Multi-talented Boman Irani mesmerises
members with his takes on life

We have great pleasure in presenting you with a memento as a token of appreciation to remind you of the afternoon you spent with us. Thus spake President Dr. Rumi Jehangir to Boman Irani, the well-known film and stage actor, who was the guest speaker at the last meeting of the Club, held on April 1

Sabira Merchant couldn.t believe her eyes when she looked at the resume of Boman Irani, the eminent film personality and guest speaker at the last meeting. What she read simply knocked her for a six.

And a stunned gasp went up in the Ball Room of the Taj when she said: .Just hold on to yourself, because you.re not going to believe this... But Boman was actually a waiter, here at the Taj, and served people in the Rendezvous and the Apollo Bar!.

But the roguish yet lovable .Dr. Asthana. (the character he essayed in the popular Hindi film, Munnabhai MBBS) was destined for higher things.

First, he turned to professional photography and turned out some superb advertisement campaigns and portfolios. Working with the .Miss India. contestants, he made them appear even more beautiful.

Next, he became a model and acted in over 250 ad films; he wrote and directed some of them. But there was more to come.

The stage beckoned and there followed the unforgettable I.m Not Bajirao, a play that ran to packed houses for ten years. To enact the coveted role of the Mahatma in Mahatma vs. Gandhi, he lost 22 kg. and rendered a superb performance.

......

The silver screen came next. Boman wrote and acted in Let.s Talk (English) which made its debut at the Locarno Film Festival and won an award.

Bollywood was but a step away and he made a huge impact with his roles in Munnabhai MBBS and Lage Raho Munnabhai, amongst others.

Winding up her introduction of the speaker, Sabira asked him, .Where is life going to take you next?.

Taking the microphone, Boman Irani started by letting out another secret . that as a child he had a terrible speech impediment which forced him to stay mute for the first nine or ten years of his life. He went to a speech therapist (Aloo Hirjee) who cured him. .Unfortunately, I haven.t kept my mouth shut ever since..

Recalling his tenure at the Taj, he said he had had two stints at the hotel. On the first occasion he was given a job in room service by the Resident Manager, Mr. Sam Bhada.

In his second stint, he worked in the Rendezvous, the Apollo Bar and other departments. .One Christmas Eve, there were very few people were on duty . so I was doing the washing as well..

Life had come a full circle. He was back at the Taj, but now making speeches. And recently, when he met Mr. Bhada, the scene had changed. He had moved on in life and was visiting the Lexington Hotel in New York . where Mr. Bhada was the Resident Manager.

.........

Conscious and proud of his past, Boman stated emphatically: .If I had not been a waiter and subsequently a shopkeeper, then a photographer and a theatre person, I probably wouldn.t be an actor today. It is this journey. with all those little stories, all those experiences, some humbling, some enriching, but always a good story to tell when you are developing a character for the screen or the stage. I am grateful for having (had) such a wonderful journey..

With this, Mr. Irani completed the formal part of his speech, stepped down from the podium, took a cordless microphone and began speaking more intimately. Peppering his talk with humorous anecdotes and witty one-liners, he took his audience (which was eating out of his hand) on a walk down memory lane.

His family ran a small business, the .Golden Wafer Company., behind Novelty cinema at Grant Road. And the most exciting thing that happened to him there was that he met his future wife.

.That.s where we romanced for six months. But I didn.t even know that we were romancing . she kept posing as a customer. She would come and buy 100 grams of barik sali for sali boti, every single day, and the idiot that I was, I didn.t realise that she was coming to say Hello!.

He occupied himself with serving the customers and learning the tricks of the trade (such as ensuring that the wafers were not crushed when being packed; that the wafers left in the tray were also not damaged; an almost exact quantity of wafers was taken from the tray; and so on).

He occupied himself with serving the customers and learning the tricks of the trade (such as ensuring that the wafers were not crushed when being packed; that the wafers left in the tray were also not damaged; an almost exact quantity of wafers was taken from the tray; and so on).

.My biggest kick was filling the wafers and putting the packet on the weighing scale and being sure that the quantity matched the order even before it was weighed. That.s the .macho-est. thing I ever did in my life for 12 years. That was my life. I sat at that shop for 12 years, doing the work, turning the bhatti (an oven or stove) to fry potato chips.

Just what is Boman hiding behind his back? The banana that President
Dr. Rumi Jehangir presented to him! (Second photograph) Boman
places an affectionate arm around First Lady Pervin, as President Rumi
and IPP Harry look into the camera

One fine morning I decided that I couldn.t be doing this for the rest of my life. I had got so many anecdotes and great experiences, humbling and enriching experiences, but this was not what I could do for the rest of my life..

.I needed to do something for myself, for my soul, to grow as a human being. I started taking photographs . of my sons . and I took pretty good photographs. And I thought that maybe, inside me there was a photographer..

Boman was getting frustrated. He simply could not go on planning to become a photographer, figuring out how to start, whether to get a studio, to buy more equipment, make contacts and so on. He had a Pentax-8000 which cost him Rs. 3,000. (Around that time he first met Burjor Poonawala.)

So he rose at 5 o.clock one fine morning, woke up his wife and said to her: .From this day on, I am a photographer. The moment I decided what I am, from that moment I became a photographer. And for 12 years I did photography. among other things, making the girls taking part in .Miss India. contests look prettier..

Another fortuitous turn of events occurred after 12 years.

He had taken some photographs of a nephew who was a member of a dance troupe. These fell into the hands of the troupe leader. And the very next day who should visit him but the celebrated choreographer, Shiamak Davar, who wanted to have his portfolio made?

Immediately on walking into his studio, Shiamak looked around and addressed Boman: .You.re going to be a very famous man!.

