“I, me, and myself. That’s all I could write if I had written an autobiography,” says Piyush Mishra. We sit in the Tamboo Media office, a quaint space, full of young blood, all excited to be in the presence of this monolith of art, song, theatre, and cinema. For those who’ve only brushed past his name, Mishra is many things at once — a poet who sings, an actor who writes, a musician who performs with his whole soul, and now latest, a novelist with his new book Tumhari Auqaat Kya Hai, Piyush Mishra. A fresh take on memoirs, his book assumes Mishra to be a fictionalized version of himself, Santap Trivedi urf Hamlet. In the book, Mishra fictionalizes friends and foes.

“Many would have been hurt if I would have put their real names. So I changed their names to protect their dignity. And no one would be hurt too, except for one director. I won’t name him still, but everyone would know him if you read the book,” says Mishra in the quiet of his office.

“Thoda tedha novel hai, par ekdum seedha bhi hai [It’s a crooked novel, but it’s also very straight],” he says. It’s a memoir in the true sense then, because that’s the person Mishra is. Unconventional and eccentric (he’s a theatre kid, after all), yet very straight to the point. He sits down with Sunday mid-day to discuss life, theatre, cinema, and the new adventure of his book.

Childhood started in the little town of Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, a city celebrated for its legacy of Hindustani music and also recognised by UNESCO as the “City of Music”. The musical legend Tansen was born and died in the city. Perhaps, a childhood in such a city influenced Mishra’s own leaning towards art.

“In Gwalior, I first learnt that I am capable of doing this [the arts]. That’s where I learnt it,” he says, “But there were obstacles there too, with parents, with friends. I chose a very unique profession, and I was often told, ‘Kya gaana gaoge? Kya nautanki karoge? [What will you do, dancing and singing around?]’ But I loved it too much. That’s where it all started. So it holds a soft corner in my heart.”

He remembers Delhi fondly, “Delhi and I have a very strong relationship. I lived there for twenty years. I didn’t have any money back then but theatre was everywhere. All I did was work, but I didn’t make much money. But I don’t regret it, I earned something much bigger, adapting some of the best roles, best music.”

He tells us about how he remembers being “phissadi [weak]” in Physics as a child, but theatre brought back a certain love for it, as he played Galileo and Einstein. Having spent most of his theatre days in Mandi House, Mishra has plenty, and vivid, memories of those days. “There was a bench there, beneath a tree near my office. I would spend day and night writing there.” 

Cut to now, it’s been 23 years since Mishra came to Mumbai. “The entire topography of the city has changed in the last 23 years. Too many flyovers have come, a lot of crowd, a lot of cars too,” he says, “I still live in the quiet corner of Versova, but soon there will be flyovers here too. But you can’t challenge change. Even I have to accept it.”

He segues into talking about change in Bollywood. “Cinema too is as different as night and day. Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bharadwaj, Imtiaz Ali, Rajkumar Hirani, all of them came in the early 2000s. They brought a lot of change to cinema.”

But being in Mumbai is no easy task, even for Mishra. There’s a constant give and take. “I got money, real money for the first time in my life. That’s what it gives you. And I earned a lot of fame here. In the first twenty years of my career, only a limited, theatre-going audience knew me. Mumbai gave me everything, it gave me my band, my poetry collection, and now this book.” But the cost to pay isn’t cheap either.

“I would only recommend you become an artiste if you truly wish to. It can’t be forced. It needs hard work and a lot of studying. Even in my theatre days, I studied sculptors, writers, architects, playwrights.” 

A certain tug pulls Mishra between the two cities. “Mumbai is a commercial place. You work instantly, and you make money instantly, you earn fame instantly. But really, you can’t compare Mumbai and Delhi.” 

As he sat down to write this memoir, Mishra had to reflect a lot. Going through his entire life journey brought back memories he didn’t even remember making. But there were hard times too, like his alcoholism, which he touched upon in the book. At 62, Mishra is now sober. “I revisit only from a distance. When you look from too close, the pain can be too much. I like a bird’s eye perspective,” he says, “A generation of people started looking at me as a God. If they knew what I was like in the ’80s or the ’90s, my image would be ruined,” he jokes, “So I thought why don’t I tell them myself.”

