THE BAMBAI...Sonrise

Bambai Meri Jaan actor Aditya Rawal is following in his dad, Paresh Rawal's footsteps but the young actor is carving a niche of his own

- Ananya Ghosh

When I first came across Aditya Rawal, he was Nibras Islam, the Monash University student commanding the gang of young militants and orchestrating a daring terror attack in Hansal Mehta's 2023 film based on the real incident that unfolded in Bangladesh's Holey Artisan Bakery in July 2016 that left 20 civilians and two policemen dead. Hansal Mehta's Faraaz essentially follows Faraaz Ayaaz Hossain's last day and the hours leading to his tragic but heroic end where he bravely stands up against the terrorists as the last bulwark of humanity against religious extremism. The way Aditya, as Nibras, transitions from a freshly shattered sensitive but brainwashed youth to a violent and heartless trigger-happy monster before taking the final fatal decision showcases his range as an actor. It was one of the most memorable performances of 2023, a year replete with some fantastic performances by a slew of young actors.

Aditya, who had made his debut as a leading man in the 2020 film Bamfaad, was just getting started. A few months later, he again grabs the attention of the audience with yet another power-packed performance. His Chhota Babban in Shujaat Saudagar's Bambai Meri Jaan provides a tough competition to his Nibras as the top breakthrough performances of the year. If Nibras was an erudite youth driven by warped ideologies, Chhota Babban, who makes his entry in the last quarter of the 10-episode series based on S Hussain Zaidi's book, Dongri To Dubai, is an audacious ruffian hailing from the Mumbai underbelly who becomes the right-hand man of Mumbai's most dreaded gangster of all time. With the commanding screen presence of a star and the acting talent showing sparks of being at par with the best in the business, Although in the Excel Entertainment web series he doesn't get much screen space, he gets the audience hooked so much so that they are already looking forward to his character taking centrestage in the second season.