It has been six years since the sweet-faced Rajat Barmecha played a troubled adolescent in the coming-of-age film Udaan. The Vikramaditya Motwane movie didn’t do Barmecha any favours. He was rejected for several films afterwards mainly because of his “cute face”, as he tells it. His second film as the lead was in Disco Valley in 2012. It has not yet been released. Another film for which he shot in 2015 has also been held up in post-production. Earlier this month, the young actor appeared in a new web series called Girl in the City.
Barmecha always wanted to be an actor, but did not know how to become one, he told Scroll.in. “Like every other youngster I didn’t know what to do in life when I landed in Mumbai,” 27-year-old Barmecha said. “I worked briefly as a jewelry designer but got bored and started auditioning for television serials and advertisements. I did a lot of television spots.”
He nearly did not get the part in Udaan, the story of a student’s tempestuous relationship with his authoritarian father. “My brother, Vicky Barmecha, also an actor went to audition for the film,” Barmecha said. “He came home and suggested that I should give it a shot. The casting agent rejected me outright after I auditioned. Vikramaditya Motwane looked at my audition tape and said to me, ‘It was the worst of the lot.’”
Motwane’s advice to Barmecha clinched his casting: the director, who was also making his debut, told Barmecha to tone down his loud performance and give another audition. Barmecha came up trumps the second time round.
“My understanding of acting changed a lot during rehearsals,” he said. Motwane helped Barmecha prepare for his role by persuading him to watch such films as Ken Loach’s Kes (1969), 8 Mile (2002) starring rapper Eminem and Francois Truffaut’s French New Wave classic 400 Blows (1959).
“He also gave me a copy of the book Catcher In The Rye to read which I still haven’t read since I am not much of a reader,” Barmecha said.
Udaan’s success shaped Barmecha’s career choices. The movie was premiered in the prestigious Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010. Barmecha went along with his director and producers, including Anurag Kashyap, and was charmed. “I didn’t know what Cannes was when the film was selected to be shown at the festival,” he said. “It is only after I saw the reception in France that my perception of cinema changed.”
The young actor’s decision to take on roles that would be as significant as Udaan has probably circumscribed his career. Apart from Disco Valley and the other untitled film, Barmecha made an appearance in Bejoy Nambiar’s Shaitaan (2011) as well as in the short films Gulmohar and The Finish Line. That game-changer of a part remains elusive. Until then, his fans can watch episodes of Girl in the City, a coming-of-age story like Udaan about a 21-year-old woman from Dehradun who moves to Mumbai to work in the fashion industry.
“I am doing a special appearance but I keep coming and going till the 13th episode,” Barmecha said about his new role. “The biggest compliment I have got so far for the Girl In The City is by the writer of the series, Sanyuktha Chawla Shaikh. She said I have done justice to the character and have taken the character into a league where people will fall in love with him.”