July 9th: Creatives' Chase An Actor's Ace!

The episode was as I think has been sufficiently, and unless I entirely missed some drastic forum drama, unanimously established as Kunal Kapoor's arena! Ever since I got done watching, I've been torn between two conflicting mindsets. How does one react after an episode like this one, really. No team of show makers can really use an actor's genius, unless he himself will live it out and give it all - and I have never known moral, ethical or professional compunctions to become the motivation for an actor to truly deliver. If Kunal still managed to give Mohan and the Monday space what he did give - he's an artist in more ways than I have personally appreciated him for! Because working on correcting and perfecting a minor quarter of a card castle while the rest of it sways and falls to a heap is not something everyone can do - much less an artist who is genuinely a performer of his art... The Kunal fan in me was rooting with an admiration that had no way to be subdued, no matter what my sensibilities had to contend.

And that is brilliant. As is it ironic. It's not just about a commitment he has towards this team and show - Mohan has to be dear to him in more ways obviously than any reasons that he may find to detach himself from the character! I was saying this elsewhere, but for making my case I shall say again. Indian television is perhaps one of the worst cases of typecasting at the moment. An authentic platform that seems to "honor" mediocrity as a virtue that should trump difference and thought. It doesn't mean there aren't people who are different - it only means that survival for this minority is obviously more than just an artist's struggle to exceed quality "competition".

For some like Kunal whose lisp I assume has landed him more often than not in roles of stumbling, fumbling, goofy, stammering sidekicks - Mohan has obviously been a life altering opportunity. And honestly - Mohan is the chance he is, because Kunal himself makes it out to be so! What he had in hand was merely a case of not being typecast the way he had been previously. I remember this RM interview where Rinku Karmarkar mentioned how at the start of the show the bunch of them had speculated the makers' decision to bring on a hero who lisps. And then she'd trailed into what in commonly accepted parlance is Mohan-Kunal-jaap! Something the audience is far too privy with, and as it turned out, so is the cast and crew!

Anyway. What Kunal's made out of this opportunity is an indisputable case of an actor who shall no longer be recognized for whatever attributes or history that were leading him to be typecast. It's not just while Mohan lasts - even if yes, it's fresh and of greatest impact while that's there - but Kunal has successfully managed to free himself of being "stereotyped". Whenever the tomorrow comes for Mohan to wrap up, he will not - or at least should not - have to apprehend going back to the sidey roles which were casually put together to "accommodate" him to "fill up" screen and script space with more than just the protagonists. He is no longer part of the "baggage" and it is not unlikely a tediously earned spot - which obviously runs much prior to Mohan happening, even if for me like many others, knowing the gem he is has started with Mohan.

Anyway. When NBT started off, and safely upto its 100 episode mark, and some weeks into it too - what Kunal had in hand was an asset. An asset he had struck gold with and turned into the chance of a lifetime. What he currently has in hand however, is at least in part an albatross. Mohan himself may not be the distorted character of the series even yet; but Mohan does not exist in mutually exclusive space. If he was the epicenter of a brilliant slice of life plot earlier - the SuperM(oh)an whose interactions with just about any other made the other stand out too; Mohan has now become the hold it together super-glue. He seems like a blackhole of authenticity at some level - because while words like authentic, vintage and logical fall flat over most of remaining charades, Mohan holds out like he's absorbed it all in himself! There is the possible bias of Mohan being a favorite, for everyone from the makers to the audience turning to Kunal to salvage the situation from dire straits. But honestly, like I said above, I doubt any artist can deliver as Kunal has consistently been (through much low and little high of recent times) out of the sheer pressure of "expectation". Curiously enough, expectations evoke a sense of obligation in most people even with respect to vocations that have been entirely of their own choice and interest. I find it very humbling to believe as a mere fan of this artist, that he may have succumbed to neither the "expectation", not the "obligation" it brings in the wake. Somehow, even as I find myself increasingly losing out on my front as a viewer - he holds on not in faith or optimism but with a sensibility that seems like a myth to me when I look at the big picture otherwise. I want to say for myself here - and perhaps most will disagree- that if "faith" or "optimism" was all he progressed with, the conviction would not come through to me, ever.

