Nocturnal Animal

Over a night of peddling Mumbai’s mean streets, Ranveer Singh plays master of ceremonies and is, as always, on fire.

- Nidhi Gupta ​​​​​​​

On most days, Mumbai’s Ballard Estate neighbourhood is dead by 8pm. It’s an anomaly for an insomniac city: Its tree-lined streets and Victorian-era sandstone architecture are charged every 9-to-5 day by an army of lawyers, civil servants, journalists and bankers, who march in from the farthest reaches of the city to chip away at their computers. But after sundown, there’s a thick, dark quiet, night after velveteen night.

By the look on their faces, the septuagenarian couple – he, in ill-fitting pants and shirt, and a red beanie; she, in a white and gold sari – zipping about on their Bajaj scooter were not expecting a commotion at 2am. Nor were they expecting to be accosted by Ranveer Singh, mock-rapping in front of a yellow JCB excavator. Or to giggle conspiratorially about Bhalerao and the “Bangalorewali”.

For the six hours that he is at the GQ photoshoot, Ranveer Singh will do what Ranveer Singh does. He will sway from a banyan tree like a bat. He will perch on a marble baluster, framed against the gothic façade of Victoria Terminus. He will pull his mouth into an aggressive pucker, while his black overcoat billows just like Sir Pherozeshah Mehta’s – only, with more giant red roses.

Right now, though, Singh’s noticed the blue flashing lights of cop cars sidling up to the curb. He sends a guy over to get the khakis to join the party. Just as indiscernibly, he changes the song – an asyet-unreleased rap from Gully Boy, with the refrain “Gormint bik gayi hai” – to Simmba’s triumphant background track. “What’s happening, saheb,” he beams in Marathi at one who’s nervously approaching him.