Sahil Vaid, who plays the visually-challenged but extremely positive JP in Dil Bechara, chatted with The Telegraph on the process of playing the character and why we need to look at mental health from a different perspective.
What was your understanding of JP and how did you go about playing him?
An old friend of mine told me, ‘I almost forgot you could pull off serious roles’. I realised that I’ve suffered from this lack of sense of humour in real life, but in movies, I’ve only played funny (laughs). JP transitions into such a mature character when he loses his eyesight. When you are part of the process too much, you lose track of the character, you forget that there is an outside perspective to your performance.
That’s coming now, when people are watching the movie. I am thankful that someone tried something different with me, and that credit goes to my director (Mukesh Chhabra). I have done comic roles in Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania and Badrinath Ki Dulhania and he cast me in such a serious role, even after seeing those films. The best thing is he didn’t tell me to concentrate on the sensitive part... he just told me to take it on as any other role. So whatever you see of JP on screen is all credit to Mukesh.
Before Dil Bechara, in keeping with your screen image, were you only offered comic roles?
Yes, I have been very worried that people will only cast me in similar roles, which has been happening also. But every now and then, people do experiment with me. Because I just can’t only be the good guy, that person in the room who always smiles and is always happy. Having said that, I am also aware of the fact that I am a person who comes from nowhere. For me to be working with such big people, like say Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Sushant Singh Rajput or amazing actors like Saswata Chatterjee who I really love, or Swastika Mukherjee... these are veterans and if you compare their filmography with mine, I am a child in front of them.
So I sometimes feel like okay, alright, I am typecast, but if I put my foot down, I am also scared that I may stop getting work. That fear is very real. Because in this business, if you say ‘no’ to someone, that goes a long way and people kind of take it personally. I am in no position to choose. I can’t say, ‘I am sorry I have played the hero’s friend enough number of times’. Of course, there are people who say,
‘We want you to play this part in our film... feel free to say ‘no’ if you want to’. Via this interaction, I want to tell directors to please experiment with me... I loved doing Bank Chor where I was cast as a psychopath, or the web series called The Socho Project that I am currently doing where I play a ruthless music company boss... the behind-the-table devil kind of person (laughs).
How did you walk the tightrope of playing JP, whose medical condition calls for sympathy and yet he’s cynical and has a biting sarcasm?
JP is a far more positive person than Sahil Vaid. Somewhere down the line, I learnt a lot from JP. I interacted with a lot of visually-challenged people to play this part, and what I was surprised by was how happy they all were. I couldn’t find the logic behind their happiness. Us feeling sorry for them is pointless because those who are born blind are as ‘normal’ as you and I are. They know their surroundings better than a person with sight. And then there are those who lose their eyesight later in life... it’s tougher for them, like it is for JP, because it’s not so much the loss of eyesight that affects them, it’s psychologically the life that they have to change now. JP already knew that he was going to go blind. A guy like that has come to terms with the fact that, ‘Nahin bachne waali hain aankhein... I better make that Bhojpuri film that I wanted to make’. I took a lot from JP... if I could say, ‘Thank you’ to JP, I would.
A majority of your scenes in the film are with Sushant Singh Rajput. Have you changed in the last month since his unfortunate demise?
I lost my dad a few years ago. That changed me as a person, and I thought I had seen it all, I felt nothing could get worse. And now I lose someone like Sushant, a guy who I thought would become a friend one day... JP and Manny have had a lot of conversations... I wanted to imagine a scenario where Sahil Vaid and Sushant Singh Rajput would have as many conversations. The worst thing that’s happened is the lockdown... it’s been hard on all of us because we couldn’t meet and grieve together... we could only do so over phone calls.
Over this last month, I have changed as a person. The word ‘gratitude’ has become very important for me. We keep forgetting we have a lot and still we complain we lot. ‘Yeh nahin hain, woh nahin hain’. We don’t care for what we have. If all that’s being said about Sushant’s mental health is true, then I should firstly, feel guilty because if I knew, I should have sat and talked to him. And second, I feel bad because I come from a society where the word ‘paagal’ is very normal and very loosely used. People from my society believe that going to a psychiatrist is abnormal. It’s so disturbing. We live in a society where you ask someone for help and they start judging you. Sushant’s loss is so huge... I can’t even put it into words. I have had a hard life and I can somehow mend myself. But I don’t think that’s the proper way to do it. I don’t know how long I will be able to do it but I do know that speaking to a therapist is nothing to be ashamed of. Our country needs to understand that.
