Bookending the Internet Boom

His first documentary looked at the virtual, alternative selves young Indians were creating in the era of BPOs, servicing clients with American accents. John & Jane was made in 2005, at the height of the internet revolution following the lives of young Indians in Mumbai working in call centres. Almost 20 years later, Ashim Ahluwalia’s work focuses on the virtual selves young Indians are living with 24X7, their self-respect derived almost entirely from their virtual following, in the Netflix fiction series Cla$$ which has just been renewed for a second season. Ahluwalia won’t be directing it, having created an all-too-real universe based on research with a focus group of children from Delhi’s swish schools. He says much of the sentiments and settings of Cla$$ came from WhatsApp chats, house visits and conversations. With so much competition in education, alliances, and business, the virtual world the children inhabit is important for them—cyber bullying, sex videos, and drug consumption is rampant. “One of the most interesting things we noticed were the bodyguards these children had. We thought it was to protect them, but it turned out they were there to report any drug use to their parents,” says Ahluwalia, who has spent most of his formative years in Mumbai which he says, thanks to its transport network and housing pattern, is more egalitarian. Both John & Jane and Cla$$ ask us the fundamental question: Who are we really? The accented voices at the other end of the line in John & Jane or the filtered photos posted of our pouts on Instagram? Ahluwalia is grateful that audiences have accepted a nuanced take on the social divides plaguing urban India and says much of the new acceptance of different stories is because of the metaphorical death of Bollywood and its gatekeepers.

Playing Kalam

The Missile Man of India, as APJ Abdul Kalam was known, was a much-loved thought leader in his later years. However, as a young scientist there is not much of the role to go on for Arjun Radhakrishnan, who plays a young Kalam in Season One of SonyLiv’s Rocket Boys and will reprise his role in the new season. Radhakrishnan, whose father is from Kerala and mother from Tamil Nadu, could source only a couple of photographs of Kalam as a young scientist from his days in Ahmedabad, working with Vikram Sarabhai. He read Kalam’s books but fortunately, says Radhakrishnan, both producer Nikkhil Advani and director Abhay Pannu were very clear they didn’t want any of the scientists to be played as the legends they became but as young men of adventure. They were meant to capture the essence of young scientists working on scientific breakthroughs despite no help from global networks. “The rest was the magic of make-up, hair, and styling. It changes the way you see yourself,” he says. Radhakrishnan grew up in Pune, studying at St Mary’s School and Fergusson College, and starring in many films by FTII graduates. He has been in Mumbai since 2011 but shot into limelight only recently with work in thought-provoking Malayalam movies, such as Kamal KM’s Pada and Vineeth Kumar’s Dear Friend as well as Nagraj Popatrao Manjule’s Hindi debut Jhund. So how does a fine actor like him sustain himself when there are not enough jobs? “Voice-over work, corporate theatre workshops, and good friends,” he says.

Scene and Heard

The grandfather of Shahid Kapoor’s character Sunny in the Prime Video series Farzi, played by Amol Palekar, is an ageing socialist who believes in a just and fair world, bringing out a paper which no one reads but whose editorial he writes with great passion and commitment. It wasn’t such a stretch for Shahid, whose grandparents were prominent Marxists. Shahid lived with his maternal grandparents in Delhi for the first 10 years of his life and was deeply influenced by the philosophy of his own grandfather, the late Urdu author Anwar Azeem. It was only when his mother, dancer and actor Neelima Azeem, remarried that he came with her to Mumbai. Twenty years in the Mumbai film industry and Shahid has created an enviable filmography which includes the romantic Jab We Met, the thriller Kaminey, the politically loaded Haider and the bittersweet Kabir Singh. His biggest learning: Be yourself; be process-oriented, not result-oriented; and have the courage to walk away without regrets if you have to.

Arjun RadhakrishnanAshim AhluwaliaBollywoodcinemaShahid Kapoor