LUCK BY CHANCE

THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF AN IIT GRADUATE TURNED INTERNET ACTING SENSATION

- Sonali Velinker Kamat

FROM PITCHERS TO PANCHAYAT, JITENDRA KUMAR HAS LIT UP SCREENS OF ALL SIZES. NOW SET FOR A MAGICAL OUTING WITH JAADUGAR, 'JEETU BHAIYA' TELLS US ABOUT EMBRACING HIS FEMININE SIDE, FALLING SHORT OF RICKSHAW FARE AND ROMANCING LADY LUCK

LUCK. JITENDRA KUMAR BELIEVES IN IT. For every milestone in his career thus far, the actor has a luck by chance' story in support of it. He calls it "magic." We have a better word for it: talent.

Bursting on to the scene first as Munna Jazbaati in a TVF sketch, and then as Jeetu in TVF Pitchers, Jitendra Kumar is amongst India's early YouTube sensations. With a filmography that now includes Kota Factory and two spectacular seasons of Panchayat, you'll recognise the man even if you aren't familiar with his early work for The Viral Fever. Up there with colossal talents like Pankaj Tripathi, Vikrant Massey and Jaideep Ahlawat, Jitendra Kumar is charting his course to stardom.

His story starts out in the tiny town of Khairthal in Alwar. Raised in a home where his mother and her sister married two brothers (his father and tayaji), it was a tightknit joint-family unit. His father was a civil engineer who worked with the Public Works Department and was often transferred from one town to another within Rajasthan itself. It was at his school in Khairthal, in Grade 6, when a chance visit to the watercooler landed Jitendra a role in the year's biggest dramatic extravaganza: the annual Ramlila performance. "The girl who was meant to play the role of Taraka fell ill. She had fever and left for home in the middle of the school day.

She even took her costume with her. I left class to drink some water and found my class teacher pacing in the corridor.