Scene: A small town somewhere in India. It is the ’90s. The town’s lone movie theatre is screening that month’s hottest release, Baazigar. A boy sitting in the audience, flanked by his parents and sister, is mesmerised by the wicked charm of Vicky Malhotra, played by Shah Rukh Khan. He is not the only one. The entire nation is smitten by this dimpled hero. And like most kids his age, this boy wants to be SRK!
This could be the plot of a slice-of-life movie, a by-product of Bollywood’s recent dalliance with heartland India. But our story is about Kartik Aaryan, the hero of his own Bollywood heartland story.
“We are a family of movie buffs. With my parents and my sister, I would always watch new releases at theatres or movies on television. I was so much in love with that world that I desperately wanted to be a part of it. It started with the dream to become a hero,” recalls Kartik, the actor who has been catapulted into the league of A-list stars since the humongous box office success of his latest release, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2. Growing up in Gwalior, his is every bit of a small-town success story that Bollywood celebrates today.
Man with a plan
For a boy from a simple middle-class family in Madhya Pradesh, conquering Mumbai was too distant a dream, one that couldn’t be articulated even to his parents. “It was so far-fetched for a boy growing up in a town like ours that nobody would have believed me even if I told them. It was not a plausible career option at all. Nobody in my school or at my home had an inkling that I wanted to take this path,” says Kartik, whose doctor parents’ dream was to see their son become a doctor or an engineer.
“But by the time I was in class XI, I was already hooked to acting. I would take videos of movie scenes, write down the dialogues, and try to perform them in my own way. I would thus create my own acting workshops. This practice continued even when I started acting in movies. Of course, I also enrolled myself in a proper acting school because knowing the grammar always helps,” he shares.
Most people are scared of the leap of faith that following a dream invariably involves. But not Kartik. “I believe in manifesting. If I want something, I give it my 100 per cent. I am never scared of hard work. I want to give everything my best shot so I won’t have any regrets later about not trying.”
By the time he was in class XII, his dream had solidified into a plan. “While my classmates were discussing their future professions and accordingly deciding on the stream for higher education, I fixed my goal as well. It was acting. I knew that if I had to pursue this, I needed to be in Mumbai. And for that, I needed a practical, viable plan.
“My parents had no clue that I wanted to become an actor and I didn’t know how they would react if I told them. So, I decided instead to try and get into a college in Mumbai, which would make them happy. Once in the city, I thought, I could give my Bollywood dream a shot!”
So, to prepare for his acting career, Kartik put his heart and soul into cracking his engineering entrance exam—a twist in his tale that makes him guffaw even today. When he got admission to DY Patil College of Engineering and moved to Mumbai, his parents believed their son was on the path to fulfilling their dream. But actually—and luckily for his many fans today—he was on the path to fulfilling his!
Kid in a candy shop
“Before coming to Mumbai, I had not travelled much (I still haven’t!). It was my first time in a big city. Everything was new and big. Even the train stations! I was like a kid in a candy shop! It was my first time seeing the sea. It was my first time taking a local train. In Gwalior, we didn’t have such concepts of commuting!” he reminisces.
Sometimes the maximum city overwhelmed the Gwalior boy. But not often and never for long. “It made me more resolute. I wanted to be part of all this,” he says.
Kartik started modelling and going for auditions while in college. “I was the face of the college for the inter-college competitions. I would bunk classes, which is not at all advisable, and queue up for auditions. The entire college knew I wanted to become an actor! Some of my friends would occasionally make fun of me,” says Kartik. “But at least here it was a plausible dream, unlike back in Gwalior.”
If being an outsider in Mumbai is difficult, making it in Bollywood as an outsider is more so. “I didn’t know anybody in the industry at all. I didn’t have any guidance. I had no clue where to start. I just used my common sense and figured out a way as I went along. I would type ‘auditions’, ‘actors required’ on Google and search, or use social media to find auditions and land up there,” he recalls.
“It was an expensive city to live in; it still is,” he continues. “There were days when I had no money. Even after the release of Pyaar Ka Punchnama, [2011] my struggle was not over. In fact, that was the most crucial phase in my career. What would be the second film? Would there even be a third film?” he adds.
As a small town boy, he could never fit with the upper echelons of Bollywood, which mostly comprised true big city boys. That didn’t bother him much, especially when his small town roots became one of his trump cards, making him just the right fit for the heartland stories that Bollywood was to become obsessed with. Films like Luka Chuppi and Pati Patni Aur Woh saw Kartik draw from his lived experiences.
“What you learn from your experiences is always the most authentic. I know this world, these people, their lives, their ethos… I have lived that life. Also, thanks to being from where I am, my Hindi is very clear. That helps a lot in playing these characters. Luka Chuppi was shot in Mathura and Gwalior, my own city. I didn’t have to go through extensive workshops to become Guddu Shukla. I was already from that world, the character had a background very similar to mine. So, I could even incorporate some of those nuances to the character based on my experiences,” Kartik reveals. “I have always worked towards turning my weaknesses into my biggest strengths,” he adds with a cheeky grin. “But if I can represent the middle-class characters, I think I can play the urban hero as well!”
Indeed. And that’s what makes him an actor in the truest sense.
Small is big
Is the India reflected in Bollywood movies living and breathing in smaller towns and tier-2 cities? Kartik doesn’t think so. “It is part of a cycle. In the past few years, people lapped up small town stories. These stories, apart from being relatable, usually have more well-etched-out and rounded characters. In many cases, they reflect the great Indian dream. Rooted in reality, they have the quality of inspiring people,” he says. “But today, people are again getting back to mass entertainers as well. People want variety. Just one kind of cinema will never satiate the audience. Movies like KGF and Pushpa are proof of that. And so is the success of Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2.”
India is not just about small towns and Bollywood can’t just be about stories from the heartland. “It is not a case of this or that. I am a massy person and I love mass entertainers. But I also want my films to be relatable. My character in the movie is an interesting example. It is a movie mounted on a large scale and is every bit that kind of a cinematic experience, but it can also be regarded as a small town story! While Ruhaan is a very relatable character, one you would associate with heartland movies, Rooh baba is larger than life. It is not so much about the genre but about having a good script. You can’t predict what the audience will love tomorrow. Both as an actor and as a member of an audience, I am not genre-specific.”
Today, Kartik is a mass hero and his relatability is largely to be credited for his meteoric rise. “My roots, my growing up in a town like Gwalior, is what makes me who I am. I will always be that person. Also, being from a small town not only makes me strive harder to reach the number one spot, but also keeps me grounded. I can still go back and live that life,” he says.
Eleven years and 11 films since he arrived in Mumbai, Kartik is not just satisfied but proud of his journey.
“I take pride in the fact that I have done this on my own and with the help of people who put their trust in my capabilities without knowing me. They went for the craft instead of the lineage,” he says.
From HT Brunch, August 20, 2022
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