12 february 2018 http://www.openthemagazine.com 75my village,” he says. it’s not an easy attitude to keep up, especially
when you are part of an industry where every creature comfort
and household service is taken for granted—as long as you are
popular with audiences. But Mishra chooses to be different.
his compact apartment, complete with incense sticks,
tanpura musicand herbal tea, reflects the space he wishes to cre-
ate for those around him. “Closer to nature, closer to the sounds
and music of the world,” as he describes his ideal home. his
latest film Kadvi Hawa on climate change released in theatres
in late November. The film, he confesses,
was a brutal yet important wake-up call for
him, leading him to change the way he lives
his everyday life.
“We read about climate change, we feel it
in our immediate environment, yet there is
something that keeps us from acknowledg-
ing it. Maybe it is fear. Maybe it’s because we
have been so responsible in destroying our
environment that we don’t want to own up
to it. But the film forced me to look at the
issue and made me realise that it’s as
personal for me as it is for a farmer who is
directly affected by climate change,” says
Mishra, who plays the role of a blind farmer
trying hard to relieve his family from the
trauma of debt and thus find meaning
for his own existence. “i wasn’t just this
character. i had to remember that i was
the face of a man who is most affected by
climate change in the country, our farmer. i
had to feel his helplessness, or else i would
never be convincing enough.”
if not for Mishra, Kadvi Hawa wouldn’t
have been the film it is. he doesn’t just
perform the part, but lives it. Within the
inherent tragedy of the situation, he even
manages to evoke humour. Conveying the
inner conflict of a farmer without disem-
powering him is something only a fine
actor can pull off, and Mishra is flawless
in that aspect. a scene where he goes in
search of his missing son and falls to the
ground clawing at dry mud like a madman
speaks to you directly—to a point that it
makes you squirm.
“i met a blind man during the research
of the film and asked him just one question.
‘When i wake up i see the morning sun.
What do you see when you wake up?’ he said
he doesn’t see, but he hears. That response
changed my outlook towards this part and i
started drawing all my inspiration from the
sounds around me. That was the driving force
behind this part, how he reacts to the sounds
that the wind around him carries,” he says.
he lived in mud huts, ate and drank what villagers would
offer and slept on charpais under the trees to get a sense of what
a farmer’s life is really like. But the physical experience of the
film was just a part of it. “Certain roles change you forever. Not
because of what goes into the performance, but because of what
you take back from it. i realised that we live in a world where
we are fortunate we get to sit in our air-conditioned houses,
where there’s water in the tap and food to eat whenever we like.Anushree FAdnAvis