Thawed By The Thespian
His rich baritone and discerning eyes easily command anyone’s attention. A rendezvous with him is enough to get a glimpse of his passion, which inspires every moment of his life, or to be more precise, has become his way of life. A popular theatre and TV actor, Khandkar Adil Hussain, star of the tele-series ‘Jasoos Vijay’ and plays like ‘Othello’, is a theatrical powerhouse for whom acting is more than a craft; it is a medium that helps him to understand the deeper meaning of life.
Hailing from the culturally vibrant town of Goalpara, for Adil, it was love at first sight as far as acting was concerned. He fondly remembers how as a child, he instantly fell in love with acting after witnessing a play where his brother and his friend Dhrubojyoti Kishore Choudhury had performed. Dhrubojyoti later became popular as Bhayamama.
Adil was also deeply influenced by the artists who performed in every cultural programme that was held at the playground near his house. Performers like Ratan and Shankar left an indelible impression on his mind.
So, when was the first time that he performed? “My first brush with acting began when I acted in a play called The Cap maker and Th e Seller, at my school. I received tremendous appreciation for this role,” recollects Adil. Th at was in the year 1971. Slowly and steadily, the love for drama grew with an increasing fervour. When he reached the fifth standard, he was shifted to a different school; and by this time, the love for drama had begun to make a substantial impact in his life.
All this while Dhrubojyoti Choudhury – an artist par excellence – played a vital role in shaping the young mind of Adil. Under the able guidance of Dhrubojyoti, Adil started honing his skills in the realm of acting. He was also a fan of the famous playwright, Rukmal Hazarika and his constant interaction with the latter further gave the much needed boost in fulfiling his dream of becoming an actor. After a lot of cajoling, Rukmal Hazarika even wrote a play especially for Adil, titled Moi Rahmotai Koisu. As years passed by, Adil’s acting prowess also gained recognition. He bagged awards at different acting competitions, which reinforced his faith in the field that he had chosen.
For most people however, acting as a fulltime career is not considered as a favourable option even today. Earlier, Adil’s family too didn’t think that it would be possible for him to survive, having chosen acting as a profession. But his father gave a piece of advice that played a pivotal role in shaping his career. He said, “Never settle for anything less than the best.” And till date, his father’s words continue to inspire him.
It was around this time that Assam witnessed the students’ agitation. During this phase which was marked by violent incidents, Adil stayed in close touch with Dhrubojyoti Choudhury and acted along with him in several notable plays. By the year 1982, when things had settled down, Adil got an opportunity to act in the fi rst of its kind, Assamese video fi lm entitled Yug; the same year, he passed the twelfth standard examination. In a way, this could be considered as the first turning point of his career, as Adil was now in a position to move out to a bigger city for higher studies and explore the theatrical world in detail.
Accompanied by Dhrubojyoti Choudhury, Adil came to Guwahati and stayed at a rented accommodation. Retrospecting on this incident, Adil fondly remembers how his sojourn to Guwahati was full of aspirations interspersed by some amount of anxiety. At that point of the time, Adil had just one goal, he wanted to make it big as an actor in films. And destiny willed it so that their neighbour was none other than Assamese film director, Nip Baruah.
Adil enrolled in B. Barooah College and simultaneously continued with his acting. By then Dhrubojyoti too, (who at that point was working with the reputed mime actor Moinul Haque) wanted to chart out his own course. That propelled the formation of the ‘Bhayamama’ theatre group in collaboration with Adil and two other friends, Surujit Gogoi and Sanjib Lal Das. ‘Bhayamama’ went on to become a big craze in Assam becauseof its rib–tickling and hilarious stand up comedies. Th e ‘Bhayamama’ plays were always laced with political satire, and made an honest attempt to reach out to the masses and highlight their problems.
