Farhan Akhtar Unplugged: From One Rockstar To Another

He's turning the idea of being a rockstar on its head. Indus-Creed frontman Uday Benegal peers through the looking glass.

- Uday Benegal

Sundays at Bandra Bandstand, Mumbai’s micro-Malibu, are crapshoots when it comes to crowds. The neighbourhood’s Bollywood denizens are honeypot to filmi fans, and on any given weekend you can expect to get snagged in the mother of all snarls trying to dodge hordes of devotees gathered outside some celebrity’s house. The afternoon I went to see Farhan Akhtar, a Mumbai Darshan bus had deposited a throng outside Shah Rukh Khan’s high gates. I slalomed my way through the excitables taking selfies with a nameplate, hiked a U-turn onto the seafacing road and quickly found myself within the peaceable walls of Akhtar’s bungalow.

The actor-director-singer was waiting, clad in casuals and his unmistakable smile. “That’s a fortress,” he says, explaining the curious heap of cushions in a corner of the living room. “My daughter built it. She’s downstairs.” Battlements notwithstanding, Akhtar’s home has a calm, easy air about it, not unlike its owner, whose rock ’n’ roll ambitions piqued my interest.

I’ve known Farhan many years, though in a sparse kind of way. We used to bump into each other a long time ago when I moonlighted as a jingle singer and he was working as an advertising production assistant with a film-maker called Adi Pocha. “The first job I ever did was for a sequel to an underwear ad. Adi threw me straight into the deep end and said, ‘Here’s the budget, make sure everything is done within this.’ I was very diligent and wouldn’t even buy the crew cold drinks at lunch. Zoya [Akhtar], Avaan Contractor [now at B:Blunt], Anand Subaya [the editor], were all working on the ad. They used to be like, ‘Can we have a Thums-Up?’ and I was like, ‘No, you can’t. Buy it with your own money.’ I saved Adi about a lakh on the budget, and he’s been really fond of me ever since.”