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‘Puneet did his research and gave us a very basic idea on male prostitution. He said it is like any other job.’
IMAGE: Tillotama Shome with Manav Kaul in Tribhuvan Mishra CA Topper. Photograph: Kind courtesy Manav Kaul /Instagram
Manav Kaul had no reservations about playing a sex worker in Netflix’s new series, Tribhuvan Mishra CA Topper.
“I don’t know how Director Puneet Krishna thought about it, how he came up with such an idea,” Manav tells Subhash K Jha.
“It was a lot of fun playing this character. No one was hesitant. I got really lucky to get this role.”
Kaul’s Tribhuvan Mishra is a mid-level government employee, who becomes a male sex worker by chance, and that supplements his income.
Photograph: Kind courtesy Manav Kaul /Instagram
How did he enter this complex character’s inner world?
“Yes, it is a very complex character,” he admits.
“I was born in Kashmir and grew up in Hoshangabad (Madhya Pradesh). My brother works in Airtel, and has a family. I know this world. I know the middle class, their struggles and problems. In that sense, I was able to understand the character. But it was made easy by the writing too. Puneet has written so brilliantly, and he narrated each and every episode to me. That was a huge help. Puneet and his co-director Amrit Raj Gupta have been working on this material for so long.
“Puneet shared his experiences too. The series is not about him but getting in and out of those weird circumstances.
“Puneet did his research and gave us a very basic idea on male prostitution. He said it is like any other job. Whatever questions I had, Puneet had all the answers.”
Photograph: Kind courtesy Manav Kaul /Instagram
Manav feels very close to his character, Tribhuvan.
“I am very idealistic in my world also. I feel I am vulnerable whenever I do theatre or write a book. It’s not about judging the character, it’s about picking the core points of the character.
“I wanted to portray the real side of Tribhuvan. How much you believe in the character and honestly tell his story, so that people think that yes, this is Tribhuvan. I wanted them to see me as Tribhuvan. When you are doing a series — it has nine episodes — you get to play every shade of the character. All the preparation was done beforehand.
“I read all the difficult scenes with Puneet, so we were well prepared before we went for the shoot. So judging the character is more like understanding the bits and pieces of Tribhuvan, so you feel like, I am going to react like this. You are shooting continuously, so you are in character. You feel that your decision is actually Tribhuvan’s decision.”
Photograph: Kind courtesy Manav Kaul /Instagram
Manav admits the OTT platform has changed his life.
“The OTT is amazing. You see actors like Vijay Varma, Jaideep Ahlawat and Shefali Shah, actors who have given us such amazing performances in recent years. I have been watching them for years. What OTT has done is given more options to the audience. And so we are doing different stuff. We can push the envelope further now.
“Also, OTT needs actors to pull off right or nine episodes, so everyone is searching for good actors. Luckily, we have a lot of them. I’ve done a film called Baramulla which I’m very excited about. I’m reading scripts, so maybe I’ll say yes to something. I going to shoot something this year. I haven’t shot anything for the past one and a half years now, so it’s time I get back to acting.
“People keep messaging me, why don’t you act more? Because I love life! How I live is more important than what I do, so I give a lot of time to my travels, theatre, writing… I have to give time to everything, I can’t do just one thing continuously. I take longer breaks to do something else.
“I want to live well. I don’t want to be a person who dies while working. I want to die while living. So I want to live more and work less. That is my motto in life.”
