A Star Among Us!

All the six of us who were sitting on the college compound, literally fell down upon hearing the news

This can’t be true, we chorused.

Bharath, who is our regular informer of all the events in and around the college, stood a little away – fearing retribution from us – folded his hands and said.

“Guys, I heard it from authentic source; none other than from Adi’s father!

 He even showed me a photograph where Adi is standing next to Rajakumar”

We all stood with our mouth open, unable to utter a single word.

As it transpired, later I went and collected all information I could and though hard to believe, it was indeed true that Adi Keshavalu – Adi for all of us – one of the students who studied with us, had indeed landed on a role to act in a Kannada film which featured none other than the great Rajakumar! 

In our college days, we all clamored to see the matinee idol, Rajakumar' s movie on the first day of its release. Despite being die hard fans, we had never actually seen him, leave alone acting in his movies!

The news spread like a wild fire and within a day, Adi, a very ordinary looking frail young man with loads of pimple on his scratchy face, became the darling of every one.

When he entered the college on his old bicycle, students, particularly from the first year degree, ran and lifted him literally on their shoulder and carried him. Adi enjoying the moment looked at us with a look as if we were completely useless.

Finally, Adi came to our adda in college canteen, pulled one of the chairs smiled at us while all of us sat speechless and sat down with the air of a real star!

It was Dinesh who spoke first, literally asking all the questions that were arising in our minds. “ Ok Adi. We got confirmation that you are indeed acting in one of Rajakumar' s forthcoming movies. Now tell us, how the hell did you land a role in that movie? Have you actually stood next to Rjanna (as he was fondly called)? Are there any scenes with him? What role you are playing?

Adi held us his hand and Bharath stopped speaking but his gaping mouth remained open!.

“Look guys, the director has made it very clear that none of us, who are part of the film, should open our mouth and speak our roles or story line or what transpires on the set. It is highly confidential and if I say anything, next minute, I will be out of the movie. So, sorry guys, other than saying that I am doing a very important role in a film in which our beloved Rajanna is the hero, I can’t utter another word.”

Disappointed, we just had to keep all our questions and like Adi said, wait for the release of the movie.

Adi, who was wearing a brand new dress, removed his thick soda glass, cleaned it with a spot less kerchief and spoke again.

“Guys, acting in movie is not easy. There are so many things to do even before I enter the set. I had to mug my dialogues, get the makeup done, oh, I can go on and on and on. But, the experience of shooting is something that we guys, sitting in the front row of the theater, can’t imagine. It is lot of hard work.”

Adi spoke as if he is veteran of 100 movies!

We, the lesser mortals, hardly knew anything about movie making, simply nodded our head in admiration and found it difficult to close our gaping mouth.

The class teacher, who himself is die-hard-fan of Rajanna, gave special permission to Adi to bunk the class whenever he had shooting.

Adi was missing for three days and we the other guys sitting on the college compound speculated about the hard ship Adi must be going through on the sets of the movie that was fast finishing.

Finally, when he came on the fourth day, the beaming Adi proclaimed that he has completed the most difficult part of the shooting. He said in a matter of fact tone that in his case, he will be exempted from dubbing. We, the un initiated looked at Adi with question mark on our face.

A laughing Adi said that the dialogues we hear in the theatre are actually recorded in a studio at a later date after the shooting to ensure that the voice comes out clearly without disturbances.

We all, as usual, stood there and admired albeit grudgingly, Adi’s newly acquired knowledge.

After nearly two months, Adi announced that ‘Bidugade’ (meaning release) the movie of which Adi was part is getting released in hundreds of theatre across Karnataka.

When we all anxiously looked at him and enquired about ticket, the beaming Adi declared that his father, in his honour, will be buying the tickets for all of us. But he cautioned that the seats are limited and will be distributed on first-come-first-served basis.

We all literally fell on Adi’s father when he came to college to distribute the tickets which he had bought in advance.

All the six of us in our gang managed to get the ticket and we prided that we will be the first among the hundreds who will be watching the movie in which our Adi Keshavalu has acted.

Our joy knew no bounds. We al waited eagerly for the D-day and Adi had informed in advance that we must all wear our best dresses for the occasion.

The movie was shown in several theaters across Bangalore city and we, the privileged lot were to see it in a newly built lavish theater in the heart of the city.

The ticket was for the first show of the day – matinee - starting at 2 in the afternoon.

I wore my best dress and begged with my elder brother to lend his shoes.

We all reached the theatre two hours before and watched hundreds of hapless fans desperately fighting with each other for the ticket. There were others who could afford to buy it in ‘black market’ shelling out three times the cost of ticket.

We looked at one other with a broad smile on our face as we already had our balcony ticket in our pockets.

When finally we were let inside, we all clamored to sit next to Adi. The first three rows of balcony seats were occupied by the college students, courtesy Adi’s father.

Upon hearing that one of the actors in the movie will be sitting in the balcony, lots of persons clamored to have a look at Adi who was beaming and smiling from ear to ear. 

He even obliged few fans who wanted his autograph. Adi’s father handed his golden coloured pen proudly so that Adi could scribble his sign on the note books.

Bidugade was a path breaking movie based on the theme that no court should pass order for actually hanging the culprits. There were lots of noise being made across media for banning the capital punishment, during those days and people eagerly waited to see the movie based on the hot topic.

We were all engrossed in the gripping movie and only when we saw, “interval’ sign on the big screen, we came down to reality.

Until then, there was no sign Adi on the screen.

Adi’s father had specially ordered hot Aloo bonda and coffee for all us.

While we savored it standing a little away from the crowd, and speculated about Adi’s scene, we looked around but Adi could not be seen.

Then we heard it!

There was a loud sound followed by shouting.

When we looked around, we could see Adi’s father throwing the plate with hot Aloo bodna on the floor and shouting at his son, Adi, who stood with his head down.

We all went close and Bharath took courage to speak on our behalf and was about to open his mouth when Adi’s father shouted once again in Telugu; “Dongana kodaka” (meaning son of a thief) and literally kicked Adi’s back.

We were all shocked, to say the least.

Finally, I pulled all my strength and asked Adi’s father.

“Sir? Why are you kicking Adi? What has he done?”

Adi’s father glared at me and spoke.

“We were all waiting to see Adi coming on screen. But it is already interval and no sign of him. So when I asked him whether his role comes after the interval, he said he has already come on screen. 

Do you know what scene this stupid idiot has done in this movie? Hey, nuve chepra (you only tell).” Adi’s father dragged his son holding his shirt collar and pulled him in front of us.

We all looked at Adi questioningly.

With his head bent, Adi spoke with such a low voice; we have to make extra effort to hear him.

“I appeared in the first scene itself. 

I was the man whose face was covered with black cloth who stands on the pedestal with a rope around his neck and hanged.”