen/theatres will continue to thrive. But at the same time, for a filmmaker like me, the presence of OTT platforms mean that, if need be, I don’t have to be tied to the vagaries of a Friday,” says Mehta, whose films such as Shahid (2012), Citylights (2014) and Aligarh (2015) are available on streaming platforms.

“The kind of feedback I have got from people, who have watched Shahid or Aligarh now on OTT, is tremendous. Many may have missed out on watching them in theatres but it’s a great feeling for me, as a filmmaker, that people are appreciating my work, regardless of the platform,” says Mehta, who has Rajkummar Rao-starrer Chhalaang as his next release. “Let’s see what the producers do (with regards to its release plans). Right now, there is no clarity on theatres reopening, so I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he says

But Mehta “feels great” that due to OTTs, he doesn’t have to depend on Fridays to showcase his work to audiences. “Every platform, at the end of the day, is going to coexist, but streaming platforms just frees a filmmaker like me from so many things or pressures that may come with a Friday,” says the writer-director, who is currently stationed at his Lonavala home, along with the family.

“I am enjoying my family time here. Besides doing all cooking that I really enjoy, I am also taking out time for work. So, I do my weekly meetings — with my writers and actors — for my show as well as Chhalaang, and my next directorial, too. I don’t see myself coming back to Mumbai anytime soon, or at least till the time when I have some work in the city,” says Mehta, who has also finished two scripts during the lockdown.

A theatre actor noticed for his role in Pataal Lok, says it's when he spent days with officers who operate on the fringes of Delhi, that a believable character took shape
Aastha Atray Banan (MID-DAY; May 31, 2020)

To prep for his role as young police officer and IAS aspirant Imran Ansari in the recently dropped web series Pataal Lok, which is centred around the team at the fictional police station of Jamna Par in New Delhi, Ishwak Singh says he had to literally cross the Yamuna. "These areas are referred to as the outer districts… places like Mangolpuri, where the crime rate is very high. I hung out there, made friends with the cops and saw what their daily life was like. Most of them end up tackling 100 cases each. You begin to empathise with them, you know [what they do] is difficult. When they shared their stories, the details of their interrogations, that's where Ansari was born."

Singh, who is trained in theatre, says the method seems to have worked, with the entertainment circuit calling him the new "find". His phone has been ringing off the hook, with calls and messages from fans and seniors who matter. He thinks Ansari stands out because he represents the good in a story that's centred around greed, corruption and disillusionment, within the media, the police force and society in general.

But this journey to attention has taken a while. Singh's first big break was Hansal Mehra's 2015 film, Aligarh. He is philosophical about the right break. "It's all about doing it well; I would've waited 15 years if needed," he says. The Delhi resident had studied to be an architect like his brother, but couldn't get the urge to act out of his head. "An actor just knows! But I was far removed from this world. I was scared to even say that I wanted to do it."

After college, he signed up for a weekend acting workshop and took up small roles. It was at Asmita Theatre Group, that he came into his own, and after someone noticed him during a stage performance, he received a call from Yash Raj Films. "That role didn't work out, but then I met Mukesh Chhabra [casting director], Aligarh happened, and then Tamasha." Singh then went back to theatre, because he knew that to hone his craft he had to continue to act. "I started to look at it seriously—as a profession. The more you do it, the better you get. I played the same character again and again; that's how you develop techniques and characters."

It came in handy when developing Ansari, the positive and upbeat Muslim cop. "He has to be right. He is a member of a minority community, and has to keep the larger picture in mind. He can't afford to slip into cynicism. He is not in his comfort zone as a young Muslim police officer. He has to keep going and prove himself, much the way I'm trying to do in Bollywood."

Having been termed crush-worthy on Instagram, means he may be the new flavour of the season. Singh is enjoying it because "without the audience, we are nothing".

Filmmaker Muzaffar Ali on his 1978 directorial debut — about a taxi driver from Uttar Pradesh in Bombay — which chronicles the plight of migrants in the big city
MUMBAI MIRROR (May 17, 2020)

I was moved to read Trisha Gupta’s piece, Tell me how long the train’s been gone, which appeared in Mirror last week. I am happy to see Gaman is still relevant after so many years. Each film is a world in itself. A universe we create out of ideas and emotions that have been a part of our building blocks. It is a pictorial canvas of what we have seen, and would like to show to this world, with the utmost honesty and sincerity.

