A fan’s strange relationship with a movie character and the actor playing it

Have you ever felt good about someone’s career whose work you love not taking off? No, right? It sounds almost criminally selfish and self-contradicting. I have experienced it. And, In fact, let me tell you from experience that it gets even more complicated when you also admire that individual so much that you wish him all
the success at the same time.

Vikramaditya Motwane’s directorial debut Udaan came out in 2010. Due to my dislike for Anurag Kashyap’s brand of dark cinema, something that thankfully changed over the years, I didn’t watch it until 2015. It was on the insistence of my college best friend that I ended up watching it interestingly on the final day of my college life. Looking back, I’m so glad that I didn’t watch it any earlier and equally glad that I did accept a movie recommendation, something I generally terrible at. At that point in my life, at the age of 22 and having seen through college life, this movie hit me hard. Very hard.

There is very little that I can say in praise of the Udaan that hasn’t already been said in the 10 years since it came out. I always had a thing for movies where the relationship between a father and his son is explored (movies like A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints and The Judge) and this movie was entirely about it. And how well it did that has been established in the past decade as well. But that’s not the point of the piece. This piece is about my strange relationship with Rajat Barmecha who played Rohan, the teenage son of Bhairon Singh played by Ronit Roy.

I had watched Shaitan before Udaan and quite enjoyed his quirky cameo in that film. But his performance in Udaan blew me over. There was little to no similarity in me and Rohan but his acting in a perfectly crafted film made me feel almost everything that the director intended his audience to feel through that character. I could relate to his anger and frustrations and I found respite with him in his poetry. And even today, listening to Azaadiyan, sung and composed beautifully by Amit Trivedi, gives me goosebumps. Every single time. I feel exhilarated to imagine the joy of Rohan finally breaking away the shackles every time Azaadiyan turns to Kahaani Khatam Hai Ya Shuruaat Hone Ko Hai. Pretty much everybody who watched the movie was left impressed by the boy’s acting but for me, since that day, Rohan became an inalienable part which I carry around everywhere. As someone who has watched quite a few films, I can easily say that not too many characters have remained with me the way Barmecha’s Rohan did, the credit for which goes not only to the actor but everything that made Udaan the wonderful movie that it was.

What Udaan also began for me was this complicated relationship with the actor who I didn’t want to see in any other role because his portrayal of Rohan was so overwhelming. Such was the imprint of that portrayal that I feared that seeing him in any other role would dilute Rohan for me, something an irrational part of my head wasn’t ready to see happen. Something similar had happened earlier with the 2012 movie Barfi. Ileana D Cruz’s Shruti Ghosh in it had a similar kind of impact and to date remains one of my favorite female characters in Bollywood. After seeing her play the beautiful Bengali woman in her debut Bollywood film, it was disappointing to see none of the subsequent characters match up to that. Worse, for me, they seemed to dilute the impact that particular portrayal by the actress. I, or that irrational part in my head, wasn’t ready to let the same happen to Rohan.

In a rather unfortunate turn of events post-Udaan, which was Barmecha’s first project, the actor was not seen in a proper film for more than a decade. While on one hand it has helped me to hold on to Udaan’s Rohan in my heart longer than I thought, the apparent lack of success of such a fine actor also made me feel a pain that has often felt quite personal. Barmecha’s acting talent is something beyond questioning and he proved his mettle with his debut film. Why exactly then did he not get directors to make a beeline outside his house post-Udaan thus remains a mystery. In a way, it also shines a light on the fickle nature of fame in the rather unpredictable labyrinth of Bollywood.

In 2017, Barmecha penned a beautifully written but heart-wreching post about the same on his Facebook account which ended with the lines

“I got a lot of respect as an actor from almost all the 'big names' of the film industry...Got a lot of appreciation...Everyone said he is a brilliant actor...Will go real far...None of those guys offered me any films. But I don't have anything against anyone.”

As a fan of his acting abilities, reading this was almost heart-breaking. To be touted the next big thing before turning 20 and to not have added to the list of roles post the age of 30 doesn’t seem like the ideal graph of growth, at least to a fan. At the same time, his social media posts reek of a growth that is so different from the growth that can be measured on a graph. Barmecha’s solo travelling experiences shared on his social media tell tales of a boy who has grown up to become a wise man. I wonder if 20 films in the last decade would have afforded him such growth. Maybe, his success wasn’t doing 20 films in a decade.

This growth has complicated my relationship with the actor further. In the past few years, I have rooted for his success and have felt a surge of joy every time I have seen him in TV commercials and web series posters. It was wonderful to hear him talk alongside Ronit Roy and Vikramaditya Motwane on the Udaan reunion by Rajeev Masand. In fact, it gladdened my heart to hear him talk of a feature film he has written in the lockdown in the same video. A part of me wants him to achieve the acting greatness that he was supposed to post the success of Udaan.

Yet, a part of me, a very selfish one, feels glad that Rohan of Udaan (till now) is the last role I remember him for. Strange. Irrational. Inexplicable.