(At that moment, Boman recalled, all that he was interested in was taking Shiamak.s photographs and collecting his fee of Rs. 3,000, for he needed the money very badly.)

The photographs were taken and they came out well; even though Shiamak kept insisting that he was an ugly-looking man.

But that was not all, for Shiamak insisted that Boman was meant to be on the stage!

.I don.t know how he figured this out; I don.t know what got into his head to decide that I was meant to be on stage. Don.t ask me, because I resisted..

Before he knew it, Boman said, he was auditioning for the great Alyque Padamsee . and being declared a miserable failure.

When Alyque declaimed that Boman Irani was .talentless., Shiamak Davar put his foot down, saying, .if you don.t take this boy, I.m not doing your show!.

Thus began Boman Irani.s theatrical career. He bagged a role in Alyque .s musical Roshni; he had one scene in the entire play.

By that time the choreographer was changed. Shiamak went out and in his place came Arshad Warsi, now a popular film actor.

Arshad usually pushed him on to the dark stage, saying, .Go do your thing!. and when his part was over, he pulled him back from the dark stage.

In his first play, Boman Irani played the role of a pimp who sang to the heroine, a role played by Sharon Prabhakar, telling her that he could make her famous in London if only she would let him handle her .business ..

.An amazing thing happened as I was being pulled back from the stage by Arshad . the people clapped. I don.t know how many of you have been on stage, but it is the most fantastic sound in the world.

.I.m standing there in the dark, carrying Sharon; the lights go out and I put her down. Arshad is supposed to drag me off stage. But I refuse to budge from there. I.m standing in the dark, listening to the applause. I say this is fantastic. Shiamak.s right... I.m going to be an actor. I loved the sound of applause..

When Arshad finally dragged him off stage and bawled at him, he remembered, he said, .Arshad, I just love it.. And Arshad replied, .You know, this is what you were meant to be..

It was truly a walk down memory lane for Boman Irani when he caught up
with his old friend and acquaintance Burjor Poonawala. (Second picture)
Boman with Darab Davar, whose brother Shiamak introduced him to
the stage, Pervin and President Rumi

Thus, two choreographers were absolutely certain about what Boman Irani was meant to be. .I believe I was meant to be on stage in front of audiences,. he said.

Soon, Arshad landed the leading role in a Hindi film, Tere Mere Sapne, made by Jaya Bachchan. Boman was also offered a role but he refused. The photography bug had still not left him and he wanted to keep doing that.

Ironically, when Boman did his first Hindi commercial film 14 years later, the same Arshad Warsi was one of his co-stars (in the film Munnabhai MBBS).

As an aside, he said that Arshad agreed to play .Circuit. in Munnabhai only one week before the shooting started. Several actors had refused to play the role of a side-kick. Even Arshad had said no. Finally, a week before the shooting, he agreed.

Boman.s second play was I.m Not Bajirao in which he played an 80- year-old Parsi. .I just accepted it. I don.t know why, but something inside me told me that I should do this part..

It was planned to have only three shows of I.m Not Bajirao at the limited-capacity Experimental Theatre. Rehearsals went on for about four months. But a week before the opening, the shows were cancelled and the play shifted to the larger Tata Theatre.

.You don.t know where life takes you. That show ran for ten years! It was meant to be staged in an auditorium with a capacity of 200 to 300 seats. so about 800 people would have seen it. But it ended up running for ten years. Sometimes, you don.t plan things, you just do things as honestly as you can..

His first feature film, Let.s Talk, was written and rehearsed over a period of eight months . but it was shot on a little hand-held video camera in just six days. The film was sent to the Locarno Film Festival and won an award, he concluded.

Answering questions, Boman told Sitaram Shah that he was joking when he said that he made the contestants of .Miss India. look prettier than they were.

But he insisted that it was wonderful to see girls from different parts of the country coming to take part in the event. Some went around borrowing gowns from aunts; some had never tried make-up; others who had never spoken in public.

.And when they first walk down the ramp in the selection room, you see them almost like Eliza Doolittle transform into those wonderful ladies. I think it.s quite a journey and I think we should not knock these competitions .

.Sometimes we are justified, because everybody ends up doing the same thing. They talk about saving the world but end up doing an item number (in films).

.But seeing them grow, sometimes from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan, is quite an experience..

Kamal Bulchandani asked whether he could repeat the giggle that made him famous in the film Munnabhai MBBS.

Boman surprised the audience by saying that for six months he had refused to accept the role. For, he did not agree with the laughter therapy idea. It made him feel like an idiot, playing the role of a man who laughed at the drop of a hat.

.I said, this is the stupidest character that has ever come my way. I spoke to Vinod Chopra (the producer), who said, .Just do it, you will become famous.. But I really didn.t believe in the character.. He believed that there could be nothing more embarrassing than comedy falling flat.

Finally, the director, Raju Hirani, said, .Don.t do it if you don.t believe in it. Don.t do it, but do the film . because this character is far more important to the film than just the laughter therapy that goes with it..

On the day the shooting began, the director told him, .Okay, you.ve done your take. Now, do one with the laughter, if you don.t mind..

For three days, they shot two versions of every scene, one with the laughter and one without it. The director also promised him that they would go to the editing room and see whether the track with the laughter was working or not.

.On the fourth day, I stopped doing the version without the laughter because I thought that the one with the laughter was working.

.He (the director) had empowered me to convince myself, or to edit it out if I was not convinced. He gave me the option, the power. When you empower people, they do their best..

And then, it was the turn of PP Arvind Jolly to point out that Boman was an accomplished singer, too. Would he sing a line or two for the audience? Boman obliged.