Many a time we make films that people would like to see with equal sincerity and artistry, yet there is a fine difference between the two, and people can see the difference. It is what you want them to see that lives on.

Gaman is about displacement. In scientific terms, it is the adding of an external element and thereby the replacement of the original organic element. I saw the emergence of a Gaman-like world in Bombay when I moved there in 1971: The influx of people from all over to displace the original character of the city. The making of a metropolis is the unmaking of a place. Spaces are threatened in layers, year after year, and each year changing the aesthetics of an urban cityscape, rendering the earlier out of date. The enormity of this tragedy was rendering people faceless.

‘Kya koi nayi baat nazar aati hai hammeiñ Aeina hameiñ dekh ke hairan sa kyoñ hai’

A question of becoming a stranger to oneself: Bombay, to becoming Mumbai, a strange mirror that reflects our past with a perspective of the future. Bombay was a series of fading mirrors that pulled one, each time one saw oneself in them. Most of these mirrors find their way from sacred spaces to the crowded narrow gullies of places called Chor Bazaar.

Gaman is a journey of changing images in such mirrors. It is the reflection of the dynamics of roadscapes of a city, which never sleeps, in the rear-view mirror of a taxi in the eyes of a helpless driver. Spaces that are yours and not yours: A river that can never afford to stop. The protagonist of this ceaseless flow is a throbbing heart, beating, yet lifeless like a stone. Seeking reasons, yet finding none.

‘Dil hai to dharakne ka bahana koi dhoondhe Pathhar ki tarah behiss o bejaan sa kyun hai’

Where music is the melodic refrain for the orchestration of a mechanical world — this was me in Bombay in the 1970s, a city, which I saw from atop the Air India building, where I worked on the 18th floor. From where for hours on end, I watched yellow-roofed taxis crawl like ants. I wondered whether under those yellow metal sheet roofs was a man like me far away from his home. How far was his home; it was anybody’s guess. What he had left behind was beyond anyone’s imagination. The feeling was enough of an answer. Was it worthy of a film, I thought to myself? Was this loneliness our inevitable destiny — a wilderness beyond what meets the eye? On one hand, the ocean, and on the other, an endless sea of humanity...

‘Tanhai ki ye kaun si manzil hai rafiqo Ta hadde nazar ek biyabaan sa kyun hai...’

But certainly it was an emotion as deep as the Arabian Sea. It was an emotion in which I saw the fathomless tenderness of a thumri. Each time our eyes met in a rear-view mirror, a truth transpired. One saw beyond what the eyes could see. I saw the piercing eyes of Khairunnissa wait for Ghulam Hasan. I saw the eyes of Farooq Sheikh and beyond that the piercing helpless gaze of Smita Patil. Was it still worthy of a film?

What was beyond these frozen frames? There were moments of truths and more truths, of humans waiting at traffic lights on metalled roads and zebra crossings, metal bridges across mighty rivers ferrying helpless souls packed in metal cabins. Amidst this human exodus were shattered windows of glass, allowing the last ray of the setting sun play its flute on a windswept face.

‘Aaja sañwariya tohe garwa laga luñ Ras ke bhare tore nayan...’

It was a lonely journey. Can the loneliness of this phenomenon become a collective journey of a film? I had found the words, which described the emotional angst of the migrant. When Krishna leaves, would Radha’s tears drown Braj? In this diabolical answer, I felt, I was near the beginning and the end.

Everything was in the mind of these mindless travellers, at times, bringing the odd tear when emotions aligned themselves to the sound of the changing tracks. But the sharp tearing horn of a railway diesel engine wiped it off in an instant as the morning sun rose in the formidable ghats and one was sucked into an endless tunnel. One wonders which side one is on. The ones in the train or those they are going to displace. I had become a ‘Ghati’ and a ‘Bhaiyya’ in the same breath. For many years I had been in that train not knowing the difference between the beginning and the end of these journeys.

Hence Gaman: A name given by my friend Asghar Wajahat to this feeling. Something I had begun to see with the inner eye. But Gaman was more than I could hold in one glimpse. It had too many metaphors, both vivid and fading. Khairunnissa sniffing and wiping her nose with her chadar as she extinguishes a night fire at dawn. Clothes becoming one’s second skin, fading and becoming sensuous, looking nostalgic and inviting with their faded textures under the smoke filled thatched roof, turning black with soot. The soot and the smoke was not different to the soot and the smoke from the speeding train... one was towards darkness and gloom and the other towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

‘Aap ki yaad aati rahi raat bhar Gham ki lau thartharati rahi raat bhar...’

