Actor Rajat Barmecha, who rose to fame with Udaan, has once again won hearts with his performance in Kacchey Limbu. In an exclusive chat with The Pioneer, the actor discusses working in the film, his bond with his sister, and more.
Tejal Sinha
Renowned American business magnate Steve Jobs once very well said “One home run is much better than two doubles.” True that! And that’s what our guest for the day Rajat Barmecha believes in, talking about his working pattern.
Rajat gained not only notoriety and the admiration of the public, critics, and filmmakers with his first movie, Udaan, but he also won the title of ‘Best Male Debut’ for it. Rajat has now once again mesmerised the audience with his performance in the recently released Kacchey Limbu after his spells in films like Udaan, Hey Prabhu 2, Love, Lust and Confusion, and Girl in the City, to mention a few. Kacchey Limbu is directed and written by Shubham Yogi. A Hindi-language sports drama film Kacchey Limbu, the film explores the life of siblings-brother and sister who are cricket-crazy mad siblings and their bond.
From debuting in Udaan to Kacchey Limbu, Rajat describes his journey as a ‘fulfilling journey’. “Though, there’s been ups and downs professionally but then I’ve learned the most in these years. If it were not for these years, I would never be able to be the person that I’ve been today. Personally, I don’t think I would want it in any other way.”
The film highlights the love that one shares with their sibling, and for the Udaan actor, the film was personal in a way. “I love my sister and when I read this script, there was an instant connection that I felt. I knew this is the film that can be made with all that love and can turn out to be a good film. The day I met Yogi, I knew this is the guy who can pull this film off. He’s very raw, honest, and committed to his craft. And then the producers Neha Anand and Pranjal are my friends so I knew that they’d put their trust in me.”
Along with focusing on the love and closeness between the siblings, the theme emphasised on the importance of following your passion and never being scared to dream big. It also emphasised that changing your mind about what you’d want to do is alright. Talking in the context of his dream and passion of acting, the artist says, “I would not want to change anything in the professional front, and I’m very very blessed to be in a profession that every time I sit, I make myself feel very happy. I’m always excited to be on a film set so my personal love for acting is not something that I want to change.”
While we see him portraying his character Akash with several layers of emotions and conflicts with such ease, ironically he never has such serious situations in his real life. However, on the other side, having a sister in real life made him feel easily connected with his character and Aditi (Radhika Madan). Now as we talk about the siblings’ relationship, we asked him about the bond that he shares with his sister, and he gleefully shares, “We love each other. We don’t live in the same city but we make sure to talk 5 times a week, any big or small change in my life, any exciting news in my life goes to her first.” Ironically, while we see him and Radhika’s character being obsessed with cricket, that’s not the same in real life. “We both have not been into cricket so both of us had not much knowledge of cricket. Hum donno ko hi cricket samaj nahi aata (Both of us don’t understand cricket). Our brother he loves cricket so he’s the only one watching the cricket.”
Rajat believes that no matter whatever character you play there’s a bit of every character that stays with you. For instance, he says, “If we talk about Udaan, I never had any connection with writing. But after Udaan, where my character had written poetry, now 13 years down the lane, I’m writing poetry. Similarly in Kacchey Limbu, cricket has not been a part of my life. I have major respect for cricketers after this film. It’s not an easy profession because when you see the game it feels like you just have to hit the ball, but then it’s a very tough sport.”
Having not been much interested in a particular sport and performing it with such ease in the film is not a piece of cake. Speaking of how he prepared for his character, he said there were three ways they’d worked on this; the technical side, where he had got his training and learned all the technicalities of the sport. Then was the physical side, where he worked on his physique, in order to look like an athlete. And the last one was the emotional aspect. Going further, he explains, “When you’re on-field and playing with a season ball, he (Akash) is a different player, you see a different side of his body language. But when it comes to playing gully cricket with his sister, the aggression is there but the emotional journey is different.”
The film premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and was also screened at the World Film Festival of Bangkok and the International Film Festival of Kerala. With being premiered in such international film festivals, he does believe that when a film premiers at a film festival, it is also taken seriously back at home in India too. “Sometimes certain smaller films get mixed with the bigger ones so sometimes they don’t get the due or the importance that they should be getting. Eventually, they should be getting attention for the content part of it not for the small or big part of it. But when you are at a global level, it straight away puts you on the pedestal, straight looked upon in a more respectful manner that does give you a push and a pull, and for a small film where you don’t have these big superstars, I think it’s a great space to be in.”
This is not the first time that his film premiered in these film festivals, but also his debut film Udaan. “The emotions and scenes are very Indian at heart but then the connection is very global. That happens because the core of the relationship is the same everywhere. Be it anyone, we feel that love and connection with our siblings in a similar way. The geography can be different but the emotion will be the same. Even at TIFF, we had a similar reaction to what we had in India. To my surprise, there is a commentary part that we see in the film and people back in Canada had the same reaction laughing throughout, and that’s such a win for the director,” shares the actor who is currently working on a script that he wrote during the lockdown, and on the acting front he’s still reading scripts, and not signed any yet.
Rajat doesn’t want to rush with his work, and he says, “It’s not that if one film is a success, I’d want to sign 5 more quickly. I can sign one and still be happy about it. I’m just being careful with everything that I do.”