But what Kunal is managing to do here - something that puts me in another level of awe for him as just an artist and no strings attached - is delving so deep in the psyche of his character that he can essay sense even when there is an immense lacking of it. If you can lie like you believe it, sometimes it will not just seem like the truth - but actually become a truth in some alter universe. Sometimes, when a lie matters that much, somehow you make it real in some realm. And Kunal does that. Contrary to what most in his place would have done, he wasn't parading around with Mohan when the latter was in a soaring place, because he figured didn't have to. He was giving it all no less back then - but it was easier, because Mohan was in a place Kunal could easily slip into. He only had to slip in and out of shoes that nearly fit him anyway - and the onus was more about handling the center stage spotlight upon himself. At this point, the center stage focus is a heavier task. If Kunal was another kind of artist, a more usual kind in Indian telly industry, I would likely in all my judgment assume he's losing little sleep over disconnect or distortion. I'd probably go as far as assuming it either didn't matter so much to him, or perhaps even eluded him partly!

But if Kunal was any percentage superficial or shallow in his understanding of the show, of Mohan in it and where and how he stands with respect to all else and others - he could never bring conviction to this point of the "story" (or lack thereof, if I may!). At a point where I in the viewing audience find the gap to be such a gaping hole - there is no way for him to not fathom its gravity. And yet, for an actor who consistently tried to establish himself as distinct from the "Mohan" on screen, in his real life bytes - Kunal has currently stepped right into the core of the caricature that is Mohan, and is what breathes life into it like a heartbeat.

For all my saying all along of how Mohan and Kunal are intriguingly inseparable cases - at this dire stage I take back part of my opinion. A lesser actor could have possibly carried Mohan forth in the good times, and still connected with us - we may think not, accept not, being spoiled by what Kunal has made of Mohan - but fact is so. But what a lesser actor could not have done is what Kunal does now. When a lesser artist would have found it easiest, even inevitable, to "disconnect" with the character he was portraying, Kunal has only lodged himself more firmly in place. He has reinforced - not contrived - sensibility and conviction into Mohan! He has literally submerged himself into a place where he is only Mohan, where Kunal ceases to exist. The phenomenal part of it has been not just sustaining Mohan - who has constantly seemed like the least altered on account of I can no longer say the "story" or Kunal - but he's done so in complete awareness and understanding of the inconsistencies around Mohan. At more points than not, in his scenes, Mohan somehow lends sense to those who're sharing the screen with him. Somehow, you feel a little more sympathy for Megha. Somehow, you manage to connect with what Ved and Mohan have at another level beyond contentions. Somehow, you feel empathy for Indu. Somehow (in my case) even a sheer unwanted extra like Ridhima too feels ... tolerable.

And that I believe has been his greatest feat yet. Carrying Mohan through times of reign was more a journey of ruling. Carrying Mohan through ruins is the tricky part. One that can automatically transition into seeming like an obligation, often irrespective of the host of an albatross wanting for it to seem so or not. But somehow, Kunal has done what Mohan does best. Strike a balance. He seems to understand the discrepancy of the script in a complete manner, and not just with regard to Mohan. And he puts his understanding to root himself deeper in the character of Mohan - the key to all the tangled webs which make lesser sense each day by themselves.

I've always been one to believe no actor however good can carry on himself the weight of a failing story. And while logically I can still not challenge that fact - Kunal seems to manifest the contrary through his art day after day. I don't feel any more kindly for what NBT has been made into. I can't put aside all the contentions that rise for me as a viewer with respect to just about every character (mostly excluding Mohan). But on days like Monday's episode, when Kunal just takes over the stage and does his thing - I find myself in such a sublime place of content (even if "sensibly rueful" of it in bits and flashes of awarness, lol!) where somehow, for a while, I can just go back to being the NBT viewer who could for some 20 odd minutes everyday descend into another world that isn't my own, but still find myself "fitting in".

I'm not sure how long Kunal can do this. I'm not sure where and in what he finds it in himself to balance the act of understanding fallacy and infusing sensibility in it. I don't know how many days I can come back to this place feeling like I do now - in such a conflict with my own domain between contention and conviction yet compelled to be here - but everytime that I do, I will always want to come back and say what it means to me. To know there is someone on this team who is capable of the very enviable feat of striving for change in a system, by being a part of its center. To have followed an artist who will truly, like an underdog that he is, exist with it, against it, without it, for it! 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