‘Sexual orientation is personal choice’

Manoj Bajpayee

By Priyanka Bhadani

Manoj Bajpayee, who would soon be seen in Tevar, is really excited to reunite with friend Hansal Mehta for his next venture. The director has offered him the lead role in his film inspired by the real life story of an Aligarh Muslim University professor.
Just days before he was to retire, the professor, Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras, was suspended after being filmed on spy-cam by the students while having consensual sex with a rickshawallah, in his apartment within the campus. After a few months, the professor was found dead; the reason of his death remains ambiguous.
Bajpayee, who is currently in the midst of other projects, says that he has started reading documents on the story of the professor. “But the real preparation will only begin in December,” says the actor, for whom Mehta is a “bum-chum”. The two had worked together earlier in 2000 on the film, Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar. “He is a friend before being a film-maker. And since I am working with a friend, I’ve to make sure that I just don’t portray the character well, but also make him comfortable so that he doesn’t have any complains from me,” says Bajpayee for whom this will be the first time that he shall be playing a gay character.
When quizzed on whether he is comfortable doing a character like this, he remarks, “Why should it be uncomfortable? I don’t think sexuality is anybody’s business. It doesn’t make a person. It’s a personal choice. But yes, in the film you will see how it comes about. It will explore various aspects of the subject.”
Bajpayee says that though it’s too early to talk about the film, he has gone through the story and has, “a lot of regard for the characters in the film.”
“We are making a film on a character and not on sexuality. It will be his journey,” says the actor, also stating that he still needs time to understand the character completely to talk more about it.