Manoj Bajpai on how 'Gali Guleiyan' brought him close to a nervous breakdown

Even today Manoj Bajpai shudders at the thought of playing the psychologically wrecked character in 'Gali Guleiyan'. "I couldn’t wait to come out of character. It was the most difficult role to play. It was a role that broke me mentally. Like Shool it demanded an extreme internalisation."

While shooting Manoj had to leave all his personal responsibilities behind. "It meant I had to forget I was married and had familial responsibilities. I started talking to myself the way the character was shown doing. Such was my preparation for this role that my wife got worried about me."

Such was the mental stress that Manoj decided to quit the film. "On the 29^th day of shooting, I went to the director Dipesh Jain and told the directors I couldn't take the mental pressure. But we somehow finished in 33-34 days. I went too deep into the role in this film. I thought I’d lose my mind. But I had no other option. It was the path that was necessary to pull  off that role. Gali Guleiyan had me in my most challenging role."

Gali Guleiyan directed by Dipesh Jain has Manoj playing the complex character of a man who rapidly loses grip over reality.

Recalling the experience the method actor says, “We were shut in the claustrophobic gullis of Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi. I play a man who is deeply troubled to the point that he no longer can tell the difference between  make-belief and reality. I asked my director Dipesh to shut down the shooting, because the role was affecting me deeper than I expected. I was on the verge of a mental breakdown.”

Luckily for the film, the director refused to listen to Manoj. “Dipesh would shoot another traumatic sequence and then lock me in a room where I had no choice but to sleep. I’d come out refreshed and then do another scene that knocked me out psychologically. So it went until the end of the shooting. By then I had a tough time drawing the line between the character and me. I  didn’t know where one ended and the other began.”

 The first thing that Manoj did after the completion of Gali  Guleiyan is get rid of all the physical traits of his character. “I  shaved off all the facial hair, trimmed my hair and generally discarded the unkempt dishevelled  look of a man who has stopped caring about how he looks. Then I looked at myself hard in the mirror for days reminding myself that this was the real me, not the man I played in the  film. At the after-party on the film’s completion I guzzled down a whole bottle of wine. It helped me forget the man I had just become..”

 But then leaving behind the character is not easy.  “Somewhere these characters of traumatized disoriented misfits that I play have stayed with me. When people meet me after some years they say I look older than I should. That’s because I carry all these existentially burdened character within me.”

Manoj describes his character in Gali Guleiyan as his toughest role to date. “He is not only the toughest character I played but also according to me the most complex written in Indian cinema. The challenge here was not only physical but also the emotional.”

And yet it is the commercial roles like the one in Satyameva Jayate that get the audience.

Manoj stoutly dismisses this line of thought. “That’s a very pessimistic view of my career. If I start thinking like that I’d never be able to give all of myself to films like Aligarh and Gali Guleiyan. And who told you Satyameva Jayate is not challenging?  The challenge is to not get sucked into the system, to be part of it and yet remain detached from it and fight it. Because you know that the mainstream cinema will never accept you. It will only use your talent. So you use that reality of that situation to fuel your idealism. Every Satyameva Jayate that succeeds gives me the power to do three Aligarhs and Gali Guleiyans.

Gali Guleiyan is now streaming on Amazon Prime. 

"I am happy that my hard work is finally being seen by such a large  audience," says Manoj.