Friday, June 23, 2006

Rustic Charm

Modelling world is all about glamour, fame and quick money, but only for a few of them. For the rest it’s all about aspirations, hard work, splashing money on themselves, running from door to door for some work and pepping up by friends who falsely tell them that they are no less than Bollywood filmstars. Welcome to the vicious world of the male models, especially Jats, who rule the ramp in Delhi and few, have made it big in Bollywood too.
However, their success story is not a typical Bollywood success story of the 90’s and 2000, but of chasing the big Bombay dream of making it big and getting rich overnight typical of the movies made in the decade of 70s and 80s. It’s all about existential angst and toiling to succeed with very few of them making the cut.
Delhi for these aspiring Jat models is a stepping stone and also a litmus test. Once they prove themselves here, only then they can aspire to make it big in Bollywood and the fashion and advertising industry. Coming from suburbs of Delhi and small towns of Haryana and some even from Rajasthan, the Jats are smart, tall and well built, almost everything that an aspiring model can dream of. But most of them lack in personality, education, are not fluent with English and are not refined.
Most of the successful Jat models had almost everything in them. However, for the rest of the lot in their villages and localities, these Jat models and actors are Idols. They want to emulate them and for this they keep on splashing money for gymnasium membership fee, traveling, portfolios and getting the right looks, etc. The list is endless. Ajay Pal, a Jat model hailing from Nagaur in Rajasthan says, “It’s a struggle out there. There roughly are more than a thousand aspiring male models in Delhi. So it’s all about making an impression on the choreographers, keeping yourself fit, boast of a good portfolio and having a good personality.” Ajay, who’s a student of Hansraj College and stays in a rented accommodation in North Campus has done a TV Commercial for ICICI Bank and also worked on a television serial. “I spend almost seven to eight grand on hair cut, gym and travel; expenses a month. It’s not easy. You have to go back again and again to choreographers. The first assignment I landed up was for a shoot of Honda Activa that was given to me by the photographer who shot my portfolio,” he adds.
However, with Ajay coming from a well off family, so he can spend money and now with work coming survival is not a problem for him.
First runner-up of Grasim India 2006, Nishant Dahiya says, “The basic problem of lot of Jat models coming from Haryana and suburban villages and towns of Delhi that they are not fit to become models. They don’t have the finesse and sophistication. They are misguided by friends of their locality and villages that they resemble a Bollywood hero and thus the aspiration to become a model come on to their minds. They go on splashing money on themselves and keep on struggling in Delhi. It feels bad to see them struggling. Most of these struggling models do a free shoot too to boast their CVs.”
“I want to have a safe place in Bollywood. I want to do a stunning role like Manoj Bajpai in Shool,” says a resume of an upcoming Jat model from Delhi. Another Jat model spends around Rs 20,000 on his maintenance per month. “One has to take supplements which costs a lot to keep those muscles in the right place. Then going to a proper gym with proper facilities, parlour, etc costs a lot,” he adds. Says Rajat Choudhary, twice body building champion from Delhi University hailing from Badarpur, “I had a good physique so I tried my hand in modeling. Did couple of ramps, earned some money also, before getting a break with a production house to shoot a film on Assam Rifles. Once the shooting of the movie is done, I’ll think about modeling as a career.”
However, Delhi-based Nishant, comes from an Army background, and did his software engineering from REC Kurukshetra. He was working with Wipro, as a desktop engineer in their backend operations in Okhla before he decided to enter the contest. “I resigned from my job to participate in Grasim Mr India contest. Since the age of 20 I started dreaming of becoming a model. But I wanted to start from the right platform so I never tried it before participating in the contest. After the launchpad, work started coming smoothly to me,” he adds.
The contest also gave him a chance to work with the best in the industry. “It was free grooming for fifteen days for me. Walking on the ramp is an art and I learnt it there. Lot of these aspiring models spend loads of money attending grooming classes, etc.”
Nishant’s is one success story.
Top Fashion photographer Tarun Khiwal feels strongly for them, “Jats are really very good. Some of the best models these days are coming from this area. Some of them look like Italians. Almost 60 per cent of them are worth being models. All they need is some training to deal with this market.”