One was static in a moving environment and the other moving in a static world.

‘Dard ke chaand dil mein utarte rahe Chandni muskurati rahi raat bhar...’

Gaman was yet to be born. And was it worthy of being a film? I didn’t care anymore. I had begun to unearth the city called Bombay.

The medium of Gaman came from Calcutta, inspiration from Aligarh and the soul from the heart of Awadh... and my palette from my paintings, having sketched out each frame. I was fascinated by khaki from the paper of my paintings and was fascinated by the khaki clad taxi driver protagonist of my film. Symbolically as a migrant taxi driver and as a migrant, he had no identity left but to become khaki, the colour of dust.

Ahead of Hitlist Web Awards, the 'Family Man', over a long sit-down chat, traces his journey from farmland in Bihar
Mayank Shekhar (MID-DAY; March 7, 2020)

In a way, the journey of Bombay cinema's transition into millennial cool, late-90s/early-2000s onwards — what with even 'indies' beginning to merge with Bollywood mainstream — starts from a street in Delhi. It's officially named Sudhir Bose Marg, where colleges of Delhi University's (DU) North Campus are lined up one after another, on either side.

If you survey this street late '80s onwards, you'd find Manoj Bajpayee enrolled in Ramjas College, fresh off a train from Bihar. Bajpayee says he also used to perform in plays at the next-door Hindu College, where there was actor Ashish Vidyarthi. When not representing university in cricket, Vishal Bhardwaj (from Meerut) would score music for those plays. "Rekha, Vishal's girlfriend [later his wife], was learning classical music."

To the right of Shishir Bose Marg is Khalsa College, where Saurabh Shukla graduated from. To the left is Hansraj College, where Shah Rukh Khan was reading economics. Few years later, Imtiaz Ali (from Jamshedpur) founded Hindu College's dramatic society.

At about the same time as Anurag Kashyap (originally from Banaras), who was at Hansraj. "Oh there are just way too many people [to name]," Bajpayee trails off, as we stage an unscripted, hour-and-half long edition of Sit With Hitlist, before a live audience.

Will continue to use full names, just so you can correlate them with their relevance to current Bollywood. The point for most of these DU students — who later made the move to Mumbai and cinema — wasn't quite to crack their final exam in history (Bajpayee), or zoology (Kashyap). It was firstly to gain access to the thriving theatre scene in the Capital.

This is where Bajpayee co-founded the theatre company, Act One. It had, among others, Imtiaz Ali, actors Gajraj Rao, Piyush Mishra: "Shoojit Sircar used to design background music, and assist director [N K Sharma]. Anubhav Sinha assisted [in direction], and was an important part of the circle."

During the day Bajpayee trained under Barry John and his company Theatre Action Group (TAG), to secure a place in Delhi's National School of Drama — that ultimately rejected him four years in a row. It's at TAG that he first met Shah Rukh Khan: "No matter how talented we were, girls always flocked to Shah Rukh." Nothing's changed.

"Shah Rukh, along with Divya Seth, Jeeturaj, were English theatre actors, from privileged backgrounds in South Delhi," Bajpayee recalls. While everyone really made it on their own in Mumbai/Bollywood, with zero family connections, the one to scale the steepest climb is still likely to be Bajpayee. He was born into a famer's family, with six siblings, raised in a village called Belwa in Bihar, bordering Nepal, where there wasn't even a local cinema, growing up.

Besides, being Bihari meant a strong regional accent that he had to shed, in order to ready himself for multiple parts on stage/film: "If you're an actor, you can't be 'one type' in your real life — a Bihari, for instance. You should be able to play a Marathi, Punjabi.... For many years, from my Hindi, many people couldn't figure out where I was from."

What he worked on harder still is English. Which is just a language, yes, but it also denotes social access in India: "I always knew English is a tool to compete in this country; to fit in, and get your work done—even if I decide to work in the Hindi film industry. I didn't take it as a burden."

It was quite common for Bihari students (nicknamed 'Harries') to land up in DU, to pursue courses in sciences and liberal arts, and take a shot at several entrance exams later — chiefly for the civil services. Bajpayee made sure he spent significantly more time with the few foreign students in his college, rather than the 'Harry gang': "The Kenyan/Nigerian guys would listen to my English, quietly, without judgment. Five hours of my day spent with them meant only speaking English, flat-out — gaining command/confidence over the language. Barry John, who took me under his wing, started giving me roles in English plays as well."