Adil got more and more engrossed with his acting, and studies took a backseat. Slowly, the huge success of ‘Bhayamama’ led to the staging of performances of the group outside Assam. In one of his subsequent visits to Kolkata, Adil came across Ranjit Sharma, a noted writer. Earlier, Adil had won the Best Comedian award for Sharma’s play Hinghor Hahi in an All Assam One Act Play Competition. Ranjit Sharma offered him a role in the film entitled Honkolpo, which was directed by Hem Baruah. This film set the precedence for many other movies that fell on his lap subsequently. He acted in movies like Hutropat and Biju Phukan’s Bhai Bhai.
By now, Adil realized that his destination was far beyond Guwahati and that there were many finer points of acting that he needed to grasp. The signal was loud and clear; it was time to move out to an institute that would guide his inherent talent to a greater platform. Adil had heard a lot about the National School of Drama in Delhi, and aspired to get into it. And by virtue of his commendable skills, he got selected, after a gruelling interview and test.
He stepped into the portals of the National School of Drama in the year 1990, and three years later, he emerged quite a different person.
“NSD brought me closer to the basic tenets of life; it taught me the entire physiological and mental functioning of a human being. The curriculum at NSD held out a mirror to me and helped me to introspect about myself,” explains Adil.
At NSD, he was taught by stalwarts like Robin Das, Arjun Raina, Anamika Haskar, Maya Rao, Rita Ganguly, Naseeruddin Shah and above all Khaleed Tyabji. Among all his mentors, Khaleed Tyabji left a deep impression in his mind. Adil not only inculcated the nuances of acting from him but also learnt a great deal about life in general from his multifaceted teacher. He once saw Khaleed act in a play called The Fool’s Song and found his acting prowess awe-inspiring.
Some of his contemporaries at NSD were Ashutosh Rana and TV actor Anoop Soni. Initially, it was difficult, getting acclimatised to Delhi but once he found his way, Delhi became his second home.
Towards the end of his tenure in NSD, Adil bagged the Festival of India Award from the Charles Wallace Trust that offered him a scholarship to study at the Drama Studio in London. But somehow, his stay in London wasn’tvery fruitful as he was not able to identify with the way they taught; he found them outdated in comparison to India.
Before he left for England, he approached Mr. Khaleed Tyabji to take him under his wings. But Tyabji insisted that unless he earned enough money to sustain himself, he couldn’t work with him. Therefore, on his return, he went back to Assam to join a mobile theatre company and performed there for nine months, without a pause. As soon as he was financially stable, he visited Khaleed once again, and this time luck favoured him. They travelled the length and breadth of India for the next one year.
Adil’s stint with Khaleed opened his eyes to an unforeseen India; an experience that took his histrionic skills altogether to a different level. However, there again came a time when Khaleed decided to disband, and told his students to discover for themselves how their new found knowledge would figure in the professional world of acting.
So, how did he satisfy his creative urge? “Well, as luck would have it, at around the same time, I got an offer from a Jammu-based theatre group called ‘Natrang’ to direct their plays. I accepted the offer and it paid rich dividends,” says Adil. In Jammu, he met some dramatists and theatre artists from Holland. They were so impressed with his work that they instantly offered him a role in a dance drama called Mother India. After completing his stint, Adil went ahead with the offer, and his stay in Holland turned out to be an enlightening and enriching experience.
After a year of globe-trotting he reaturned to India, as he felt that it was time for him to recharge his creative energy. Khaleed was regrouping, and it was an obvious choice on Adil’s part to again get back to his mentor for a while. This time they went to Hampi and during his stay there, he received a message from his very close friend Roysten Ebel, expressing the desire to meet him at the earliest. Roysten was about to direct a play titled Othello – A Play in Black and White, sponsored by the British High Commission, and he was scouting for someone who could play the lead role of Othello. Adil was Roysten’s first choice and when the offer came to him, Adil agreed to it without any second thought. This project became another major turning point in his life.
