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Shubhra Gupta

Ajay Devgan's two National Awards and his recognition as Bollywood's number one star-actor, is an indication that he certainly knows how to use the seductive power of stillness on screen.

Ajay Devgan's Zen-like attention doesn't waver. We are seated on a sofa, surrounded by a group of photographers, flashbulbs popping furiously. In the VIP theatre next to the lounge, Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Information and Broadcasting Minister, is at a special screening of Devgan's latest film, Gangaajal. There's so much ambient noise but Devgan is totally focused on the moment.

Till you are given a choice you don't have a choice, he says. "I've just been lucky to get the directors and the characters." Is this Bachchan-like faux modesty, or a clear-eyed assessment of his career graph, especially the last two years, when he has coasted from one distinctive, deftly essayed part to another?

It's hard to tell in the brief interlude one is provided during a film's promotional circus, where actors, even relatively media-shy ones like Devgan, have to be on hand for press meets filled primarily with inane questions, followed by unending rounds of one-on-one slots for TV channels, all jockeying for that exclusive quote.

In that sense, this actor is determinedly disappointing, as opposed to say, a Shah Rukh Khan, who loves being loved by the press, and who churns out quotable quotes, and more importantly, snappy sound bytes, by the minute. Even when he is agreeable to going beyond monosyllables, Devgan says much the same things, not even changing the ways he says them in. The burden of his song: Yes, there has been an effort to do different roles; no, it hasn't been a thought-out strategy; it's all happened because he has been... there he goes again... lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Gangaajal, a hard-hitting film, which mirrors the parallel decay in the soul of small-town North India, and its corrupt and vicious police system, has broken the box-office hoodoo for director Prakash Jha. It has also cemented Devgan's position as Bollywood's number one star-actor: when you need someone who can deliver brooding intensity, coupled with a tightly-controlled performance minus ego-driven wastage, you can't think of anyone but him. There's nothing in-your-face about this man with nicotine-ruined teeth, and an ultra-thin frame which appears to be the result of rigorous work-outs: like all the best performers, who are in for the long haul, he grows on you, gradually but inexorably.

Like so many of his compatriots, Devgan baulks at the Bollywood tag (please don't call it that, he says, still not blinking at the continuous barrage from the shutter-bugs), but there is no doubt that Bollywood is a richer place with an actor of his calibre on call, now that he is in an envious position to open a movie with his presence, joining the ranks of the three Khans — Aamir, Shah Rukh, Salman — and Sunny Deol. He doesn't have Shah Rukh's facile charm, Aamir's gift of single-minded method acting, Salman's strangely endearing I'm-so-bad-I'm-good image, nor Sunny's brawn: what he does have is the ability to wear his characters like skin. Also, as he goes along, he is getting to know and use the seductive power of stillness on screen.

The thing is this: back when he began, with campus flick Phool Aur Kaante, there was nothing about action master Veeru Devgan's son which distinguished him from the dozen wannabes in search of stardom. The spate of films, which followed, replete with the usual song-and-dance routines, and action sequences, were standard procedure. What saved him from going the Suneil Shetty way, were two things: one, drifting into, and being able to mine, better-crafted roles, and two, an innate talent, which shone through the mediocrity of the parts.

It was with one of Mahesh Bhatt's most fully-realised movies, Zakhm, a touching comment on the growing communal divide as experienced by Devgan's troubled character, that the actor began coming into his own.

For the first time, he filled his performance with pauses, inviting us into the spaces he inhabited in the movie: his eyes reflected the pain and the torment his character's Muslim mother felt when rejected by his Hindu father's family. There was a lot of Bhatt's personal life in that movie, which is why there was such a felt quality about it; a lot of Devgan's burgeoning skills were on display, as well. The combination was explosive, and the actor received his first, well-deserved National Award for Best Actor.

There was no sliding after that. He became the first star to cross over, from out-and-out bazooka-laden actioners to deep romantic tales, where the most strenuous thing that the hero had to do was to wipe the heroine's tears. His range: from Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, where he played the understanding yet strong husband to Aishwarya Rai's character, Ram Gopal Varma's Company, in which he essays the part of a dour mafia don with brilliant economy, Rajkumar Santoshi's bio-pic in which he was the legendary Bhagat Singh (for which he got his second best actor award this year), Varma's Bhoot, where he is the supporting-yet-puzzled spouse of a woman possessed, to Gangaajal, where his principled police officer treads the thin line between justice and morality with a sense of righteousness, unburdened by ponderousness.

"I step into my character when I walk into the frame," he says, "it is an instinctive thing, and that has happened not just with Gangaajal, but with all my films. It's just that when the director is good, it becomes easier". Sure, there are things he is not comfortable with, and he discusses those with the director, but on the whole he prefers that the vision comes from the man at the helm, which is why he works with only those people with whom he has a high comfort-level.

Any learnings from the years he has spent acquiring his impressive career graph? Your thinking changes with the passing of time, he says. "Sometimes when I see a movie I did three four years ago on a TV re-run, I think, oh s-t, I could have done that scene better." On the whole, he is in an enviable position, continuing to broad-base his appeal in cities and mofussils, seemingly unfazed by the bouquets and the brickbats.

Does he agree with the common consensus, amazing in a rift-ridden industry, that currently he is best thing about it? A smile, and a dismissive shrug, and again you get the feeling that it is not calculated, but something he actually believes in: "Every Friday, equations change. Today you are on top, tomorrow you could be down there", stabbing at the ground with his unlit cigarette, his permanent appendage. Next time you look at him, he is being bracketed by a TV camera, and doubtlessly making the same points, all over again.

Response can be sent to life@thehindu.co.in

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