Growing up in Kenya, actor Rohan Mehra, who makes his debut in Baazaar, was far removed from his father’s legacy. But now he has decided to strike out in the same profession, says Saimi Sattar
When the trailer of Baazaar hit the screens and the social media, it was one sequence where a young and an absolute newcomer is seen swallowing coffee, in which the tormentor interviewer has spat, garner all the attention. When asked to sell the tea, he swallows it and says, “Bech di, sir. Khud ko,” which was certainly the most riveting scene. This, despite the fact that there are stalwarts like Saif Ali Khan, Radhika Apte and Chitrangada Singh in the movie. The buzz around the actor grew some more before it tumbled out that he was Rohan Mehra, the late Vinod Mehra’s son.
So when he walks in wearing a blue kurta, blazer and trouser at a five-star in Delhi without any airs or swagger that is common among the millennials, one is surprised. And the demeanour does not flag one bit during the entire interaction. Maybe being away from the industry and the constant gaze has made him more of an everyday man. He is an insider-outsider. Rohan says, “I am on the edge and in a situation where I am on the borderline. To get to where I am, the insider bit didn’t have a role to play. Now that the film is releasing, it is influencing a bit. There are people who want to know who I am, where I am from and how much I knew about my dad. These questions were never asked before and rightly so because your work should speak and shouldn’t influence who you are and where you come from.”
Rohan grew up in Mombasa in Kenya, where his mother shifted after his father passed away in 1990 after a heart attack during the making of Gurudev, his first venture as a producer director. “She moved not because she wanted to keep us away from the industry but because it was a logistical decision as my mother was from the country. She left us with my grandparents and went ahead and finished the film,” he says. Starring Sridevi, Rishi Kapoor and Anil Kapoor in the lead, the film was released in 1993 after director Raj Sippy completed it.
Rohan’s growing up years were “very simple and normal. We were a very traditional family, very normal and not at all filmy. It was an interesting journey. I really enjoyed my time and I can say that they were the best years of my life even though it sounds funny because I am a young guy. But Mombasa has a special place in my heart and I still wear this,” he says, pulling back his sleeve to reveal a bracelet which is woven in the colours of the Kenyan flag.
“I didn’t dream of doing anything that can be considered away from normal. Normal being a doctor, engineer, lawyer or a banker. I wanted to be an investment banker because my idea of success was to have a good salary, a big house and all that. You are after all a product of your environment. I was a good student and I liked to study — I still do.”
Following the path that he had decided to embark upon, he went to England to pursue his Bachelors in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics from the University of Nottingham. “I was supposed to work in investment banks like Morgan Stanley, Barclays and others but as I was writing the cover letter for my resume, I wondered what would I say was the reason for me wanting to work at any of those places. I wondered, do I even want to work there? Until university, I was a very good student and I was in the top 10. But I realised that it is great being good at something but it wasn’t something that I am passionate about,” he says, looking off in a distance as if reliving his past.
In the back of his heart, film and music always held a special place but he never had the opportunity or the courage to pursue it. “When you are from a small town and you have come away from your family, you suddenly become your own man. I realised that I needed to take that call. I came to Mumbai, attended acting workshops , worked on the craft, on the diction, Bollywood dance and all that to polish them. For this is an art and a craft,” he says.
Rohan knew that it was a big leap of faith and also a risk when he had all these opportunities and a secure career lined up. “I am the only, so to say, the man in my family. My father passed away before I was born and my grandfather when I was 16. There are only women around me and they thought that they will get a sense of security, not that they expected me to run everything, but that I would take decisions. I had this sense of responsibility since a very young age.”
But being the son of Vinod Mehra did not open any doors for him. Before the film released, he struggled really hard for a number of years, going for auditions and trying to get the right project. “I have gone through this complete Bollywood struggler kind of route. People are now a little more intrigued and are wondering who I am,” he says.
However, he does agree that nepotism does exist in the industry. “People do work here based on their connections and relations but speaking for me, I did not get the film because of it. The first time they called me for an audition, they did not even know whose son I was. They liked my look and said let’s audition him,” he says and adds about the audience, “In the generation that we are living in, there is a sense that they do not like it when people are naturally given things. They shoot that person down. If there is even one mistake by a son or a daughter of an industry person, it is given a lot of attention. You really have to be a phenomenal actor,” he says and gives the example of Ranbir Kapoor who has come into his own as a phenomenal actor rather than riding on the shoulders of his actor-father Rishi Kapoor. “Or for that matter Ishan Khattar who is Shahid Kapoor’s brother who is super. You really need to step up the game.”
As the discussion turns to Baazaar, “the elephant in the room”, he says, “Shakun Kothari (Saif) is my hero. It is a story about ambition, about meeting your hero, wanting to be like him as Rizwan Ahmed (Rohan’s character) like Shakun is not a khaandaani raees but wants to be rich like him. In the process, discovering that his hero is not like what Faizan had imagined him to be and has feet of clay.”
If you ask him, if he has had a similar experience, Rohan, who is a guitarist says, that it wasn’t at such a big level. “I don’t have one hero that I worship. I have several. There have been small things like waiting outside for two hours to meet musicians post a concert and they just walk past without meeting their fans.”
However, Rohan can be sure of one thing that his father was not of the kind. “The audience loved him because he had this niceness and goodness. It is rare when someone talks about a person and says that he is nice even before talking about the profession. It is a big compliment. In Kenya, I knew he was an actor and people liked him. I just did not know the magnitude. I was so far away. It was barely in conversation and it hit me when I came to Mumbai,” he says.
But inherent with his father are the tales that the industry didn’t support his family after Vinod Mehra passed away tragically at the young age of 45 even before Rohan was born. “I have heard stories the same way that anyone else might have. It is strange that despite being his blood, I do not know much about the inside story of it. It is something that has been lost in fiction,” he says. But there are other things that he knows well like playing the guitar and composing music. “I sing but not well. I sing in the shower. Playing the guitar is more than a hobby. And so it will be amazing if there is a sequence where I can do that,” he says getting up. Rohan is certainly here to stay — on his own steam.