The play literally took him, to places; applause and praise poured in from every side. But, Adil feels that the biggest appreciation came from a lady who teaches Shakespeare at the drama school in Stratford-on-Avon, the birthplace of the bard. She came to him and asked for a video cassette of the play, saying she would make it a part of the curriculum, so that students could realise how Shakespearean plays should be actually performed.
In spite of so much theatrical success and adulation, financial success always eluded him, probably because he never paid much thought to it. There came a time when he was in dire straits and it was Arjun Raina, his voice and diction teacher back in NSD who came to hisrescue. After a month of gruelling session on voice and accent training, Adil got the job of a trainer at GENPACT, a reputed BPO.
This new job got him a house on rent in Gurgaon and a well-to-do life. But, Adil was very clear that he would never allow money to dictate his terms, and he did just that when he refused a very lucrative offer from the very same company. He again got back to his first love and took care of his expenses by working as a freelance consultant for GENPACT. During that period, BBC and Doordarshan tied up to produce a tele-series that would create ensitisation on AIDS and the format of the programme was decided to be a thriller. The programme was named Jasoos Vijay and they started searching for an actor who would play the protagonist. As fate had destined, Adil got selected and became a popular face in every household. After two years of tremendous success, things again got very monotonous and money started dominating the scene once more. The role of Jasoos Vijay was also not shaping up to his liking. So, Adil decided to quit everything, packed his bags, loaded his necessities in a vehicle and drove away to Kerala.
This was again a period of hibernation for him; he stayed at a friend’s place, and spent his time reading books on philosophy. After staying in seclusion for a few months, he got a call from his friend Shama Pawar, who invited him to come down to Hampi and start a centre where he could disseminate his knowledge. Coincidentally, it was quite exactly what he was contemplating at that point of time.
It wasn’t the first occasion when Adil was about to wear the teacher’s hat. He was teaching at NSD as a guest faculty earlier. Some students from NSD were also coaxing him to take them under his fold for a while. In a way, it was the perfect opportunity for Adil to start his own centre.
Since then, Hampi has been the place where Adil preaches all the dramatic skills that he is gifted with, and the knowledge that he has gained all these years. For Adil, his pursuit of knowledge is a non-stop voyage. Whether it is acting, or understanding the philosophy of life, Adil’s quest for knowing the unknown continues.
He hasn’t stopped performing. He has done commendable work in some notable projects in the last couple of years like Ebong Shrikanto, a Bengali feature film, where he starred opposite Soha Ali Khan, and an English feature film titled For Real, slated to be released later this year.
From a small town boy to a performing artist who is literally going places, it has indeed been an incredible journey for Adil. A craft can be kept alive only if it is regularly practised, and with acting that’s the most diffi cult thing to do, as it demands a script at every step. That is why, Adil stresses on understanding the basic codes of life first, and the process through which the mind goes while experiencing each and every emotion. These regular and minor exercises help to keep the art of acting alive. For Adil, it is like the gospel truth and he wants to hand down the same message to every budding artist from the Northeast.
Has he received any support from his better half? “Well, yes. My wife Kristin Jain, an American citizen of Indian origin, has been extremely supportive. She is also a brilliant theatre actress and is currently pursuing a course in opera singing, creative writing and Italian language in New York.”
He is still very much an Assamese at his heart and makes it a point to visit his hometown once in a year. He started his journey with dreams in his eyes, and over the years has been able to fulfil them to a considerable extent. Today, he stays engrossed with his classes most of the time, as he tries to instill that same passion to the next generation and ensure that they share his vision, too.
The world is gradually coming to terms with the fact that theatre is indeed the best platform that can shape a promising actor. Adil’s calibre as an actor has got its share of accolades but it still deserves a lot more. As he explains, “Nothing can be a bigger reward for me than producing one of the finest actors in India under my patronage”.
Hailing from a corner of the Northeast, with an ambition which is as strong as it is out of the ordinary, Adil invites all those who are passionate enough, to believe in their dreams. Because when there is a will there is indeed a way. And when you know that the best is all that you can aspire for, you know that you have arrived. Just as Adil has.
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