One man, many gifts

He can act, write, compose music and is a lyricist. Aabhas Sharma talks to Piyush Mishra about his many talents.

You have seen his power-packed performances in films like Maqbool, Gulaal and Tere Bin Laden and may have noted his funky lyrics in Tashan and Aaja Nach Le. But there’s more to Piyush Mishra — he has composed the music for Lahore and written the screenplay and dialogues for Ghajini and The Legend of Bhagat Singh. And something Mishra finds most difficult to answer is “what exactly are you?” Where do you slot the 48 year old? “People say I am multi-talented but I feel I have been given many gifts,” says Mishra.

Not many are aware but Mishra was supposed to audition for the role of Prem, eventually played by Salman Khan in the 1989 blockbuster Maine Pyar Kiya. The film by Rajshri Productions, known best for tearjerker family dramas, catapulted Khan to fame.  And where did it leave Mishra? “That was a long, long time ago and I don’t know why I didn’t go for the audition,” he recalls.

Born and brought up in Gwalior, Mishra was a restless soul those days. Even as a youngster he wanted to do many things. He started learning the sitar but that didn’t work out. So he enrolled into the Gwalior School of Sculpture. Even that he found was something not up his alley. In 1986, he moved to New Delhi and joined the National School of Drama. For several years, he engrossed himself with theatre and did all sorts of plays. He acted, wrote scripts and worked with people like Vishal Bhardwaj, Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah. “Theatre was excellent but I can’t go back to it now. It is something which has made me see the best and worst of times,” he says.

While theatre was something he did in Delhi, he refused to move to Mumbai. “I didn’t know what lay ahead in Mumbai and I was skeptical,” he says. But when his son was three years old, he realised that to make money he just had to move to tinsel town. “I did a few TV shows along with theatre but movies just didn’t happen.” As an actor he would get small roles but his talents — or gifts as he calls — in music and lyrics were never sought. Did it discourage him? “There were times when I felt I was wasting my time, but I had faith in me,” he says. In 1998, he worked in Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se but the performance went unnoticed. Not much happened in his career.

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Four years later, he got his break when Raj Kumar Santoshi asked him to write the script and dialogues for The Legend of Bhagat Singh. What brought him notice was the role of Kakaji in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool. He was pitted against stalwarts like Pankaj Kapur, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah and Irrfan Khan but still managed to grab attention. It was the break he had been looking for. “Working with Bhardwaj was excellent and it was a stellar cast to work with,” he says. Still he didn’t get many roles, though people recognised his talent as an actor. Meanwhile, as a lyricist, he wrote the hit song, “Bande”, for Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday. The movie didn’t get released in theatres but the song composed by Indian Ocean became a big hit.

After almost 10 years of struggle in the industry, it was Kashyap’s Gulaal which brought Mishra into limelight. Set in Rajasthan, Gulaal was about student politics and a fictitious movement led by some community leaders. The film was Kashyap’s tribute to lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi. “Anurag is unconventional in his work and I knew that I had to come up to match his style,” says Mishra who wrote the lyrics, sang as well as composed the music and played the role of Prithvi, a musician who is a John Lennon fan.

Even after Gulaal, his life didn’t change dramatically, although he worked in movies like Lafangey Parindey, Tere Bin Laden and the recently-released Bhindi Bazaar Inc. Mishra says that at his age, he can’t expect to get lead roles but what he gets are roles which leave an impression. Like the one of the TV channel boss in Tere Bin Laden. “I don’t want to become a star or be recognised in public. I am happy to be away from the spotlight,” he says.

Despite working in theatre, Mishra found the transition to movies quite difficult. He remembers the first day of the shoot of Maqbool and how nervous he was. He still gets the jitters in front of the camera. He is working with Kashyap again in his forthcoming movie Gangs of Wasseypur, set in the Uttar Pradesh heartland and about local gang wars. He is also writing the dialogues for the movie Chittagong, which has Manoj Bajpai in the lead and will be released sometime in early 2012. He likes to take it easy and doesn’t get involved with too many projects at the same time. “I don’t get bored easily and I love writing and composing music,” says Mishra who never took any training in music.

He is glad that directors like Kashyap and Bhardwaj make movies which have scope for actors like him. They don’t look for stars but choose people who will do justice to the character, he says. “I am quite happy donning multiple hats. It means that even if someone thinks I am a bad actor, there will be others who will enjoy my writing!”

You could slot him with actors of the black & white era who sang and acted with equal ease. Is Mishra a present day K L Sehgal? In talent, maybe he is; in stardom, certainly not.