Shashank Arora is a bundle of contradictions. And he has no qualms about admitting it.
“I’m not a regular interviewee,” the 27-year-old Delhi boy declares. He also seamlessly jumps from one subject to another, barely giving you a chance to realise questions have gone unanswered. In the Versova restaurant where we meet, Arora’s having breakfast in the middle of the day and nursing a hangover which does little to interrupt the steady flow of conversation.
Arora’s debut was the critically acclaimed Titli (written and directed by Kanu Behl, and co-produced by Dibakar Banerjee and Aditya Chopra) that premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. In the gritty drama, he played the titular character, aching to leave a toxic home environment that thrives on crime and negativity. His visceral portrayal of the ambitious youngster drew praise the world over.
To follow up, the actor is star of the upcoming Brahman Naman , an effort from renegade filmmaker Q (Qaushiq Mukherjee) that will digitally release on Netflix worldwide in a few days.
As he’s wont to do, Q yet again pushes boundaries with the raunchy comedy going as far as to show the sexually curious teenaged Naman experimenting with fish in a cringe-worthy scene.
But it wasn’t the explicit nature of the film that attracted Arora, just the fact that it was a genre he’d like to explore: comedy. “I might never do [a comedy] again,” he laughs. “I like how Q approached me and wanted to execute the project; why he was telling the story. He was simple and straightforward.”
The period film set in ’80s Bangalore chronicles three teenaged boys’ pursuit of sex and in particular, Naman’s depraved solutions. But despite Q’s earnest intentions for Brahman Naman , Arora says the film’s “an experiment gone wrong,” before quickly clarifying, “I’m not saying it’s a bad movie, it means we learnt.” And more prodding only yields, “It’s an experiment and that’s about it.” In fact Arora had no expectation of the racy film seeing the light of day. “I had no intention other than experiencing making this film. I didn’t think it would be pushed the way it’s being pushed and I didn’t really care when I was shooting it. I loved making it.”
The actor approaches every project the same way; giving little thought to how it will fare at the box-office. “I will play a guard, or a one-minute role, but I have to be satisfied that the artist sitting across from me is telling the story for the right reasons,” he says, explaining how he chooses his projects. And stardom doesn’t matter at all, “It’s fickle and I’ve seen many a sad soul go mad with it. It’s like chasing gold at the end of the rainbow and sometimes the rainbow disappears.”
Arora won’t make the effort, he’s very comfortable right now with what and who he is, thank you very much. “It’s exhausting thinking about what your perception of me is,” he sighs. “There’s a fine line between wanting to be loved and wanting to appease everyone.” And that is something he’s managed to handle “very well”.
By his own admission, he’s a bit of a nihilist today. “I don’t belong [in Mumbai],” he says, before likening himself to a polar bear who’s wandered into warmer climates and has gotten f***ked. “I have lots of fur and the camouflage is not going to work here.” In this city, filmmaking is a business, where unfortunately business is being handled by the artists, and the businessmen in turn feel like dabbling in the arts. “It happened to every project I’ve been apart of, it’s inevitable.” But Brahman Naman ’s digital distribution is good news for the industry where a theatrical release is the ultimate goal for a film.
And yet Mumbai is the perfect place to make films if only he wouldn’t have to hear people continuously declare that cinema is just for entertainment. He may agree that amusement and escape is an inevitable aspect of films, “But, I pity you if all you seek from cinema is entertainment,” he says. “It’s like flying to the moon, taking a sh*t and coming back.”
Hands full
After eight years of being in Mumbai, having his first film premiere at Cannes and the next at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, Arora’s the only Indian actor to have his films compete at both these international festivals.
For now, though, he’s got his hands full. When he’s not making analogue music (he plays the ukulele, bansuri and guitar) he’s also a carpenter whose prized piece of furniture is a coffee table he made.
Then there are his upcoming films: Rock On 2 (Farhan Akhtar, Shraddha Kapoor, Arjun Rampal), The Song of Scorpions (Waheeda Rahman, Iranian actor Golshifteh Farahani and Irrfan Khan), Lipstick Waale Sapne (Konkana Sen Sharma). And he’s just wrapped up shooting his own untitled film with Haraamkhor director Shlok Sharma: “It’s India’s first film to be shot on an iPhone 6s Plus,” he says. “Let’s hope it gets into Cannes and Sundance so I can continue living this travel-happy life.”
In the middle of all his artistic pursuits, the actor clarifies he’s just got one simple purpose, “My purpose is to love, be loved and discuss this existence and to be aware of it. Nothing more and nothing less,” he says and signs off.
Brahman Namanwill release on Netflix on July 7.
[Stardom] is fickle and I’ve seen many a sad soul go mad with it. It’s like chasing
gold at the end of the rainbow and sometimes the rainbow disappears
