Passionate Paresh!

Paresh Rawal has garnered accolades for his stellar performances. With sequels churning because of his roles like the recent flick ‘Guest In London’, is Paresh Rawal our first character-actor superstar?

My fascination with the rock-solid acting of Paresh Rawal is probably as good as when I started understanding what is good and bad cinema. Paresh Rawal announced himself to us with a small yet very impactful role of a ‘man Friday’ rogue called Annu Bhai.

Annu Bhai was a very short role yet it made an impact as big as the other two major villains in the movie Prem Chopra and Anupam Kher. Paresh Rawal almost stole the show with his Annu Bhai act simply because the way he could emote with the eyes.

The audience took notice and then came that role of the man with a maniacal sadist laughter in ‘Naam’. The gangster chief called Rana. It was Rana's entrapment of an innocent unsuspecting Sanjay Dutt, which made ‘Naam’ such an interesting watch.

One can safely conclude that had Paresh Rawal not put in such life into the sadist Rana, Sanjay Dutt's character would not have evoked so much sympathy either. Paresh Rawal had arrived with a big bang with ‘Naam’. Just when I thought Mahesh Bhatt and Paresh Rawal combo will never be able to better themselves and then came this movie called ‘Sir’.

Trust me if you have not yet seen this underrated 1990s gangster classic, you have missed Paresh and Naseeruddin Shah's best masala movie performance till date. Paresh plays a ruthless from the outside but eaten by guilt golden-heart man called Veljibhai.

The scene, where Paresh Rawal insists on carrying Naseeruddin Shah's suitcase on his head while dropping him to the station and narrates his own chemistry with his father is the stuff of cinematic acting legends. Watch it on YouTube.

Today, I write not about Paresh's tremendous acting calibre, but how this man has ruled the Box Office quietly and how much the masses love him and yet has been ignored. Our first across languages character actor superstar, Paresh Rawal has ruled across languages like nobody's business. The only other man to do it to a limited extent is Rajnikant.

Paresh Rawal's phenomenal talent was exploited to the hilt by two men in supreme form. One is Mahesh Bhatt and the other, thank you God almighty for that, was Ram Gopal Varma (RGV). The 90s was the time when RGV could touch anything into engrossing hypnotic level cinema. RGV used him in smashing south blockbusters like ‘Kshanak Kshanam’ and ‘Money’.

You should watch these movies to see how stole the wow from such icons of southern cinema like Venkatesh and Sridevi to name a few. Paresh's huge popularity with the audience was a contributor to Akshay Kumar's declining career's revival with the ‘Hera Pheri’ series.

Babu Rao Ganpat Rao Apte drove audiences to the theatre with his solid acting and zero social media promotion as it did not exist then. ‘Hera Pheri’ gave Akshay Kumar that launch pad and since then he did not look back. But when ‘Hera Pheri 2’ came audience went back again and again only for Babu Bhayya.

Paresh-Akshay came back to rule big time with ‘Oh My God’, again a movie, which ruled the BO only due to Paresh's cynical sharp questions that rocked our blind religious beliefs. ‘Atithi Tum KabJaoge’ was such a huge hit again because of his GajodharChacha.

A man as irritating as a typical unwanted elder guest and as endearing as the same. Paresh Rawal's act taught us the value of relationships and an unexpected bonanza for its makers. so much that today a sequel ‘Guest in London’ is being attempted.

Ask yourself only this, which character actor drove such huge numbers to make Bollywood producers attempt a sequel?

I repeat, Paresh Rawal is our first and only across languages character-actor superstar and mark my words ‘Guest In London’ will only underline this fact yet again. Hype or no hype Paresh Rawal is loved by the audience big time.