In an interview once, veteran actor Mammootty recalled an incident on the sets of the biopic Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar which went on to win three National Awards in 1999, including best actor for the Malayalam star. During a shoot of the film at Pune University, a professor fell at the feet of the actor who was so convincingly attired as Ambedkar that he is supposed to have exclaimed, "Babasaheb, Sorry, You are standing in front of me."
Television and film actor Rohit Roy hopes to create a similar effect on audiences as he dons the role of the father of the Indian constitution on stage. On 25 February curtains are set to go up on 'Bahasaheb-The Grand Musical' organised by the Delhi government. To be screened till March 12 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the play will be open to the public for free and promises to be a Broadway-style musical production on the life and legacy of a man who is the architect of modern India, perhaps the greatest political leader after Mahatma Gandhi.
Directed by Mahua Chauhan, Rohit Roy will be playing the role of Babasaheb along with Tekam Joshi and Tisca Chopra as narrators. Indian Ocean has composed the music for the play and production designer Omung Kumar (Black (2005), Saawariya (2007) has created a 100 ft stage.
Visibly nervous as he takes a break between final rehearsals at the venue, Roy says he might have started to look at bit like Babasaheb himself. "There are two things that can happen. I am absolutely unable to convince people that I am Ambedkar. In that case I will just have to shut shop and go home. Or if I can get people to say arrey yeh toh Babasaheb hai stage pe, then there's nothing like it," says Roy who did not have much access to recorded footage to understand his stage character. "I am not trying to ape him physically, but I am trying to project his persona emotionally and psychologically. That 's my challenge. He was hugely influential but also very underrated, strong yet quite vulnerable and to recreate that on stage for an hour and a half was not easy," says Roy who came into the spotlight some 26 years ago when he played Rishabh Malhotra in the Doordarshan show Swabhimaan written by Shobha De and directed by Mahesh Bhatt.
Rohit Roy during the rehearsals | Sanjay Ahlawat
But Roy warns that the play does not intend to preach or be straight-off autobiography. "It is an entertaining larger-than-life musical with great song and dance interspersed with what his life was all about. So we are showing his childhood, how he had to suffer. His struggles from an early age when he couldn't even go to school without being insulted every single day. But how he never gave up. That's my takeaway too," say Roy who believes he, too, was chosen for the role because of his persistence in the face of several obstacles in the entertainment industry. "Swabhiman premiered 26 years back on Doordarshan and I am still here, getting to play these kind of roles."
Before getting back on stage to join his actors, he repeats his favourite line from the play. "Jis raste mein main chal pada hu, usme na to koi reverse gear hai na U turn (There is no reverse gear or U-turn on the road I have set out on)”.
