11 June 2015
Hyderabad

For some people, acting is food for soul. They live, breathe and dream about acting. While, some find a destiny in Tollywood, some pave new paths to explore the avenues. Our Focus Light for this week is on such a passionate and visionary, founder of Sutradhar theater company, Vinay Varma.

I was born in Chandrayanagutta. My father worked as a zoology lecturer. I had a blessed childhood. Coming from an educated family, I was always amidst educated lot. I studied in Rockwoods school which gave me a strong foundation academically. I was an average student and used to participate in cultural activities . Later on, I joined All Saints’ high school. Since my father was a science lecturer, I loved life sciences more. I studied in Anwar-ul- Uloom college and attempted at medical entrance. I couldn’t make it to Medicine despite of trying my luck twice. I gave up science completely. While I was in cross roads, I came across humanities course in University of Hyderabad. It was quite fortuitous for me. I joined sociology and my life took a different turn.

As a humanities student
It was beyond my parents’ comprehension that I opted for arts. Having topped the entrance exam, I was also blessed with merit scholarship. I thoroughly enjoyed my college days. I was asked by one Prof DK Goel, if I was interested in a play. I had no idea how it would be. The play was scripted by Dr Laxminarayan Lal and it was called “Coffee house mein Intezaar’, directed by Dr. Goel. Subsequently, I picked up a couple of scripts and put up plays in the Golden Threshold. Thus I started performing during Annual day functions and was totally smitten by the Play bug. I happened to meet Bhaskar Shewalkar  during the staging of Coffee house, with whom, I performed many plays aftermath. He was a brilliant director. Though, I was good at script writing, dialogues and performance, direction was something that I could never do. We tuned in so well and, together, we created many plays.

Experiments with my career
I have also tried a research project on Medical Sociology . Though I was offered a seat in JNU, I chose to stay in Hyderabad, and opted for HCU instead. But destiny had it. I had my share of differences with my professor. After some chaos, I left the research field for good and bid a farewell to it. I focused most of my energy on theater and my passion took me to next level. But for survival, I worked in Loyola academy and taught Rural Development. I have two MAs in Sociology from HCU and Hindi Literature from OU. I have also worked in Dena Bank for 10 years in Nasik and Hyderabad.

One life one passion- Sutradhar
Though I worked at several places, my passion for theater had been growing. I just have one life. So, why leave passion? Thus, came up Sutradhar- my brainchild for theater and performing arts. I founded Sutradhar in 1996 to give an impetus to talent in Hyderabad. There was much talent import from Mumbai . Why everybody wants to go to Mumbai in search of talent? Why can't we find them here in our city? I call myself and all those nurtured here, homegrown than Local. Hence, I wanted to give the world a taste of homegrown talent. I started organizing workshops since 99. Our workshops are grueling and rigorous. We churn the talent in the youngsters and potential actors and bring out the crème a la crème. We have our own system of choosing people. We don’t select people who want to be just seen on TV or movies. We choose the passionate lot. Train them and make their portfolios. The first and foremost foundation of actor is- discipline. If they are on time, they are in. starting from punctuality to performance; we make sure the best of the lot is ready. Many managers and producers ask me to send portfolios to them. They say, they need beautiful good looking actors. I say, we have talent here. We don’t maintain the data base of beauties or run super market. We make sure; the talent is seen and heard. We have been doing this for years now and many thanks to our media, we got a good name. Surprisingly, we get more requests from Mumbai than Hyderabad. It is strange how Tollywood fails to recognize the homegrown talent. Maybe such a day will come, when our fellows find it easy to get into Tollywood.

Theater, Movies and TV serials
I have acted in about 50 plays. I have performed the Berlin Grips Theatre. It’s a school of thought, where adults play the role of children. A lot of plays have been written under the grips theatre style. I was part of 3 of their productions in 2 of which, I was an actor and for 1, wrote lyrics for the play. I have also acted in Ek Kahaani, the series of stories in Doordarshan. I was the lead in one of the episodes and it brought much recognition to me. I have, so far, acted in 10 odd Telugu films. I have mostly been the bad man in the movies- thanks to my not-so-good looking face. I have acted in 5-6 Hindi movies and in 1 Hollywood movie. I find it tough to act in theater than movies. For me, cinema is superficial. You look good on camera, listen to the director and give your shot- you are done for the day. But theater is tougher. You got to give it the best shot, as there are no retakes. I love cinema. But theater is my heartbeat. I learned to be patient doing theater. So, far, I have been lucky I must say. Though, I paved my way into movies and TV, there was less to no theater in Hyderabad. It wasn’t that popular. People enjoyed comedy shows and mushayaras here and there, but serious theater never existed in Hyderabad. This is where I put my foot down and decided to give back to my city. This is the place I was born, and I have decided to never move out for opportunities from here. We performed many plays in theaters, and intimate plays on terraces. Indian embassy, Abu dhabi gave us an opportunity to conduct a workshop for the students of Indian International School in the year 2013, which was definitely a unique experience.

Passion vs money
Theater is food for the soul. It doesn’t fetch much money. We do make decent money but it is not fancy. Sometimes, there is no money at all. But there is ultimate satisfaction to it. Theater needs honesty and integrity. I have acted in both big and small productions and so far, people, who have worked with me, are very committed and passionate. Recently, I have performed a monologue in London. The performance was for 75 minutes and I can’t explain the happiness I attained and keep getting out of such performances. Also, I am the only artiste from Hyderabad to have performed at the prestigious Bharat Rang Mahotsav of National School of Drama. Many people think working in Tollywood gives money. But for me, it is more of happiness. And I find it in theater!

Family
I am blessed to be part of a family full of academicians. My father, Dr Anand Raj Varma retired as a Reader in zoology and my mother, Prabha Varma, worked as a teacher. They still live in Hyderabad. My wife, Sanjita works as Insurance Life adviser and our son Rishabh is employed too. My wife has been very co-operative through my ups and downs. Being in this field is not easy. But I have no qualms and luckily, I have a family that supported me through out. We all live in Hyderabad and this city is my home. As I promised, I will continue to produce more homegrown talent and will never leave my passion..

By
Swathi Sriram

Other articles in 'Focus Light:
• Dr. Josyabhatla Sarma
• Sasikiran Narayana