Subodh Bhave set to enthral fans as Dr Ghanekar on big screen

Subodh Bhave is the latest heartthrob in Marathi television. His latest TV serial Tula Pahte Re, broadcast from Monday to Saturday on Zee Marathi, has taken television viewership by storm with a record breaking TRP of 9.1. The TV soap got the actor a huge women fan following not just in India, but also in Morocco and Iraq! 

However, his fans have always been more keen to watch him on the big screen. Releasing on Friday, Ani Doctor Kashinath Ghanekar, is the third biopic Bhave is doing after Bal Gandharva and Lokmanya Tilak. Dr Ghanekar, a dentist by profession, was a veteran Marathi theatre and cinema personality back in the 1960s. He is considered Marathi theatre’s first and last superstar, and there is a cinema hall in Thane dedicated to his stellar work.

After Abhijit Deshpande, the writer and director, narrated the entire story to him, Bhave was “completely zapped.” 

“I was completely in awe of the character, the story and the Marathi theatre. Of course, I knew about the character and as a theatre personality everybody knows him (Dr Ghanekar).  But nobody knew the details of the characters and the plays he did on the stage, the crazy fan following he had, his enormous personality and the fantastic aura around him. We didn’t know much about his personal life or what kind of human being he was both on and off the stage. After listening to the story, I said 'this is the character that I am looking for,'” says Bhave. 

The roles of Bal Gandharva and Lokmanya Tilak, he says, were easier for him to portray because they were not complicated characters. “Their way of life, thoughts and their certain innate characteristics are something that I have within me, I felt, and I could relate to them. Whether it was their simplicity or their discipline or Tilak’s patriotism, these things I could easily relate to and I felt even I have got these characteristics within me. But in the case of Dr Kashinath Ghanekar, he is a totally different character from who I am. We’re living on two different ends of the world,” says Bhave.

Ahead of doing the film, Bhave started reading a book on Dr Ghanekar, written by his wife Kanchan Ghanekar, but stopped it after a while. He had even bought a few black and white films of Dr Ghanekar, but didn't watch them for long since he felt that if he continuously watched them, he would be influenced by the veteran actors' acting style and would end up in aping his mannerisms.

“Ghanekar was short, I am tall; he was slimmer, I am not that slim. So in physical appearance, we’re not alike and if I start copying him, it would look like I was copying him and wouldn’t look like it's coming from within. So I avoided reading that book and watching his films. I didn’t even meet any of his relatives and acquaintances,” says Bhave. 

Everybody had only one opinion of about Lokmanya Tilak, but Ghanekar was perceived differently by different people, Bhave says. He feels it a bit confusing, so he decided to follow only director Deshpande who had spent five years on this script. He just followed his vision because he felt Deshpande had 100 per cent clarity. “I like to understand the soul of the character, because once you understand that, you don’t have to do anything else. You don’t have to act, whatever you know comes out instantly and it is true to the character’s soul. As an actor, I don’t like to act. It has to look as real as possible, it can’t look contrived,” says Bhave.

There was one common factor in the three biopics he did. “All of them were completely crazy, out of their minds, which is important because without being that you cannot do extreme work,” says Bhave. “While Bal Gandharva was hugely influenced by his guru, his craziness got a certain direction. Lokmanya Tilak was influenced by his uncle, his friends, his readings and the anger against the British… his anger got a direction, focus and channel. But Dr Ghanekar was a wild, untamed horse, because there was nobody to discipline him. One starts acting the way one wants and Dr Ghanekar was like that. He started enjoying all the attention so much that it took over his personal life and led to his downfall. As a character, Dr Ghanekar is extreme in every aspect and on the other hand, as an actor, I am another extreme. While Dr Ghanekar always had ‘house full’ boards outside his plays, I have never seen a 'house full' board for any of my plays yet,” says Bhave.

Bhave talks about the difficulty of playing Dr Ghanekar. “It was very difficult to play this character, because Dr Ghanekar is like mercury; you just can’t catch hold of him and at every moment he is different, changing into amorphous shapes. Through Abhijit Deshpande, I tried to get to his soul as to why he turned out the way he did,” says Bhave.  

He also enjoyed doing the scenes with Prabhakar Panshikar, Dr Ghanekar’s close friend and a producer, as well as those with Dr Sriram Lagoo, his rival. “I enjoyed doing these scenes a lot because I am not like that in real life, and to portray somebody who I am not, that joy is something else. Every day was something new for me,” says Bhave who has a very good rapport with his cinematographer, Sudhir Palsane. 

“After every scene he’d tell me whether he liked it or not. If not, we would re-shoot it,” says Bhave. He minces no words while appreciating the technicians who worked on this film. “The technicians of this film are not just Marathi cinema’s but India’s finest. Santosh Putane, our art director, depicted Bombay of that era. Prasad Sutar, India’s no 1 VFX Technician, has done the set extensions so well. Ajit Parab has created the music and recreated the sound of that era. Nachiket Barve, the costume designer, and Vikram Gaikwad, the make up designer, require a special mention. From the fabrics used in that era to the stitching to the finish of that era, Barve has paid very close attention to those aspects while Vikram Gaikwad is a magician and he can do anything to anybody in terms of looks,” he says. Bhave also lauds Santosh Mulekar, who has done the background music, for his outstanding job.

“Finally, Abhijit Deshpande, the writer and director of the film… the passion with which he has written the film and worked on the film for five years, I feel the director in him found it very easy to direct because the writer in him had done such a remarkable job writing the film! Every scene was crafted to perfection…simply brilliant. One hardly get to see such a beautiful script because the biopic shows not only the nice things about the man, but a 360 degree fully-rounded character. I believe that when you see a true man like that, you will fall in love with him. After watching Doctor Ghanekar, one will never hate him,” Bhave says.