Tahir Raj Bhasin has always been regarded as an actor to watch out for. He debuted as a villain in Mardaani. In his next, he will be seen playing a sports champion in Nitesh Tiwari’s Chhichhore. The actor moved to the IIT Bombay and stayed with students before the shoot of the film began.

Nitesh had graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) in 1996 with a Bachelor’s degree in Metallurgy and Material Science engineering. Chhichhore is inspired from his life and times at the college. The film is about the campus life in the engineering college. Tahir wanted to study and soak in college life and see inter-personal dynamics of various hostels from close quarters before he started filming.

Tahir says, “I moved to IIT Bombay to spend a week at the hostel before the filming began. I internalise every role that I do and immerse myself with the setting and the character that I have at hand. I worked out at the same gym as the students and ate in the canteens to get an actual feel of how their campus life is. I studied the young students closely and observed the dynamics between hostels. Moving to the campus made me ready for the role. I am hoping that the audience will connect with my character.”

The actor also reveals that living and shooting in IIT was uncanny for him. “Mood Indigo, the IIT cultural festival is coincidentally also where I performed theatre for the first time as part of my college theatre group. This was the place where the germ of becoming an actor was set for me. Life is a full circle. The end of one journey is the beginning of the next,” he says and adds, “What’s further uncanny is that my opening scene in the film is also shot in the same corridor where I lived in for the theatre. What are the chances! I think I was destined to do this role and revisit the campus that I so fondly remember. Chhichhore will always be one of the most cherished films of my career.”