Anupam Tripathi’s Korea

When Anupam Tripathi’s character, a Pakistani migrant worker known as Player No 199, is deceived and shot dead in Netflix’s global hit, Squid Game, there is more than a scream of horror. There is a sense of loss on his face, exuding innocence and purity, and he realises how he has been fooled. Tripathi, who grew up in Dakshinpuri, Delhi, was already a name before he was cast in his first work in India, IC 814, but the Netflix limited series, based on the Kandahar hijack in 1999, has made him a bona fide star. His portrayal of a R&AW agent who is trying to break an important piece of information, and is ignored, is a fine balance of fear and courage. Tripathi, who is often recognised in Seoul, South Korea, where he is now based, is excited about his potential career in India. His career in South Korea has taken off, to the point that he plays the lead in a Korean film, Rhapsody for the Dead, which was screened at the BIFAN (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival) 2024. Squid Game changed his life, but as he says, “One has to keep working on oneself.” Tripathi studied at Kendriya Vidyalaya, JNU, and got a scholarship for graduation and post-graduation at the Korea National University of Arts. The idea was to get admission to the National School of Drama in Delhi but then South Korea became his home in 2010. Tripathi wants to—and can—act in English, Hindi and Korean. He says, “It’s indeed a long walk, as [Nelson] Mandela has said, to see what you want to see.” Everyone asks him now whether India is his second home. He replies, “I live and work in Korea but how can your home ever be parted from you? India will always be home to me.” He adds, “I am here because of my home and my family. I follow my mother’s philosophy, which is simple. Work follows work.” Tripathi has invested 14 years in learning the Korean language and 11 years in theatre and cinema. “I still have a lot to do here, to show the film industry here that foreign actors should be taken seriously,” he says. Tripathi is getting ready for the future, so when the moment arrives, he can grasp it.

Jaipur as Muse

Suruchi Sharma is a Jaipur insider and it shows in her short film Gagan Gaman, which premiered at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. The National Institute of Design graduate looks at Jaipur’s courtyards and bylanes where the non-tourist rarely goes. Her film follows a woman who feels trapped in the patriarchal mindset of her city. She finds ways to escape, whether on her scooter or by scratching at a wallpaper to get to the wall behind. And that interior is quite dark, especially for a modern young woman. She uses the music of the Meena tribal community with its unique conversational rap style to illustrate Jaipur’s curious mix of latent tradition and apparent modernity. “It’s like improv poetry set to modern beats. It creates its own playful world,” says Sharma. Her husband Ashok Meena was her director of photography, and shot the film in natural light. She used a senior folk artist and a friend’s mother to play the local Goddess and the assistant, respectively. “I realised all of us carry stories within us,” she says. Her documentary work explores the world outside and her fiction work looks at the world inside, she says, as her story follows the lead character, played by Subrata Prashar, in her adventures, answering riddles, following the music and being called out. “In this quest for freedom, which is also personal, I have also understood the value of discipline,” says Sharma.

Rahul Ravindran’s Star Turn

He is an actor, director and screenwriter who has worked in Tamil and Telugu cinema. But with his impressive role in Vasan Bala’s Jigra, you can expect to see much more of Rahul Ravindran now. Ravindran plays a former police officer in Bala’s fictitious Southeast Asian nation and conveys a brooding emotional intensity as a man who is trying to atone for a wrong he has done. He turns out to be an unlikely ally for Alia Bhatt’s character in her attempt to release her brother, who is charged with a drug offence, and sentenced to death. Ravindran gets the accent and the look right, and a certain weariness with the world which he carries with him. The actor is one half of one of cinema’s most interesting couples. His wife Chinmayi Sripada, a singer and activist, was one of the first women to call out sexism and misogyny in the Tamil film industry.

Anupam TripathiBollywoodcinemaRahul RavindranSuruchi Sharma