ESCAPE ARTIST
Actor Manav Kaul would much rather follow a star than call himself one
—Chinki Sinha
Actor, director and writer Manav Kaul is a traveller first. “Travelling is the most boring thing to do when you’re alone, but that’s when the writing comes. Boredom is a crossover point,” he says. Despite knowing that Europe will be lonely, Kaul, 42, is spending six weeks backpacking across the continent to work on a travelogue and a collection of poetry. “I realised very late that I live for travelling,” he says.
This realisation set him free: “Travelling, especially travelling randomly, feels like the beginning of a relationship.” In Music Teacher, a recently released Netflix film, Kaul’s performance as the forlorn Beni Madhav Singh, won him rave reviews. Earlier this year, he starred in Badla with Amitabh Bachchan and with roles in films like Maroon (2016), Tumhari Sulu (2017) and Ghoul (2018), he is being seen as one of India’s most versatile actors.
But Kaul doesn’t want to “fit in”. He remembers that
as a child he would go days without bathing so that his fair skin would not stand out in Madhya Pradesh’s Hoshangabad, where his family had moved from Kashmir. “There was displacement, but when you’re young, you are caught up in survival,” he says.
Released in 2016, Kaul’s first book, Theek Tumhare Peeche—a collection of Hindi short stories—had a photo of a broken window on its cover that he had shot in Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir, where he was returning 27 years later. “I still remember where I would hide toffees.” This innocence is apparent in his first directorial venture, Hansa (2012), about a boy and girl looking for their missing father in the mountains.
As Kaul speaks, it becomes clear that his calm results from having faced many challenges. He has worked odd jobs and lived in chawls with hardly any money. Kaul says to come this far and then want to run away to faraway places is what his life now is.