Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 27, 2020)

December 15, 2006, brought Abhishek Kapoor much relief because the sports drama he had been struggling with, Aryan: Unbreakable, finally released on this day. The film’s writer-director took off to recharge and ended up listening to a lot of rock music. He’d never been a fan of the genre or a part of a band, yet the idea of a musical around a rock band grabbed him. He met up with his musican friends, sat in on their jam sessions and a story took shape in just a couple of days. But since the concept was novel to Hindi cinema, none of the actors he approached were interested. Then, one day, Abhishek bumped into Farhan Akhtar at a bar and instinctively felt his husky voice was apt.

“More than a trained, professional voice, I needed one that came from the heart,” muses the writer-director. A meeting was set up with Farhan and the script was narrated. He loved it and immediately came on board as Aditya Shroff aka Adi, the lead singer of the band, Magik, who rebels against his family to pursue music, then, abandons it to become an unhappy investment banker. “I’ve known Farhan since we were kids, but it was only when he came to the studio for a voice test that I learnt to my delight that he could not only play a guitar, but also knew all the songs by Coldplay, U2 and other rock bands that had inspired the film,” he admits, adding that the film was earlier titled Magik after the four friends’ Mumbai-based grunge rock band, then, changed to Rock On!!

Purab Kohli was signed on as the drummer Kedar Zaveri aka KD and to play him convincingly, the actor would often drop by Abhishek’s mom’s garage, from where he operated, to practice on the drum set there. Luke Kenny was the natural choice to play the keyboardist Rob Nancy, given his brief stint as a DJ and a longer one as Channel V’s first male VJ. The discovery that he is dying of brain cancer was a surprise twist in the plot and made him unforgettable.

The surprise package, however, was Arjun Rampal, who played the lead guitarist Joseph Mascarenhas—Joe, who was born for music and is lost without it. Abhishek empathised with this character the most, having himself failed as an actor, but unwilling to quit the industry because of his pure passion for cinema.

“Staying on meant lots of dark days, with nowhere to run back to, since I was a Mumbai boy living with my parents who hurt to see me go through such lows. Acting is a public profession, so your failure is there for the world to see and you start believing you have failed as a human being too,” he says, sharing that he wasn’t sure Arjun was the right guy to play Joe, but then, none of the actors he approached wanted to be one among four guys, even if each one was equally important to the narrative. “Arjun had no such hang-ups, but I was still worried he was too handsome and not wanting his looks to overpower the character, I toned them down. He walked away with all the awards, including the National Award for Best Supporting Actor. What an actor, what a voice,” he raves.

Shahana Goswami as Joe’s ‘anchor’ Debbie was a perfect match. Another inspired casting was Prachi Desai as Farhan’s wife Sakshi, through whose eyes the story plays out. “In my mind, Sakshi was a sweet, simple girl from a banking background, but not an elite space like Farhan; one who wants to make things right for her husband and his friends. She, however, needs an ally and that’s where ‘take charge’ Devika, who works in the jewellery store KD’s family owns, comes in. Koel Purie was perfect as Devika and Prachi, given all the work she had done in television, was my Sakshi. I have always believed that TV is a good training ground for an actor, given all the hours of shoot and the sustained level of performance,” he avers.

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music made the Rock On!! album a cult favourite, selling 120,000 copies in India. The songs, from “Pichle Saat Dinon Mein” “Socha Hai” and “Yeh Tumhari Meri Baatein” to “Zehreelay”, “Tum Ho To”, “Sinbad The Sailor”, “Phir Dekhiye” and the title track “Rock On!!”, flowed from Javed Akhtar’s pen. “They were such ‘young’ lyrics and Javed saab was the real rockstar at the studio, ” Abhishek recalls fondly.

The film bagged a National Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi too, and that is the moment Abhishek flashbacks to when he remembers Rock On!! , which opened on August 29, 2008 and finally put him on the road to success. “There was so much dignity and diversity of talent from across the country at that function. The experience was truly ‘magikal’!” he rocks on.

Dhaval Roy (DNA; November 10, 2017)

Prachi Desai may not have played a musician in Rock On! but in her next outing, Kosha, she plays a vocalist and rhythm guitarist in a blues band. And, to get the characterisation perfect, the Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai actress has picked up the guitar in real life, too. Prachi says, “I wanted it to feel real; I wanted to truly lose myself in the music much like my character does in the film. It’s no use if you’re performing and are worried about syncing your movement to the song.”

And thus began her guitar lessons from none other than the director of her film, Amman Advaita, who, Prachi tells us, is a nifty guitarist himself. So, right from the pre-production days, Prachi started practising the six-string with the filmmaker. Once they commenced the shoot, “A bunch of us would sit back in the morning after a hard night’s shoot, jam and have fun, so much so that it became a problem waking up the next day,” the actress smiles.

Strumming on
Though Prachi used to strum for a few hours each day earlier, her busy schedule has meant that the practice sessions are infrequent now. She informs us that she has learnt to play the song that she performs in the movie and a few other favourites. So, does she plan to continue playing after the film is wrapped up? “Yes! Playing the guitar has been quite liberating. I want to keep learning the instrument and hopefully master it someday,” says the actress who found Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett in the film Runaways inspiring when she was younger.

