Urban Naxals: The Making of Buddha in a Traffic Jam

by Vivek Agnihotri

This is when Dattu, Kher saab’s personal assistant, informs me that he wants to meet me. ‘Vivek, there are two things I want to discuss with you.’ When an actor says ‘I need to talk’, the director feels exactly like when his wife tells him ‘We need to talk’. I am sure some complication is waiting for me. ‘One is a good news for you and another bad. Which one you want to hear first?’ ‘Kher saab, in the destiny of this film, I can’t remain happy for a long time, for in the end, I know I have to struggle.’ ‘If you are feeling like this, it means you are becoming a true filmmaker.’ Only Kher saab can find positivity in the most hopeless situations. ‘Well, first the good news, that I have decided to stay here,’ Kher saab says with a very serious face, and then smiles. I feel so relieved that I don’t wait for a moment before relaying the news to my production manager who sounds so happy that instead of saying ‘wonderful’ or ‘congrats’, he ends up saying ‘have a nice day, sir’. ‘I think there was something not quite right about yesterday’s scene. What do you think?’ ‘Yeah, I think the chemistry could have been better.’ ‘The chemistry was bad because of me. I think I was acting like Anupam Kher and not the professor, which I understood later, because all the co-actors were reacting to the character of the professor the way they have interpreted it in relation to their characters. If I play it like the way I did yesterday, either I am going to look bad or they are going to look ver...