But even in the days of his struggle, what kept Piyush going was “my work, and my wife. She worked. She told me when we got married, ‘If you love theatre, you do theatre. I am working, I will provide.’ I realized how important money is to live in society, and moreover, how difficult it is to make it.”

Piyush Mishra, 50, is brutally honest, apart from being extremely talented. Despite a troubled childhood and a morally weak past, he has been able to overcome not just his bad habits, but also evolve spiritually into being a giver and a caring family man. Over a cup of coffee, ahead of his upcoming comedy The Shaukeens, he talks to Bombay Times about his regrets in life, his emotional anchor and wife Priya and why he considers Anurag Kashyap a bad habit.Excerpts:

How did you come into films?
I am from Gwalior. I passed out from NSD in 1986 and did theatre in Delhi before shifting to Mumbai in 2003 to earn money. In Delhi for 20 years, I had only done wine, work and women. I hated the idea of club theatre for a few hours and would do theatre 24 hours, but I was very famous for being unruly and alcoholic. Due to my friend NK Sharma, whose Act One I was associated with from the beginning, I would follow CPM and pretend to be an atheist just like NK himself was, even though in reality, I used to believe in God. I had a terrible tendency to sacrifice myself to please others. I would write, act, compose and sing and he would direct and our friendship was very thick for five years. I fell in love with my Tamilian architect wife Priya and four days after getting married to her in 1995, NK and I broke our friendship. Of course, I made up with him after 7 years and we were back to being friends. At that time, Priya would run the home and look after our two kids. I got my first role in Dil Se while I was in Delhi only. Tigmanshu Dhulia was the casting director and it was on his recommendation that Mani Ratnam gave me the role. But I continued doing theatre in Delhi till I finally felt deprived financially, felt exhausted emotionally, physically and morally and decided to move to Mumbai in 2003.

What do you mean by morally exhausted?
I was severely alcoholic and that killed my morale. I was badly behaved and realised that girls would call me to say, 'What happened to you last night sir? You said such bad things to me.' But I would not even remember what I had said. That's when I realised that there was a problem. I had too much anger, jealousy and the need for sex inside me. They say that alcoholics have the knack of having good wives. Priya observed everything with a lot of patience and took me to an organisation in 2006 for treatment and I realised how weak I was spiritually. Alcohol was just a symptom. The real problem was that I was a ganda, neech person who was morally corrupt. I was totally self-centred, not caring about either my wife or my older son. I started taking my moral inventory by writing it down. When I wrote what I had done, I realised that in 99% cases, I had only done wrong for the last 20 years. The fault in each case was mine and I came to it by consulting some recovered alcoholics, whom I can't name. I cried thinking how I had mistreated my mother and my wife. I then attended a course of Vipassana in Igatpuri in 2010 and that helped me a lot. I finally went back to that organisation that had helped me in 2006, again in 2014. First I suffered pain, then went through a self-guilt trip and then I was told that I not only had to realise that it was my fault, but I also had to say sorry to all those people I had hurt. I thought I would die. But I did finally go and say a sorry to each one of them. And as I did that, I kept getting healed.

How did you face your wife?
I told her how many girls I had brought into the house in her absence. It was very difficult for her and it took time, but today, I feel so light. Today, I love Priya and the kids. I don't know how to balance my emotions now and feel a lot of love for my younger son Jai. I also regret that I could not do much for my older son Josh. Priya has been not just my emotional anchor, she was doing every thing for me while I was torturing her. I had kidnapped her from her home in Chennai to get married and she had left everything behind just to marry me. All through Delhi, I was doing nothing. It's only after coming to Mumbai that I understood what it means to earn. She was very tolerant and she knows everything in and out. Over the last four years, I have become an introvert. While shooting The Shaukeens, Anupam Kher and Annu Kapoor would make fun of me, as I would give my shot and then go to my room. But I saw no reason to socialise. I am very caring and completely transparent and today, my wife and kids are everything for me and I really try that I should not hurt them. Today, I am very generous and feel that I should distribute everything I have. When I had nothing, people helped me. I want to give back now. I know that there has to be a higher power, who helps you get rid of alcoholism and I can feel that power when I meditate.

