'India’s first XXX film,' says Dabholkar, with XXX standing for Extraordinary, Excellent and Exciting, as he reflects on his journey through advertising, theatre, comedy and films

Bharat Dabholkar is a name that was once was synonymous with the Amul one-liners which got a chuckle or a tear. You often see him doing cameos in Hindi films and having a conversation with someone at a party. He has directed many comedies and a few serious plays as well. He has done the biggest children’s play ever staged in India. With around 300 puppets on stage. The entire play’s location was underwater performed in black light. He used voices of the top film stars, because nobody was speaking on the stage.

Bharat is all that’s mentioned above and more… his infectious smile and sarcastic Facebook posts can make even the khadusest person laugh.

He is all geared up for his next venture, a thriller produced by AGP World — Jigsaw — which premiers at Experimental Theater, NCPA today. Bottoms-Up for the one who doesn’t drink but is always high on life…

Excerpts from an interview

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If your life was a play, what would you call it and why?

If my life was a play, I would call it, it's an Utterly Bottoms-up World, because that’s what my life is and the play would be about. No two days are similar, taking on everything that comes your way. And a rollercoaster of fun and happiness.

And if it was a film?

And if I had to make a film, I would say, give it the same name, Utterly Bottoms-up World, India's first XXX film, XXX standing for Extraordinary, Excellent and Exciting. And I would say, come and watch this, because that's how it is, it's a rollercoaster, it's fun, happiness and laughter.

What would be the smart jingle for yourself as a product? One liner and four lines please…

If had to create a jingle, I would say, it is a life that's utterly bottoms-up!! Everything is always up and up, no strife, no problems, no hassles, no fights.  It's a life that's truly like Caribbean nights.

Was comedy as a genre for theatre a conscious choice, or did it just happen?

I choose comedy as a genre for theatre, because that's how I think. I look at the funny side of everything.  So, every play that I've done, whether it was Bottoms-up, which was a satire on today’s life or whatever I do, it's always been looking at a funny side of life. My scripts are like the conclave and convex mirrors one once had in a fun fair — when you stood in front of them, you saw a different image of yourself – fat or thin or long or short and it would make you laugh. So, when you're going through whatever problems that you go through, watching a play is not going to solve them but it will make you smile. You meet a Gujarati guy going abroad and he talks in his accent and says, why is he going there and he owns half of America, you remember the play and you smile.

So, comedy has been the way I think all the time. I always wrote everything with a comic flair.

Bharat Dabholkar and Damini Chopra in AGP World's Jigsaw |

Why do you direct most of your plays?

I've never had to direct any of my plays because I've worked with legends in theatre. Whether they were from Marathi theatre, people like Atmaram Bhende or Viju Khote or Shubha Kote and Kishore Pradhan and Atul Kale, Atul Parchure, Dilip Prabhavalkar, Vinay Apte, all these guys were legends.  So, once you give them the script, they just came and did what was perfect on stage. I never had to direct anything. I know very little about direction. I know nothing about stagecraft. I know nothing about lighting. I just know how to choose the most brilliant actors and then let them lose and they do the rest. I just give them a script and they follow that script and make magic out of it. So, I've never had to direct a play.

What excites you more – writing copy, writing plays, acting in theatre or acting in films?

Most difficult of the three is advertising. Because in theatre, you know your audiences, you know who you are talking to. If they don't like something, next show you can change it, make adaptations, make changes, drop something. Because you know your audiences and you have the liberty to change things as you go along. In a film, again, you know who your audiences are. So, if it's a superstar, Salman Khan acting in a film, he knows that they would love to see him taking his shirt off. They would expect that. Amitabh Bachchan, they would know that.  They would love to hear his voice giving a fantastic dialogue. You know, you catering to an audience that knows you, you know them. 

Advertising, writing copy is the most difficult because you're talking to people you don’t know. Same advertising campaign has to appeal to people in metro cities like Mumbai or Delhi or Calcutta and appeal to a small town in Bihar or Odisha or Kerala. And they all have different aspirations, they have different interests, and the same campaign has to appeal to them. So that's what makes it most difficult, because you don't know who you are talking to. And different people would react differently to the same ad. So, it makes it more challenging and more exciting.  So, I think advertising excites me the most…

Jigsaw has just two characters. That can put lot of pressure on the artistes. How do you plan to handle that?

I thought doing a play like Jigsaw would be a new challenge. So, it's been fun doing this.  It's exciting because you keep on doing the same thing and then you get tired of doing it and a little variety is always helpful. And there's no pressure on me, because I have a brilliant actress called Damini Chopra. And she's going to take care of the acting part of it. I'm just adding sex appeal to the thing. So, we have a division of labour in the play.  So, I don't have to worry about acting.  She's doing the acting. I'm just looking sexy. So that's how it is. Laughs

What drove you to finally write a psychological thriller? What inspired the script?

I did not write a psychological thriller. We adapted that from a script that we had.  And it's been great fun because it's different from what we've always done.  And I think it's going to turn out very well. People are going to love it because it's about 80-85 minutes of play. And it's a pace turner.  When we were rehearsing, we realized that every scene, something different happens. That's why we call it jigsaw, that different pieces keep falling in place and you can’t guess what exactly is happening on stage. And I think that's what's going to be exciting. And people nowadays love thrillers like this.

What was the most challenging part in directing this thriller?

The most challenging part of directing a thriller was not so challenging because it's a play that is so powerful with the twists and turns that it all falls in place.  You just have to come in. Like what I say when I do a normal play also, I just believe that in theatre, where an actor stands, whether he sits and talks, where he stands and talks, where he stands, it doesn't matter as long as he loudly and clearly communicates to the audience the written word that's been written by the writer. It works perfectly. I've done that for the last 30-40 years and it's always worked well. So, it wasn't difficult at all.

As a director how would you rate yourself on a scale of 10 as an actor?

As a director, I would rate myself as an actor on a scale of 10 to 1 because I'm a bit egotistical about it. Normally I would have said minus 5 or something, but I would say I would rate myself 1 out of 10 as an actor.

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