Being a funny man is serious business

You probably remember his Bharat Bhushan, the man who walks around with his prized possession — a briefcase, in the 2007 laugh riot Bheja Fry, or as the deviant agent Asif Iqbal, his short yet memorable role in Khosla ka Ghosla. Vinay Pathak meets me during a tour of Delhi, before the press conference for his upcoming film Island City. Sporting a goatee and dark glasses, his hair styled casually, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a Punisher skull and a casual jacket thrown on top, Pathak is nothing like his numerous reel avatars.

“Funny man? You are the guys who have slotted me into that category, man. I’m an actor, I can do whatever roles you ask me to.” If Pathak is anything, it is gracious.

“Just let’s get over with this interview, and then I will be your bunny,” he tells our photographer as we settle down for a chat in the lounge of India International Centre. The staff rush in to get autographs and selfies clicked with him.

Pathak complies, and then whispers with seeming seriousness, “What a pity that I must be nice and not charge them ₹1,000 for photographs because you are here.” It becomes increasingly difficult for me to keep a straight face as he throws one wisecrack after another, all with a deadpan expression.

His latest release is a comedy, so I ask him about his favourite comedy films. Pathak replies, “Island City stands right up there in my favourite comedies of all time! I’m excited about this film, not because it is the film we’re promoting right now. It is a brilliant satire, and yes, it is a risk, considering it is a comedy that is not common in India, and is very dark in nature. But don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of slapstick as well.”

Island City is a dark comedy, where Pathak plays a corporate employee, a cog-in-the-dystopian-wheel of a large enterprise. His character is geared to follow orders, to a degree that results in the hilarity and darkness of the film. The consultants his boss has employed advise him to encourage the employees to have more ‘fun’. Soon, the company has a ‘fun day’ for them. Every employee must step up and have as much fun as possible doing the activities set for them. When Pathak’s turn comes up, he ends up in a scary mall with a dozen tasks that he must ‘enjoy’ doing before he is allowed to leave. Pathak says, “I think there is very sharp commentary there, in all the tasks that he is given, and their results. He has stopped thinking for himself. When he is left to grapple with time on his hands, with tasks that push him out of his comfort zone, he is uncomfortable. He wants to go back to work, which he understands, and this is a reality he isn’t in touch with.”

While he agrees that the audience may not be used to this kind of dark comedy, being more familiar with slapstick, Pathak nevertheless doesn’t subscribe to hierarchies in humour. There are different kinds of comedies, and one isn’t necessarily smarter, or a more potent tool of criticism than another, he insists.

“Slapstick is a big part of who we are as a country, and we identify with it a lot. While it may seem restricted to body comedy, such as laughing at someone slipping over a banana peel, I think it is not given enough credit. For instance, slapstick, if done well, can give you something like Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights.”

He is similarly respectful of all kinds of cinema, and believes each deserves its space and audience. “I’m not being politically correct when I say this. I have some friends in television, who do the same roles over and over for, let’s say, 300 episodes. And I wonder about the kind of dedication and hard work it requires to push yourself to play the same role repeatedly.” However, Pathak gets an inkling of that exercise when he slips into the theatre circuit, something he does frequently. He was part of Nothing Like Lear, a play that recently completed 100 episodes, a fact that he is proud of. “People dedicate years to playing the same role. Are they playing the same role again and again? No, the role acquires a new meaning for them as they continue with it, their experience shapes it that way. I am envious of that kind of dedication to something.” Ask him if he’s become bored of Nothing Like Lear and Pathak replies in the negative. “It did not feel tedious. I felt I was playing a different character every day, because the audience kept changing, and you react differently to different audiences. No, it is not necessary that audiences determine how you act, but they do have a role to play in your performance.”

Considering his vastly different personal life, I asked him how he prepared to play the part of a guy with a regular 9-5 job in Island City. “I didn’t have to prepare much because I had a very discerning director in Ruchika Oberoi, and a very detailed script. Every emotion, every movement was written down to the T, and I followed it diligently.”

Island City is set in Mumbai, but Pathak believes the story will ring true in any metropolis — New York or Delhi. “We are slaves of technology. Walk into any room and you will find people hooked to their mobile phones. We are communicating more than ever, but are more alienated than ever before from each other.” Island City is a culmination of all these post-Capitalist realities we live with. Pathak’s common man, though, is far removed from the cartoonist Laxman’s. While Laxman’s common man had a passive resistance, and a humoured acceptance of everyday injustices, hilarity ensues in Pathak’s case because his character is numb to his oppression. It’s the cruel laughter and introspection that make Pathak’s role in the film so impressionable.

Serious roles

Pathak made the dialogues and character of Bharat Bhushan from Bheja Fry memorable, but five years since Bheja Fry 2, he has been essaying more serious roles.

His Harman, the ex-conman in Badlapur, who gets murdered at the hands of Raghu (played by Varun Dhawan), was as serious as it gets. He also played the wronged freedom fighter Gour Hari in Gour Hari Daastan, a role full of gravity unlike the peppy movies he’s usually cast in.

“That film was very astute. I may have been typecast into comedy, but that is not to say that I don’t enjoy playing tragic heroes. That was an excellent film which sank without a trace.” Smaller films, Pathak says, have to fight an uphill battle not only for production and marketing budgets but also distribution. “Everything from show time to the number of screens that an independent film gets is skewed in favour of bigger budgets. So the probability of independent films doing better is much lower.”

Yet, given a choice, he wouldn’t do mainstream roles because Pathak believes he doesn’t fit well into them.

“I don’t think I have what it takes to run around trees, looking charming. I do not feel what I have is what people seek in a mainstream, conventional hero.”

Conventional hero or not, Pathak’s presence, on-screen or otherwise, is memorable with his effortless wit and charm.

As his crew frantically waves at him, we decide to call it a day on a conversation that could have lasted longer. People mouth his popular dialogues, and he nods. More selfies follow as we leave him to his admirers.

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