All for the role
Before this, to do justice to the role, Prachi had injured her hand while shooting for a scene. “Actually, I was supposed to be punching a bag that was kept for my protection but I punched it away and started to punch the ground. Nobody noticed and I didn’t want to stop. I had so much to gain that the pain wasn’t a problem,” she says. Holds true for her guitar practice, too, since like any beginner, Prachi has also had sore fingers after playing. “They still get sore but it was needed and completely worth it. You’ll soon see,” Prachi offers. Incidentally, it was Abhishek Kapoor’s Rock On! that made her popular as a Bollywood actress when she moved from television to the big screen. Gung-ho about her turn in this film, she says, “I wish rock music never leaves me. At the end of the day, all artistes are people who are hurt or broken in some way and it’s sometimes easier to channel the pain rather than happiness. That’s what the blues were made to cure,” she says. Keane, Coldplay, Pearl Jam, INXS, The Killers, and The Horrors are some of her favourite bands.

Good times ahead
Currently, Prachi has Kosha to wrap up. That apart, she plans to make the most of a break in the film’s shoot and squeeze in a holiday abroad along with a work trip. “It has been strenuous, so this will be a great breather. Besides this, I am binging on Stranger Things! My sister, who is a writer, will be here visiting me soon from Australia, so, all in all, it’s great,” she signs off.

BOMBAY TIMES (September 9, 2017)

Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 10, 2017)

In 2067, it will be common to have an artificial heart because oxygen would have almost completely depleted from planet Earth. So ‘Bad Martian’ Nawazuddin Siddiqui is smuggling oxygen in canisters to a neighbouring planet, while Jackky Bhagnani, who has little time left on the life-clock and Prachi Desai, more Artificial Intelligence and less human, are trying to salvage the situation. This futuristic sci-fi plot is the crux of Jackky’s upcoming production, Carbon. A threeminute clip from the film will be screened at a dinner-gala attended by United Nation delegates, actors and members of the Global Citizen Foundation as well as other international celebrities later this month.

“Last year, when Delhi was covered in smog, pictures of children wearing masks, sitting in classrooms, was a common sight. I watched Leonardo DiCaprio’s documentary on climate change, Beyond The Flood, which explained how there would be no snowfall after 2040, around the same time and decided to take a sci-fi thriller-like approach to create awareness about the issue,” says Jackky, who jumped into a three-month-long research with the writer-director duo Maitrey Bajpai and Rameez Khan and brought musician duo Salim-Sulaiman on board. He then approached Nawaz who invited him home to narrate the story in detail. Three days later, he called Jackky to tell him to lock his dates.

“Nawaz is the antagonist, illegally trading oxygen which is barred by all governments around the world, but through his dialogues, explains the ground reality to my character,” says Jackky, who shot the film last December and January, importing masks used by the German military as props that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen in the film. “It’s challenging to make a sci-fi film on the budget we had. But instead of making a film with mediocre VFX throughout, we shortlisted 12-15 crucial shots and gave effects of international standards to them. I am hoping that this will lead to more futuristic films being made under my banner,” he signs off.

Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; January 1, 2017)

The way my career started off was silly. I decided to go for an audition for the fun of it and even lied about my age. I was 16, but since it was a rule to be 18, I said I was. I auditioned for a chick flick set in a college. A few months later, I got a call asking me to come down and take a look test for a TV show for a 9 pm prime slot. I had no idea that I would come to Mumbai, and then never go back to Pune. That show was Kasamh Se. The day my life changed was the day my character marries Mr Walia (who was played by Ram Kapoor).

I was told a night before about this plot development. I was petrified playing a bride at 17 but Ekta Kapoor, and everyone else possible called to pacify me and assured me it was for the good of the show. Our TRPs shot up with that one episode, and we became the number 1 show. The fan mail increased and I knew life changed. It was impossible to step out after that, as people would flock me everywhere. I remember I was in Surat visiting family for Navratri one year and there were people standing on my balcony, trying to get in. That incident scarred me so badly that I never went back to live there. I felt like an exotic animal in a zoo. During my board exams, news channels followed my car till Pune and got pictures of me appearing for the exam. That was unreal and I didn't know how to handle it.

Thankfully, I had someone like Ram as a co-actor who would pamper me like a kid. He called me Bunny and it is only because of him, I stayed calm and pulled through the show with such confidence.

MUMBAI MIRROR (December 15, 2016)

Actress Prachi Desai says she turned down an offer to feature in an ad for a Pakistani beauty brand, considering the strained ties between India and Pakistan.

"As of now, I am not taking up any endorsement deals in Pakistan and yes I have turned down the offer since I feel it is not the right time," Prachi said in a statement.

According to a source close to the actress, Prachi was approached by a "Pakistani beauty brand to endorse one of its products".

"But the actor politely turned it down. She has done this keeping in mind the relations India has with our neighbours at this time. She thought it would be inappropriate for her to be signing up for such a thing right now," the source said.

