Piyush Mishra: Anurag is like a younger brother to me

Mumbai, Dec 3 (IANS) Between shifting homes in Mumbai, working on multiple acting assignments, and touring with his band 'Ballimarah', actor, lyricist, and singer Piyush Mishra is furiously writing new songs to release an album in March 2025.

Not to mention, he recently wrote lyrics for two Anurag Kashyap films (yet to be released, besides 'Gulal' of course)... "Anurag is like a younger brother to me. I remember him coming to watch my plays while he was still a college student in Delhi," Mishra tells IANS.

You can ask him how he manages to do all this, and he innocently replies, "Because I am not talented, but gifted."

For someone who has closely followed the Delhi theatre scene, it is impossible not to recall his famous 'Hamlet' and 'An Evening with Piyush Mishra' (1996), when he would perform solo for more than two hours at a stretch.

This Gwalior-born and National School of Drama (NSD) graduate, however, adds that his era on the Capital's stage was not just romantic as many observes make that out to be, "Of course I was completely immersed in theatre, working for more than 10 hours a day, but that was also the time when my arrogance always got better of me, nothing existed beyond me. My everyday routine was leaving early for a rehearsal space and returning home drunk. I just do not know how my wife Priya managed to keep things afloat, emotionally," he laments.

His first stint in Mumbai was a disaster, when he played a small part in Mani Ratnam's film 'Dil Se'.

Mishra admits that the homecoming to Delhi after that was extremely heartbreaking.

While many of his contemporaries like Manoj Bajpayee, Ashish Vidyarthi, and Gajaraj Rao had shifted to the city of dreams and were already finding their feet there, Mishra did a play in the Capital 'Hamlet Bombay Nahin Jayega'.

"I was forty years old, my first son was born, and I knew 'if not now, it is never'. So, I made the move. Yes, I was nervous," he admits. And this 1983 batch NSD pass-out finally took the plunge and was seen in major roles in movies like 'Maqbool', 'Gangs of Wasseypur', 'Gulaal', and 'Rockstar'.

"I was a changed man, almost metamorphosed. There was no arrogance, I opened my eyes to the world which had so much more to offer. Also, when we were doing theatre, there was a blindfold of leftist ideas. But tell me, who does not want a comfortable car and a nice house to live in?," he smiles.

But this has not left Mishra bitter about theatre, in fact, he regularly does shows of his play 'Gagan Damama Bajiyo' across the country and can many times be seen at NSD and with the ASMITA theatre group team in New Delhi.

"How can I still not be attracted to NSD and other theatre groups? The former is a place that taught me everything I know. My only regret is that I focussed completely on acting, ignoring many other things that institution could have taught me," he concludes.