This interview is wholly in English. He's as fluent as it gets. This, he says, surprises his former flat-mates — a full-on 'English medium type' in particular, who'd make fun of him back in college. By the early '90s, having spent enough hours perfecting his diction, reading literature, watching plays, doing street theatre, exposing himself to arts and [alternate] cinema, what he calls the "best days of my life", Bajpayee began to 'belong' — to Delhi's intensely active stage scene.

"We were Turram Khans [of the circuit]," he says, also of fellow actors Seema Biswas, Nirmal Pandey, and the like. This is the catchment area filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, along with his assistant and casting director Tigmanshu Dhulia, tapped into to cast for Bandit Queen (1994). Post its commercial success, the Bandit Queen 'alumni' pretty much migrated en masse to Mumbai.

"Nirmal Pandey became a star. Seema Biswas got [the lead role with] Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Aditya Shrivastav got busy as well. Saurabh Shukla in fact was the busiest…" And Bajpayee? Because his character Maan Singh in Bandit Queen didn't have many lines, despite strong screen presence, he remained relatively unnoticed.

He did move to Mumbai with a "major role in Prakash Jha's Mrityudand" though, and a TV series with director Pankaj Parashar in hand. Both fell through. He was kicked out after the first day's pilot shoot of the latter. As from three other leading roles — in a TV show, corporate film and a docu-drama — all on the same fateful day!

What followed is four years of "no work, consequently no food," and life in a chawl. The primary talent he developed in these years, Bajpayee jokes, is an ability to time his entry into friends' homes — right at the moment when lunch was getting served; or a booze bottle was being cracked open! An important lesson that showbiz teaches most aspirants though, and something that Bajpayee appears to have imbibed as a personality trait, is the strength/perseverance to repeatedly face rejection, and calmly move on, before it breaks one's resolve/spirit.

"I am basically dheeth [stubborn]," Bajpayee says more than once to describe himself. While playing the popular character Sunil in the television series Swabhimaan certainly turned his meagre fortunes around —"I could eat at fancies restaurants now" — the turning point in Bajpayee's career is obviously the iconic/immortalised 'Bhikhu Mhatre' from Ram Gopal Varma's Satya (1998).

Varma, Bajpayee reckons, is the man who singularly altered the landscape of Lokhandwala, and indeed (mainstream) Hindi films. Varma was looking for writers for Satya. Bajpayee introduced him to Anurag Kashyap and Saurabh Shukla. Satya led to Varma's Kaun? (1999), also written by Kashyap, and a role that Bajpayee says he practically remodelled on the first day of shoot — turning Sameer Purnavale into a goofy bloke, rather than a serious fellow.

Shool (1999), written by Kashyap as well, followed. Among Bajpayee's contributions to this lead part of a quiet cop, diametrically opposite to the boisterous Bhikhu, was the name Samar Pratap Singh. Samar was what Bajpayee wanted to officially change his own name to, but couldn't do paper-work for, before the release of Bandit Queen: "Everybody in Bihar is called Manoj — Manoj Cyclewallah, Puncturewallah, Bhoojawallah, Littiwalllah…." His parents had named him after the actor Manoj Kumar (born Harikishan Goswami). Who, in turn, named himself after Dilip Kumar's character from the film Shabnam (1949)!



Up until Chandraprakash Dwivedi's Pinjar (2003) that won Bajpayee his second National Award (first was for Satya), what you sense is an unlikely Bollywood star, on an enviable dream run, both at the box-office, and with critical acclaim. And then everything starts tumbling downhill thereafter — for seven frickin' years straight!

He had a fall-out with Varma, when the latter was at the top of his game: "I used to be angry, sensitive — not an easy person to deal with." Kashyap and he parted ways. He was going to both act in, and co-produce Kashyap's debut: "Anurag had mistakenly presumed that I wasn't interested in the role/film."

He looks back at the fallow period, "Those weren't easy times. No work was coming [my way]. And whatever was, didn't match up to standards. Also, I was not keeping well." On the IMDb trivia page, Bajpayee may well boast of the longest list of shelved films for a filmography that could've been. There is at least one major movie mentioned on the user-generated page — Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Rang De Basanti, that he was replaced from. It's true, he says.

