Bikram Saluja’s latest work, ‘An Actor’s Inspiration’, feels like an Indianised version of Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Godfather’ and Martin Scorsese’s ‘Raging Bulls’, only that it is a for-private-circulation-only coffee table book and not a movie.
It is like watching a movie in the photographic format with the narrative threading the whole work together.
“I wanted to do something independently,” says Saluja. “When I started out with the book, the work coming my way wasn’t interesting enough and I didn’t want to do just anything for the sake of being in circulation,” he says candidly.
So rather than waiting for the right stuff to come, Saluja drew inspiration from his favourite movies to create his own destiny. “Making a full fledged film at that time seemed like an enormous task. But I needed to find for myself the right artistic expression, to learn and to expand my horizons.”
“I was fortunate enough to have worked with some great photographers during my modeling days, and when I pitched the idea of doing a photographic book to two of my close friends who are also photographers, they were game for it and we decided to collaborate.”
A look at the book and his passion for what he was doing is hard to miss. The elaborate sets, the fine photography and the immaculately put together book took 4 years to create.
“Finding the right concept and to be able to do justice to what I had started out to do was a daunting task. It needed to be though provoking, challenging and of course it had to be related to cinema,” says Saluja.
And this book could well be the ‘break’ Saluja needs. When asked if this could be is stepping stone to movie making, Saluja is quick to reply. “Absolutely! This has definitely set a base. I was working not just in the capacity of an actor but in each and every department right from conceptualizing and interpreting to working with actors, to locations, post production,” he says.
“It was pretty much like putting a film together the only difference being that we were shooting through a still camera and not a movie camera.”
The foreword for the film has been written by none other than Amitabh Bachchan. “As an actor, everyone dreams of sharing screen space with him. With Amitabhji writing the foreword for my book, I feel that I have been able to share space with him in some small way. It’s like his seal of approval,” quips Saluja.
Saluja says he looks forward to acting. “For the past two years, I have been totally into this book, so it’s been much like a sabbatical. I’ve lived like a hermit living in obscurity for the past two years with only one thing on my mind. But yes, if I get roles that I like then I am more than happy to get back into my actor’s shoes. If not, then I have plans to write my own script and direct.”
And if his movies would be anything like his book, it will surely be something to watch out for!
Source: Meghna Lal/ India Syndicate
