Rayo ka Punchnama

I’m glad that Pyar Ka Punchnama had a good run at the box office and my gladness has nothing to do with the success of the movie. The movie was ok, a bit stretched and a one time downloadable watch, which means, that if I knew I wouldn’t have spent money to watch it. But why I’m still happy is because it didn’t’ need a star for its success, the newcomers proved their mettle - most of them. Which is a good sign for benchwarmers like me. 

I’m especially glad for Rayo who played Vikrant Choudhary, the curly haired guy shown either in his undies or smoking for most part of the movie. Rayo was one of the first people whom I knew when I shifted to Mumbai four years ago. He helped me with whatever he could, and usually it was numbers of co-ordinators. He wasn’t and I hope still isn’t like the other guys. Even though he had been in the industry for a considerable while when I joined, he didn’t have an air about himself, on the contrary he was the most humble of the lot. Though he did seem detached from what was happening around. You would see him for a month doing the rounds at each and every audition and then suddenly he’d disappear fo­­­­r weeks. When asked where, he’d say I was travelling in the hills. Once I found him walking down Lokhandwala with a papaya in his hand, where he’d just shifted all the way from Colaba. ‘Oh! A papaya I said’, ‘yes, it’s my dinner, he replied!’

He has a good run in commercials too; there was a time when he was seen in every other commercial. He was in the often played Mobile Next commercial, walking in his undies (Again!) on the road to name one. The others never took this seriously, or at least what I gathered and overheard from conversations, and this was probably because Rayo always gave the impression of never taking himself seriously. ‘Curly baal hai, is liye isko kaam milta hai’, they’d say. I too at a point hated curly haired models, ‘curly fuckers’ I used to call them. They looked to me like sheep whose wool hadn’t been sheared, dumb and dirty. They still do look like that to me but hate would be too harsh a word as I’ve learned to accept their presence around us. 

Essar Mobile Store from Rayo Bakhirta on Vimeo.

I never felt the same about Rayo, though he was one of the first curly haired guys in commercials a trendsetter of sorts, or so has he told me once. What he also told me was an interesting story about his first audition. Now the way to introduce yourself in front of the camera is 

“Hi my name is Rayo, my height is 6, my number is 9833*** , my pervious work experience is this”.

 This of course being his first audition he was nervous, and so he went 

“Hi my name is 6 feet, my height is Rayo, I haven’t done any work yet and my number is 9833… and that’s where he forgot his number!

This story came as a relief because I hadn’t even started auditioning at that time, so to know that there are people who mess up was a relief. Of course I still said some pretty stupid things when it finally did come to my first audition.  

And this is what I liked about him, always ready to share a story, a joke or a smile irrespective of what people thought about him. His online bio doesn’t mention anything about his next movie, whatever he is working on, I hope it’s a big success.

Motorola from Rayo Bakhirta on Vimeo.