Destiny and Choices

Finally I managed to condense this epic 3hrs lecture into a 3 part post. Guys please congratulate me.
Part1-http://yespluschennai.blogspot.com/2009/11/boman-irani-actor-photographer-part-1.html
Part2-http://yespluschennai.blogspot.com/2009/12/boman-irani-actor-photographer-part2.html

For the entire time no one dared to leave the auditorium. Once a girl started to rise and immediately Boman asked "where are you going?" before she could reply, "No" "Sit" came the answer. There where a lot of 'Mamus'(boys) and a very few 'Mamis'(4girls is all he could see) in the crowd so he wasn't going to let a 'Mami' slip out. Soon he came to regret his decision when she eventually told him that it was to set up the collar mic. He made sure she came on the stage to put the mic on(he didn't like the idea anyways and stuck to the traditional one) by putting up an act(away from the mic stand,signal-can you hear me.crowd-no). A guy dared to get up and leave when Boman stopped him, he let him go giving reason that he was a "mamu" anyways(I don't think anyone got up after that). It was like asking a friend "abey sunn na thodi der ke liye"(hey dude sit and listen for some time).

Now coming back to his bio. Much detail wasn't told about how actually he got into acting but, he told us that he was approached by the son of his photographer friend(also a parsi) to make the movie "Being Cyrus". He was pushed into theater profession(as he was shy) and was very well received by all. His role in a play called "Roshini" won many hearts. He acted in various plays, but what caught the eye of the producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra was a home made film of the play "I'm not Bajirao". Apparently for no reason the crew members of the play decided to make the film and it took almost a year to edit the film which was taken from a handheld camera, this made its way to Vidhu Vinod Chopra and he approached Boman Irani with a check in hand to sign him up the "Munnai bhai MBBS" for the role of Dr. J. Astatna, even though Vidhu ji wasn't sure about when the movie was going to be made. Even though he was offered a check before any formal contract, Boman was reluctant to do the role of the doctor who was laughing all the time. He found the character stupid and was no convinced at all. He had already done small roles in many movies, but had no idea how much impact this role would make on the his audience. As the last resort Vidhu ji requested Boman to listen to the story from Rajkumar Hirani, the director. Boman reluctantly accepted and went to meet up with Rajkumar Hirani and now Rajkumar ji began narrating the story to him. As rajkumar ji narrated the story Boman shared he laughed and cried and throughly enjoyed the story, he had no choice but to accept, but he still wasn't convinced with the laughing character. Later he reluctantly accepted but did justice to the character.

As told in the previous post the actor who was being groomed for 6 months for the main role was Vivek Oberoi, but in the one month to the starting of the shooting he backed out and switched to the Ram Gopal Verma's movie "Company", the main comedian and side kick role was also abandoned by a famous actor 15 days before the shooting. Actors like "Shah Rukh Khan", "Hrithik Roshan", "Saif Ali Khan" where approached but to no avail and finally when Sanjay Dutt came to the picture and it was seen as a good idea. Now remained the role of the side kick, when Arshad Warsi was approached to act he was also reluctant about acting as a side kick, he completely disliked the name 'kujali' for the charector but eventually accepted the offer and suggested the name of the character to be changed to 'circuit'. Now the film crew and cast were assembled finally, but the cast had major lack of superstars. Gracy Singh was the only person who could be called so. Sanjay didn't have any hit since about 8 years and Boman and Arshad were somewhat new faces. He shared a funny incident that happened during the making of the movie- apparently Gracy Singh was very straight forward and used head straight back to home after finishing up shooting(I guess it must be hard on the new actors to get used to the harsh shooting schedule), so after a promotional function it seems Sanjay shared with Boman "Aaj pheli bar mere ko hello boli"(its the first time she said hello to me).

Boman was very disappointed with the film, it wasn't a hit and when he went to a theater to watch it for himself he found out that the theater was half empty. But Vidhu ji was very excited about the movie. Boman found it as a harsh joke when Vidhu ji shared his excitement about the film doing good. When Boman asked why he was so excited when the movie wasn't doing so well Vidhu ji replied "hit hai, sab log hass rahe hai"("its a hit, every one is laughing and enjoying it"). It seems that it was the only thing that matters to him. Slowly by word of mouth the film became famous and more and more people were watching it, and now when he went to a theater he was mobbed and people weren't letting him go, whereas the first time he went people didn't even recognise him. So that's how Boman gained a unique place in millions of heart.

He shared that he found something in the mail that the organiser of the lecture Nithin sent him that made him come here and was grateful for what Chennai had given him. Nithin wasn't very good at talking in public but he always smiled and went with what he had to do though he blabbered and stammered a bit. Boman made sure that we all learn from his tenacity. In the end of the overtime lecture he made us say three words-"Thank you Nithin". I was proud that I was thoughtful enough to thank him out aloud even before Boman made us all do it. I guess I'm similar to him in some way, my college isn't going that well anyways hope my life makes a good story. And that's what Boman blessed us all of, he blessed that we become the kind of people who are going to share there story in a lecture like this. During the Questions and Answer session too he showed the influence of his humble background and his level of experience. There are always some people who are excited and ask questions which are sometimes obvious, not so interesting for the people around and when people used to boo at them Boman gently took care that the speaker isn't uncomfortable and that the crowd listen to what he/she had to say.

The session wasn't going to end this way, a guy asked him to sing, it seemed that Boman was a good singer and sung before. I thought yeah every hobby of a celebrity is so glorified even though they are not that good(sometimes people think- "oh big deal, I can do better"), I wasn't prepared for what was going to come. Boman shared that its just his hobby and he doesn't actually sing(see just as I thought), Then he began singing a song(the song where many international singers with Michael Jackson are singing one by one, as a part of some fundraising event. I'm really sorry I don't know the song). I was mesmerised by his voice, it was awesome and I found that his heavy bass voice he uses to speak doesn't give us any clue of what his beautiful part of voice is. He also mimicked the voices of the singer who originally sang it and I was left awestruck.

There are many things that I have forgotten from the lecture, there somethings I didn't understand, but every bit of it was worth listening to and pondering over. Hope you make your life into a good story too.

Jgd
Puneeth Raj