Prachi was last seen onscreen in "Rock On 2"

Joginder Tuteja (DNA; November 3, 2016)

Believe it or not, but in a way, Rock On!! 2 has managed to find a common connect with Tanu Weds Manu Returns. How, one may ask, considering that they aren’t similar in anything — the genre, cast, storyline, treatment or ambience. Yet there is one connect, and that is around the characters who find themselves in the sane scheme of things all over again in the sequels.

“That’s right,” comments an industry observer, “Rock On!! 2 is one of few films, apart from TWMR, where all the principal characters — R Madhavan, Kangana Ranaut, Deepak Dobriyal, Jimmy Sheirgill, Swara Bhaskar and Eijaz Khan — from the first part, return for the sequel. When director Aanand L Rai decided to make the sequel, he was sure of bringing them all together once more.”

Producer Farhan Akhtar, too, has ensured that everybody from the film’s band Magik and their wives returned for part 2. “Farhan, Arjun Rampal and Purab Kohli were in Rock On!! and each of them is back as the band members. The only member who is not there is Luke Kenny and that’s because he died in Part 1. Who knows, he may return in the flashback sequence?” our source wonders.

Prachi Desai and Shahana Goswami (who played the wives of Farhan and Arjun respectively), are back, too. Also, newer characters played by Shraddha Kapoor and Shashank Arora have been introduced.

Now compare this to other major sequels, especially with the ones that feature four or more major characters, and the common trend is to have at least one of them being bumped off.

Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 is the only film in the history of Bollywood sequels where each of the three leading ladies (Nushrat Bharucha, Sonnalli Seygall and Ishita Raj Sharma) were repeated, while only one leading man, Kartik Aryan remained in both films. In Ram Gopal Varma’s Sarkar 3, only Amitabh Bachchan has survived.

Let’s wait and watch to see which character returns in Rock On!! 3, if and when it happens!

Upala KBR (DNA; September 21, 2016)


Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, Purab Kohli, Prachi Desai, producer Ritesh Sidhwani, music directors Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy all share their experiences about how the film became a movement, bagging National Awards for Best Supporting Actor (Arjun Rampal) and Best Feature Film in Hindi. However, the makers haven’t decided when they will release the documentary.

Says Farhan, “We decided we had to go back to how all it started. You have to follow what you are very excited about. There is no choice. Today, with Rock On!! 2, we have the opportunity to push that energy a bit more. It was in 2007 that Rock On!! director Abhishek Kapoor came up to me while I was with friends in a South Mumbai bar and told me he was very keen to cast me in film about a rock band as the lead singer in that band, Aditya Shroff. It wasn’t something that I hadn’t considered at that point — acting or singing. The responsibility of fronting a film was the greatest challenge. It’s not as easy as people imagine it to be.”

He adds, “We all worked at it and tried to get ourselves as close to performing the songs in a way, that it really felt to us as actors and to the audience, when they were watching, that these people are really playing and it’s not mock-stuff. You can’t pretend to be a lead singer. I have been touring with my band independently now and the music really did catch on, but it’s incredible to see the recall value of the first film’s songs. The minute the songs start from the album, the energy of that crowd just completely changes. With the sequel, we have that opportunity to push that more and do more concerts now as people are more familiar with the songs of the last film.”

There’s also a mention of winning the National award for Best Hindi feature film. “Yes that felt amazing. There have been so wonderful stories after our Rock On!! story where people told us how they came together and formed rock bands and became aware about rock music. That also forms a part of the documentary.”

Also explains why she missed the film’s music launch on Saturday
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; September 19, 2016)

In Rock On (2008), she was the one to bring back ‘Magik’ into the lives of band members who split after a fight. In the sequel to her debut film, Prachi Desai supposedly plays a miniscule part. She fuelled rumours about being miffed with the makers for giving her the short shrift when she went missing from the Rock On 2 concert on Saturday evening to mark the film’s music launch.

Prachi, however, chooses to laugh off the buzz. She insists she was under the weather and couldn’t make it to the event. “I am down with viral fever, so I missed our kickass rock concert. Whoever came up with the rumour that I have a five-minute role must have seen our film before we did. I like the rumours because they are so entertaining,” she says.

Defending her blink-and-miss appearance in the film’s teaser, she retorts, “Every single film is whatever it is projected to be. There are movies that shove the main leads in your face through promos and songs. But when you go to the theatre, a girl probably has just a 12-minute role. That happens a lot in Bollywood.”

Promotions depend on how the director and producer want to whip up a certain perception about the film, she adds. “Screen length cannot be gauged from promos and trailers. They are pure marketing tools. A character or an actor might be highlighted because of their market weight. If starting today, (co-producers) Farhan (Akhtar) and Ritesh (Sidhwani) decide to show only my promos, I might look like the lead. I am used to not getting author-backed role, but have always been appreciated, nevertheless.”

How was it sharing her playing field with another female actor, Shraddha Kapoor, who has big hits and big- ticket films in her kitty? Prachi says, “Shraddha is one of the few actors who comes closest to my age group. We really get each other without many words. Be it at promotions, at our Shillong schedule or cast parties, we have had a whale of a time together. She is easy to get along with; she is the co-star I have had most fun with.”