No one even recognises me after Rockstar: Kumud Mishra

I really haven’t counted how many times we have staged the play since 2006 but I don’t know why it’s popular with the audiences. It must be their majboori,” is how Kumud Mishra rather sardonically begins the interview. “I think the writing (by Manav Kaul) is very fresh and has a small-town essence about it and the protagonist’s (Rajkumar) thinking through the play reflects the small-town soch and that might be why it’s popular,” elaborates Kumud.

The play, Shakkar Ke Paanch Daane, which revolves around Rajkumar and the choices he makes especially when pushed into a corner, is a monologue.  “It was my first attempt at monologue and interestingly, this was also the first play Manav had ever written so it was new for us,” says Kumud. Monologues might seem like the ultimate test every actor puts himself through to show that he can carry a performance on his shoulders. Partly in agreement with the thought, Kumud says, “I don’t know, it probably is an ego thing with us actors, you know. We want to do it thinking audience ko baandh ke rakhna hain,” but getting back to the play, he says, “When Manav was putting the play together, we got excited by what he was writing and while the plan was to always make it a monologue, I didn’t solely focus on it.”

“It is challenging,” he affirms talking about how difficult doing a monologue is but he quickly adds, “but any play can be challenging.” And then in a moment of frankspeak, he says, “I am more nervous doing the play today than when I initially took it on.” Prod him about it and he says, “I was six years younger when we started. My perspectives and body language have changed and I think as one ages, one becomes defensive and scared of failure.”

Facing the arc lights and the audience all by himself, he sure must have been tongue-tied in parts? “In my first show, I went blank for a whole minute on stage. That was a horrid experience,” reveals Kumud who enjoys working with first time directors. “I think it is better to work with someone who’s got attitude, a certain arrogance and is not in awe of who you are than with someone who is happy with you and readily accepts everything you do. For every time I have worked with new directors, there have been moments when they’ve frankly told me, ‘aisa nahin chalega’ and I have had to unlearn everything and start from zero,” he wryly remarks.

While we are at it, one can’t help but ask him if people have repeated his ‘note-worthy dialogue’ from Rockstar to him — the one where he tells Ranbir that to become a musician one needs to have a broken heart. “Frankly speaking, badhi shikayat hain,” Kumud ruefully notes before he says, “I thought acting in Rockstar would make me a star but no one even recognises me!”

“When the movie released I went and stood outside the cinema for three days thinking people would come and congratulate me but they just ignored me,” he adds. Tell him that his performance received rave reviews and he dryly says, “That’s where the trouble happened. People would have gone expecting a great performance from me after reading the reviews only to realise that I was just a small time character.”

His self-deprecatory sense of humour is admittedly refreshing and inexhaustible because when we finally ask him about the movies he’s doing, he very plainly states, “I am doing movies but they really are not worth talking about. And yes, there is one film that I’ve loved doing but I can’t talk about it till it finds takers. I’m bound by a contract and if I talk anything more about the film they might just send me to jail.”