Chandan Roy became a household face as Vikas in Panchayat. Now he is stepping into a very different skin: a Mumbai cab driver brought to the brink in Aakhri Ride, a short film presented by Anurag Kashyap and Vasan Bala.
The role that hits close to home
In the film, Roy’s cabbie gives the audience a glimpse of how the city’s harsh realities can push ordinary people towards desperation. The actor, who hails from Mahnar in Bihar, says his own Mumbai years made that desperation easy to access.
“Today marks nine years of my time in Mumbai,” he told Hindustan Times. “Believe me, the boy who arrived nine years ago with a small suitcase — I still feel the exact same way today.”
That is a sharp turn from Vikas, the village office assistant he plays in Panchayat, the comedy that first made him a familiar face. Here, Roy is on Mumbai’s streets, playing someone for whom the city’s grind has become personal.
From Mahnar to the movies
Roy grew up far from the industry, with no internet and no one to guide him. Acting had interested him since school, so he chose mass communication as a bridge: it kept him close to cameras, lights, microphones and Bollywood news while he earned a living.
“I had no money, and one has to do a lot of buttering to the bosses, and I just couldn’t do that,” he said of picking media over a conventional desk job. “I thought, instead of going somewhere else to work and earn money, wouldn’t it be better if I joined media? Because here we would have cameras, lights, microphones.”
He credited his small-town upbringing for his work ethic. “Hard work and manual labour are taught deeply there,” he said. “Every morning I wake up with this exact energy.”
Why he signed Aakhri Ride
Roy says the decision came down to craft, story and one name. “I have been a long-time fan of Anurag sir,” he said, adding that Kashyap’s cinema taught him a great deal and having that name attached was “a huge deal”.
He still remembers his first near-meeting with the director. Coming out of an office after an audition, he saw Kashyap about to take a lift but did not have the courage to say hello. Then came the surprise. “He waved his hand. I also said ‘hi’ to him from a distance. I still remember that till today,” Roy recalled.
The film is written and directed by Yashoda Parthasarthy and Vijesh Rajan, produced by Ranjan Singh, Vishesh Agrawal, Rajan EPK and Anurag, and also features Kennedy actor Aamir Dalvi. It is streaming on the Oh Short Flips YouTube channel.
- Roy plays a Mumbai cab driver pushed to the edge by the city.
- The short is presented by Anurag Kashyap and Vasan Bala.
- Fans can watch it on the Oh Short Flips YouTube channel.
Source: Hindustan Times