To Sir With Love…

They came in droves, thronging the Ballroom of the ITC Grand Maratha, Mumbai with misty eyes and lusty cheers… they were all actors and they were all gravitating towards one focal point only – a certain someone, short in body and high in aura… a certain someone called Roshan Taneja…

And the name says it all!

He is the high-priest of acting in the country and today, he stands tall like a banyan tree, under which so many talents have been receiving shelter and nurture. He has come a long way since he first decided to chisel actors out of humdrum young boys and girls. Today, this journey has touched its 45th milepost and it was to commemorate these 45 years of Roshan Taneja as the Maharuru of Acting that this very special evening was held by the Indian Television Academy of Anu and Shashi Ranjan (himself a Roshan Taneja product).

To hop onto the celebratory wagon came the old and new wards of the Mahaguru and turned the occasion into a rollercoaster ride down the memory lane…
It all started 45 years ago – 1963, to be precise – when an acting alumnus from the highly celebrated Neighbourhood Playhouse Theater, New York, came to India and decided to train actors in the subtle nuances of their art.

It, perhaps, couldn’t have been a more opportune time for him to take this plunge as the Film Institute of India had just opened its portals to young aspirants to be tutored in the technicalities of Cinema and initiating a department of Acting was very much in order, there.

Mr. Taneja took this mantle upon himself. He joined hands with the FII (now, FTII) in setting up a training course in Acting and soon enough, the first batch was on course in getting preened and groomed as Actors.

But if you thought the idea was lapped up by the industry as a Godsend – think again! Because, on the contrary, the regular filmwalas were found to be downright hostile to the idea of ‘trained’ actors. ‘Do you think acting can be taught? Nonsense – actors are born, not taught,’ they smirked, ‘tell us, who taught Ashok Kumar and did Dilip Kumar go to an Acting school?’

His wards would come back to him with horror stories of this hostility they were facing in the industry. But he asked them to stick to their guns and stand their ground. ‘Pursue, Persevere and Persist!’ was the mantra the Guru gave to them. They followed it to a ‘t’ and the results endorsed the Taneja tenets! Soon enough, the Taneja products rose like meteors and the film firmament was dazzlingly dotted with stars like Shatrughan Sinha, Jaya Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Mithun Chakraboty, Danny Denzongpa and so illustriously on and on and on…!

The magic wand of the miracle-worker worked, after all and the world bowed in awe & wonder!

It is the 45th year of the Roshan Taneja voodoo holding the show-world in a clutch and the man still refuses to hang his sorcerer’s cloak. On the contrary, he is all set to expand his ambit through the Roshan Taneja Foundation of Performing Arts and start reaching out to the far-off corners of India and abroad as well, for hunting and nurturing talent.

In this, he has joined hands with an ebullient, go-getter ward of his – Shashi Ranjan. Today’s evening was to launch that, besides, of course, to celebrate the 45 years of Roshan Taneja’s journey in the company of those who were a part & parcel of the same.

To join the felicitation came many a Roshan Taneja product and the evening was awash with such top-notch personalities as Subhash Ghai, Shatrughan Sinha, Jaya Bachchan, Danny Denzongpa, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Anil Kapoor, Romesh Sharma, Tushar Kapoor, Gulshan Grover, Kanwaljeet, Shailendra Singh, Rakesh Bedi, Rameshwari, Zarina Wahab, Satish Shah, Luv Sinha… to name a few…!

The proceedings started with an A/V comprising some 30 stars, who waxed eloquent about their Guru with such fond feelings and tenderness that everybody watching it went wistfully nostalgic and there were so many moist eyes and lumps in the throats all over!

After the A/V, Tom Alter, who was the master of ceremonies, called Shatrughn Sinha to present Taneja Sahib before those assembled. And Shatru did it in his own high-flown, flowery style. The Bihari babu was in element that day and broke into his typical sense of humour with great abandon – now throwing a jibe at Subhash Ghai… now going effusive about Taneja Sahib… now slipping into his signature, ‘I, Me, Myself’ mould (which is cute, actually)… in sum, Shatru was a blast!

Now Taneja Sahib walked up to the rostrum and he was given a standing ovation by his wards. Visibly overwhelmed, he made a little speech about…
‘When I think as to what I have given to the world – the answer is right in front of me! It is you! You are my legacy, my payback to the world! You are my treasure and because of you I feel I am the richest man on earth!’

Hands clapped and eyes oozed gratitude from his bachcha log!

Taneja Sahib was also all praise for Shashi Ranjan, ‘His contribution to the foundation has been paramount!’ And he did not forget to mention Anu Ranjan, either, ‘whose untiring efforts have made this evening so special!’

On his turn, Subhash Ghai, too, went all gushy over the Roshan Taneja Effect and finally, Jaya Bachchan took to the mike and egged everybody on to chorus with her – (3 claps), ‘We love you, Sir’ and the house resounded to that.

Ceremony over, everybody headed towards the Cocktails corner, where a sumptuous spread awaited them. For once, all of them dropped their defences and let their hair down.

Jaya chose to sit in the main hall only and was joined variously by Anu, Shashi, Danny, Romesh Sharma (with sonny Karan in tow), Om Puri, Shakti Kapoor and so on. But Anil Dhawan had perched himself on a chair near her from the beginning and didn’t budge till she decided to leave, which was well past midnight.

That actually was the Sur of the occasion – time had stopped to matter… what mattered was the hugging, the back-slapping and the horsing around to their hearts’ content. They had a whale of a time and what made the evening uniquely special was the infectious camaraderie amongst this wild bunch, all of whom owed their genesis to one matrix – Roshan Taneja!

Glory be!