Grooming stars in the city of dreams
There is an unlikely path to stardom in India’s city of dreams.
Turn right at a pair of goats picking through kneehigh garbage, pass a new public toilet and look for a hand-painted sign marking a temple to Ganesh, the Hindu elephant god revered as a remover of obstacles.
Ascend a narrow metal staircase that opens into a spacious, tin-roofed loft bedecked with movie posters. On a recent morning, a balding man in his mid-50s, seated on a platform, was leading group exercise.
“I hate you,” he said, waving his hand as if discarding a piece of garbage. The students repeated: “I hate you.” “Ohh, how disgusting,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “Ohh, how disgusting,” they spat in return. Some in the class giggled. The youngest among them was 5, and the English words sounded funny rolling off their tongues. But this was an acting class, and they had to be prepared to deliver any line.
The two dozen children shared the aspirations of millions of Indian movie fans: Each dreamed of a career in Bollywood, the behemoth film industry for which the seaside metropolis of Mumbai is known. None were deterred by the circumstances of their birth, in Dharavi, the sprawling mega-slum that lies in the heart of the city.
In the loft he built above his one-room house in Dharavi, the instructor, Baburao Laadsaheb, a sign painter by profession, runs a weekly course for slum children in acting, dancing, stage fighting, singing and other skills prized in India’s movie productions.
He teaches most of the children for free. None of his students arrive with any experience beyond mimicking the muscled actors and winsome actresses they know from posters or television.
Laadsaheb and others say that hundreds of his students have gone on to work in a business whose money and glamour are so distant from hardscrabble Dharavi that it is scarcely possible to imagine they occupy the same city.
Some of his students have worked in film and television as actors, dancers, models, cameramen, makeup artists, set designers and production assistants.
Laadsaheb has supplied extras for a production featuring India’s most famous movie star, Amitabh Bachchan, and an upcoming film directed by Majid Majidi, an Oscar winner from Iran. He proudly recalled the day when director Danny Boyle came to visit him while scouting locations for Slumdog Millionaire and hired him to find child actors.
Several of Laadsaheb’s students appeared in Boyle’s 2008 film, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Laadsaheb’s start in show business was more modest. His friend fell ill and asked him to take over a job as a painter on a movie set. He began getting more movie work, scouting for extras and, despite no formal dramatic training, even getting some bit parts. In one movie, he played 12 different characters.
Disappointed with the quality of coaching in the city, he launched his own school, Five-Star Acting and Dancing Classes.
“Who knows if any one of them will be a star,” Laadsaheb said. “But acting requires the ability to speak in public and be confident. Those skills will help these children in any profession.”