Dramatis Personae

Comparing an actor's struggles in Delhi and Mumbai maps out the differing cultures of two disparate cities

- Tatsam Mukherjee

DIBYENDU Bhattacharya remembers it like it was yesterday. National School of Drama (NSD) was the reason he moved out of Kolkata for the first time in 1991. He’d just won the Best Actor award from the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) three years ago. Having moved to the centrally-located theatre hub of Delhi, Mandi House, he soon realised that he was surrounded by embassies screening acclaimed films. “My days would end with watching Kurosawa” recounts Bhattacharya, “and sometimes even plays in Mandi House. Also, I had the fantastic library in NSD at my disposal. It was a different kind of experience. I’d never lived such a regimented life.”

Bhattacharya is among a rarified group of actors (such as Manoj Bajpayee, Ashutosh Rana, Manoj Pahwa, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri and Neena Gupta, among others) who sharpened their skills in theatre in Delhi first, before making the move to Mumbai for films. He was largely unfazed by the new city, instead, he took a liking to it immediately. It’s safe to say that Bhattacharya is among the exceptions, considering the contrasting cultures of the two cities. While Mandi House witnesses more art-based, social-justice driven works, the hubs of Mumbai—Juhu, Versova, etc., have a more factory quality to them. The objective is to ensure the steady churning out of films, shows, plays. It’s a starkly different approach that most actors have to grapple with when they make the switch. Even Shah Rukh Khan, who had worked with Delhi’s theatre veteran Barry John, had to reinvent his approach after tasting success at the beginning stages of his career in the early ‘90s, moving from Mani Kaul and Ketan Mehta to Aditya Chopra, Rakesh Roshan and Karan Johar.

Comparing an actor’s struggles in Mandi House and Versova maps out the differing cultures of two fundamentally disparate cities. But it also tells a fascinating story of how these two cultures have gone on to influence and contaminate each other.