Bajpayee's actual career graph effectively resembles a symmetrical ECG report, with extensive highs and lows, almost equally spaced out! He agrees, "I still call filmmakers for work, if I've enjoyed their recent film. The hardest part was to convince friends that I was still good enough — aur woh mooh chura rahe thhe [and they were sheepishly looking away]. When I reminisce [those times], I feel only I could've survived it. Because I don't take it to heart. The only thing that could break me is [upheaval on the] personal front. The professional life, even now, doesn't bother me much. Mumbai says it most beautifully, 'Yaar, load kyun leta hai [Why take stress?]'.

"TV crews that used to hound me started putting their cameras down, watching me enter events. I could hear the reporter, who wouldn't even lower his voice, instructing this to his crew. A friend with me felt bad observing this and said, 'Jabda tod denge [I'll break his jaw].' I told him, jabda tootega. And that happens with work. I was sure I was going to come back. But I needed a role. When I got Raajneeti, I knew this was it. I knew what I wanted to do with Duryodhan's role."

Raajneeti (2010), a major hit that Bajpayee, 51, admits resurrected his floundering résumé, was an adaptation of Mahabharat, set within contemporary Indian politics. It was directed by Prakash Jha, whose offer for that "major role" in Mrityudand (1997; that eventually went to actor Ayub Khan) Bajpayee had optimistically landed in Bombay with.

Similarly, he earned matchless street-cred as Sardar Khan with Kashyap's masterpiece Gangs Of Wasseypur (2012). Kashyap and he are back to being friends. Of which he laughs, "Anurag is incredibly talented, but a loner. If you meet him for three days in a row, he starts hating you!"



Further, his most challenging lead role in the current phase could well be as the Marathi, gay Professor Siras in Aligarh (2015): "A leading journalist had written about how actors' careers got ruined, once they played gay characters on screen. My career got made as a result." Aligarh was directed by Hansal Mehta, with whom Bajpayee had collaborated in the under-rated cult film Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar (2000), co-written by Saurabh Shukla, during the first upswing in his career.

In 2019, Bajpayee stormed into mainstream web with Amazon Prime's smashing success, The Family Man, directed by Raj-DK, playing a spy Srikant Tiwari, who could be any other guy on a Mumbai street. As a basic brief, even that sounds a little lot like Bajpayee's breakout role in Satya: "Bhikhu Mhatre was the most real [gangster] that this country has ever seen on the big screen. He could be standing by a restaurant or a paan shop, and you wouldn't know he's a dreaded don. Which is true for people doing extraordinary things —they're extremely unassuming in day-to-day life. Srikant Tiwari has all the same elements, but we went a little further ahead in this realistic direction — he's even more casual, nervous, anxious [than Bhikhu]."

If life/career must indeed be shaped into a circle, let's look at Bajpayee's last major film, Sonchiriya (2019) that, while not quite creating waves at the box-office, finds itself nominated in critics' categories across most major awards, including winning the Filmfare black lady for Best Film (Critics).

The film is set in the same time-frame and location (ravines of Chambal) as Bajpayee's debut, Bandit Queen. Like with his debut, Bajpayee appears as a quiet dacoit named Maan Singh. It's directed by Abhishek Chaubey (Ishqiya, Udta Punjab) who, like his mentor (and Bajpayee's contemporary) Vishal Bhardwaj, went to Hindu College, from the same Sudhir Bose Marg in Delhi.

Cast Your Vote For The Hitlist Web Awards
- Manoj Bajpayee has been nominated in the Best Actor (Male) category for Amazon Prime’s The Family Man.

The other nominees are:
- Arjun Mathur (Made In Heaven; Amazon Prime)
- Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Sacred Games S02; Netflix)
- Vikrant Massey (Criminal Justice; Hotstar)
- Dhruv Sehgal (Little Things S03; Netflix)
- Mohit Raina (Kaafir; Zee5)

- The Family Man enjoys six nominations, including Best Series, Best Creator, Best Actor (Male), Best Supporting Actor (Male), Best Supporting Actor (Female) and Best Writing.

- There are 14 categories that the public can vote in. Log on to www.hitlistwebawards.com to cast your vote.

- You can also vote via SMS. Send HITLIST <space> category name <space> your choice (a/b/c/d as on the website) to 57575.

- Voting lines extended by a day, to close on March 9