What was the lowest period of your life?
My childhood was very disturbing, so I got my first taste of family only with Act One. But in 1995, four days after marriage, I left Act One, two months post which my father died. He died after 36 years of opium addiction. He had been a retired upper division clerk and a major failure in life, who was majorly upset with me all throughout my growing up years. It's only when I left for NSD that he felt, for the first time, that I had something in me. When he saw me play Hamlet in my first play and my picture in the Times of India is when he felt proud of me. But, by that time, it was too late as I had cut off from him totally emotionally and would address him as Sir. And I regret that today, as I know that later, he would come and see my plays and he knew that I had talent and he was proud of me. But I grudged him for the fact that all through my childhood, he did not understand me. My aunt (my father's sister) had been married to a man who was 32 years older to her. So when she got married, she first got my father married and then adopted me, so my parents and I lived in her house. Her husband had died before I was born and she was very dominating. My father, by that time, was obliged to her and had become spineless and could not buy a house outside on his own, so continued to take her domination till he died. Her husband had been khandani, but with a zero bank balance. My aunt or my parents did not understand me as an artiste, so I would torture myself by cutting my body with blades with the objective of torturing all of them. That was my way of rebelling. I had always been suppressed and was a moohphat, right from my childhood. I am happy that I was able to look after my mother once I came to Mumbai and she lived with me and blessed me till when she died.

Tell us about The Shaukeens?
Anupam and Annu are both senior to me, but we are all from NSD, so we are all on the same wavelength. They were supportive and tolerant of me. You can only act because of your co-actors. Acting is never done against your co-actors. It is always done with your co-actors. In the film, my character is this man whose wife has died early. I am the richest, least classy and morally, the poorest of the three of us. They are all sexually deprived due to their backgrounds. So they are justifiably needy, but due to social norms, cannot go for it. Every person in real life wants to go and have sex. I too want to, but nowadays, as soon as this snake is standing inside me, my conscience tells me not to and 80%, I listen to it. In the film, they go to Mauritius, where they meet this young girl after which it is a story of leching, then attempt, then failure, then regret, repent and then lastly, they are rewarded poetic justice. After facing failure, they realise that it is morally wrong. It is not a Grand Masti or a Kyaa Kool Hai Hum, but it is a well-written script in which the central idea has been taken from the old Shaukeen.

Have you made friends in the industry?
Tigmanshu Dhulia, Sai Kabir and Anurag Kashyap are my friends. Tigmanshu is very naïve and I have not seen a person so non-corrupt as him. He has not changed at all and even though he never gave me films, for some reason, I never felt bad. Anurag was an admirer of mine from my theatre days. Anurag is a bad habit in my life. I don't want to act with him, but I want to do everything else with him, be it writing or singing or composing, as only he accepts everything that I do. Every person enjoys working with him, but in our case, our egos come in between when I am acting with him. Both, in the case of NK and Anurag, I was willing to do anything for them and was willing to sacrifice myself for them and that was the problem. They would take me for granted and my ego would not accept it. I was in the habit of losing friends and in both cases, it was my fault and I compensated later.

Are you less ambitious in life now?
I am not egoistic now, but was very earlier. But I always was less ambitious. When I started being humble in the last few years is when I started making enemies, as my friends felt jealous. I had always been the dark horse. But it started to disturb me lesser and lesser, as my journey had become stronger and today, it is not that easy to hurt me. I will tell you a Gautam Buddha story. When he was teaching, a lot of sages came and started abusing him. And he would say nothing. So his students asked him why he didn't respond. He asked them, 'Do you have a birthday? If you don't accept the gift someone gives you, it will remain with the person who has given it to you, right? They have given me gaalis, but I didn't take it, so it remained with them.' Till the time you don't want to get insulted, you can't get insulted.