Rajkummar Rao had six films, web show in 2017 and he delivered in all of them

Honestly guys like mecall them critictypes if you will but essentially film buffs who desire more than breadandbutter for bigscreen entertainment hold a subconscious stake in propping up an actor like Rajkummar Rao or a Nawazuddin Siddiqui or even an Irrfan Khan if you may That theyre sharp welltrained fantastic performers is a given But appreciating their talents to the point of anointing them stars in their own right which they are only widens the elbow room for the kind of scripts that can get greenlit or mainstream films that can be made with them wholly in the foreground playing men whore often like you and I or at any rate people we can relate to rather than mystical celestial beings from another sky altogether trapped in their own galaxy of a fanbase image and audience expectationsRajkummar Rao in a still from Bareilly Ki Barfi in TrappedOf course the more mainstream 100 crore actors dont particularly fancy this fitrat tendency A reasonably drunk Rishi Kapoor had hauled me over the coals once at a party for being this lallu critic type who simply cant understand how much harder it is to be a dancing lipsyncing commercial hero rather than a brooding Everyman Which is odd I like millions others totally adore the onscreen Rishi Kapoor even more so now Its not an eitheror kinda scenarioRajkummar Rao in a still from Bareilly Ki Barfiin RaabtaKapoors grouse was against the level of praise heaped on Naseeruddin Shah all through his career Which is odder still since I was not even an embryo when the understated Naseer film after film stormed into the scene in the 70s cornering considerable critical acclaim for the realism or humanism in his roles gradually morphing into a star of a parallel universe or parallel cinema as it wereRajkummar Rao in a still from Bareilly Ki Barfi in NewtonNot sure if its the shortbuild curly hair or the selfrighteousness of his character or perhaps the fact that hes also an FTII trained actor but looking at Rajkummar Rao formerly known as Rajkumar Yadav in Amit Masurkars Newton it was hard for me to not observe him as the new generations Naseer expressing it so many words in my review of the film as well Rao I noticed naturally shied away from the compliment when asked to respond to this analogy in an online interview Which is fair Naseer has a body of work spanning five decades during one of which the 80s he happened to be absolutely in the right place at the right timeStill if you look back at this year alone the number of right places Rao has simultaneously found himself in defies the diurnal clock of the universe which mustve clearly conspired to make 2017 a landmarkmilestone in his career with seven releases one of which was a fullon ninepart webseries Bose DeadAliveRajkummar Rao in a still from Bareilly Ki Barfi in Bose Dead Or AliveNow I havent seen too many Indian webshows my New Year resolution is to change that But from the limited set that I did binge on it might be fair to suggest that Bose having watched six out of nine episodes appears to be the best if not the most ambitious Indian webseries around pacy packed with drama history and conspiracy theories and above all an incredibly calm sorted podgy and full of swag Rao killing it as the balding badass to the Brits Subhash Chandra Bose Raos so good that you ignore the fact that wed been ODing on Bose this year Vishal Bhardwajs Rangoon Tigmanshu Dhulias Raag Desh were both centred on the Indian National ArmyShaadi Mein Zaroor AanaOver few months to picture Rao as the oneman army Bose and also as one vulnerable man Shaurya stuck in a midtown Mumbai highrise with the cameralens equally stuck on him capturing his moves and feels highs and lows from every possible angle for 100 minutes flat has to be a study in contrasts Emotion nichod daala to put it in Bollywoodspeak Beyond doubt Rao delivered his finest performance ever in Vikramaditya Motwanes TrappedWhich is to take away nothing from his other gig Ashwiny Iyer Tiwaris Bareilly Ki Barfi where audiences loved him even more In fact Raos role in Bareilly is built entirely on the idea of contrast where he switches from a meek bloke into a Bhai type every few minutes with crowds cracking up before the screen Status flipping between a person with high and low status in the same situation is a popular game played at acting workshops You knew Rao wouldve aced it each time while honing his craft Im sure others did tooBehen Hogi TeriThe point Im trying to make is simply this Of course Rao is a phenomenal talent But this was the year when we could watch him effectively exploit every facet of it And yet none of this would matter in a film industry which works purely on profitloss investmentreturns Its a sign of the changing times or audience tastes that he delivered hits which makes one redefine whats a critictype star or a real one anyway Bareilly also starring Ayushmann Khurana Newton and Trapped performed considerably well at the boxoffice I didnt watch Raos other two releases Behen Hogi Teri and Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana fearing perhaps incorrectly that it might ruin my Rajkummar Rao experience But the latter movie Im told had large audiences queue up in theatres especially after the first week Raabta I saw and it bombed maybe rightly so But its a sure sign of stardom that Rao got picked to make a special appearance in the movie He was under so much prosthetic makeup that it could have been anybody playing that part from prehistoryWe told you so Rao in middays2016 list of people to look out for in 17This was pretty much the year when most of Bollywoods unwritten boxoffice rules were shattered Hyderabadi Prabhass Baahubali The Conclusion was the biggest blockbuster Salman Khans Tubelight totally tanked Besides Golmaal 4 Judwaa 2 and Tiger Zinda Hai I suspect all the major commercial successes were sleeperhits Basically no one saw em coming pictures on erectile dysfunction toilets sexually deprived women with audiences lapping em up What used to be serious boring parallel has seamlessly merged into the mainstream Heroesheroines matter less If anything Akshay Kumar is the hugebudget NawazIrrfanRao I dont know how much of that gets reflected in Bollywoods starry madeforTV award shows Its hard to tell how many gongs will go Raos way eitherBut so far as accolades go I happened to be standing right in front of Rao unintentionally eavesdropping when he received the hugest one Sachin Tendulkar just wouldnt stop gushing going gaga over Rao as Rao smiled all through To use a sporting analogy 2017 was to Rao what 1998 was to Tendulkar Hes in top form smashing everything around with hopefully a whole lot in store as wellCatch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip hereDownload the new midday Android and iOS apps to get updates on all the latest and trending stories on the go