“Mumbai mein aane ke baad pata chala ki sirf ladkiyo ko dar nahi rehta yaha, ladko ko bhi dar rahta hai,” affirms reality show alum Shiv Thakare. The lad who hails from Amravati has been auditioning in Mumbai since 2015. Given his stints in reality shows such as Roadies and Bigg Boss, Thackeray is a famous name today, however, during his initial days, the aspiring actor had to meet disgraced predators.
Talking about his tryst with casting couch, Thakare says he has been lucky to never be a victim of the malpractice, however, has come across people who tried using him. “I once went for an audition in Aram Nagar and he took me to the bathroom and said, ‘Yaha pe massage center hai’. I didn’t get the connection between an audition and a massage centre. He told me, ‘Ek baar aap aao yaha audition ke baad. Aap workout bhi karte ho…’ I just left the place, since he was a casting director and I didn’t want to take any pangas. I am not Salman Khan. But I realized there is no discrimination between men and women when it comes to this (casting couch),” Thakare narrates.
The 33-year-old came across several such predators, although he was clear that he needed to strategically avoid them. He recalls another episode, “There was a ma’am in Four Bungalows. She would tell me that, ‘Maine isko banaya hai, maine usko banaya hai’. She was calling me for an audition at 11 in the night. Itna bhola toh nahi hoon main ki I won’t understand what auditions happen at night. So, I told her that I have some work and I cannot make it. To this, she said, ‘Kaam nahi karna?’ ‘You won’t get work in the industry’ and other such things. So they would demotivate you and manipulate you. But I would never get bothered by it.”
While a few lured him to get exploited physically, others tried to loot him financially. “A lot of people have asked me for money, saying you give us money and we will get you good gigs. I just knew this basic thing that if I don’t fit in a character, no one can push me for a role,” he shares.
Today, Thakare is a regular on every Indian paparazzi’s social media feed. However, to make it till here, he had to go through a lot right from rejections to rejections. “I used to be told whether I’m fit or not on the face. I used to travel in the local trains for auditions and jab main waha pohochta tha, I used to be in paseene se bhara. Baaki ke log BMW sse aate the. So people judged you a lot. But I always used to laugh thinking this is a cliche for every 90s hero,” he reveals. Not just this, Thakare also had logistical challenges that he had to overcome. “I used to live in Amravati, so, whenever I used to get a call for an audition, I would lie to them that I’m in Mumbai. If I used to get locked, then I would take a train at eight in the night. I never used to get the reservation and didn’t have the money to get it reserved at the last moment. I used to get in the reservation boogie, paper leta tha and ulta karke so jaata tha,” he signs off.