What’s the problem with Kay Kay?

In spite of being one of the most gifted actors of his generation, why does Kay Kay Menon remain an underachiever?

There are ‘stars,’ whose presence in a film is more important than their acting ability.   Then, there are pure ‘actors’ whose skills are more relevant than their brand names. In the second category is Irrfan Khan who has soared above the rest with his talent and some good luck, Boman Irani who has been special in both mainstream and offbeat cinema, Manoj Bajpai who has resurfaced after his career seemed to have come to a standstill and Kay Kay Menon. Some would say that these four actors are the best to have emerged in recent years; yet, Kay Kay continues to confound with his relative lack of success.

Kay Kay is a tremendous actor, but the inconsistency in his output has been somewhat disappointing. After his days on stage and television, he started out with films like Naseem and Bhopal Express set against the backdrop of the Bhopal gas tragedy in which he played the character of a supervisor with the Union Carbide. In Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi, he was brilliant as a young man for whom political idealism is more important than his romantic relationship.

At that time, two films made by a promising young director named Anurag Kashyap were rotting in the cans: Paanch and Black Friday, an excellent film based on the 1993 Bombay blasts which was released two years after it was wrapped up. Both of them had Kay Kay. His actual releases appeared to suggest that he would stick to arthouse films, not the sort of approach Hindi cinema which is always on the lookout for fine actors with great screen presence would have benefited from.

It was in 2004 that two mainstream films were released one after the other. The first was Deewar-Let’s Bring Our Heroes Home, an insufferable mishmash about the escape of Indian prisoners from a Pakistani prison. In his badly written role of the Pakistani jailor, Kay Kay had but a handful of scenes. But the best scene in the film was the one in which he confronts Amitabh Bachchan, who played the character of a prisoner of war captured in 1971. After watching him perform, Bachchan reportedly confessed that though he hadn’t heard much about Kay Kay before acting with him, he had decided to watch each and every film of the actor which had been released earlier. This was the beginning of a career in which accolades weren’t hard to come by. But roles certainly were, which seems strange.

In Ram Gopal Varma’s Sarkar released after Deewar, his performance as the wayward and rebellious son of a man who doesn’t need the law to run his private empire (Bachchan, as Sarkar) was outstanding. Interestingly, the actor managed to get another scene in which his character confronts Bachchan’s. It was the turning point of the film and, this time round, Kay Kay stole the focus with his raw intensity.

From Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi to Sarkar, the young actor had taken just one year to prove he was someone to look out for. So, what happened thereafter? Exactly the opposite of what should have happened.

The bright side of his story was that he has showcased his range as an actor. In Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd, he played a Bengali man travelling on his honeymoon with his freedom-seeking wife. Clumsy, sexist, initially confused and irritated during his struggle to accept that his wife’s demure exterior was a charade, his performance overshadowed those of the other actors in the ensemble cast which included Irani and Shabana Azmi.

Black Friday, a landmark in modern Hindi cinema, had him in the role of Rakesh Maria, the well-known cop who investigated the Bombay blasts case. It was a remarkably restrained performance which made everybody sit up and take note of Maria, not Kay Kay the man. In Life in a…Metro, he played a married man who misbehaves with his lover and is disgustingly rude to his wife who has left her job to look after their child. People hated this man, the sort of victory every actor aspires for.

Because of pathetic marketing, few saw The Stoneman Murders in which he is a ruthless sub-inspector suspended for killing a drug addict in custody. He can expect to find his way back into his job only if he manages to nab the serial killer whom the media has named the ‘stoneman.’ As the  cop who must dodge the official police patrol jeep as he tries to nab the killer, he delivered one of the best performances of his career.

If Haider were to be alienated from politics, not many will deny that Kay Kay in the role of the protagonist’s treacherous uncle was exceptional. Add Gulaal in which he is the hot-headed leader of a Rajputana movement and the list looks impressive, which sounds nice without doing fair to an actor of his class. Why?

Because Kay Kay has acted in many incredibly stupid films. Why, for instance, did he have to play that silly cameo in Lafangey Parindey? What made him act in disasters like Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam, Benny And Babloo, Raja Natwarlal and Drona which is possibly the worst superhero film this planet has ever seen?

Playing minor but powerful characters which were cut out for him  in good films like Shaurya,  Shahid and Bhindi Bazaar is fine. But acting in terrible films while knowing that some of his projects haven’t received proper viewership due to their small budget and the resulting limited reach has been a huge mistake. True, every fine actor has acted in horrible films. The difference is, their big or commercially viable projects – and at times, both – have been much more impactful than most quality films Kay Kay has acted in so far.

Think veteran Naseeruddin Shah. Naseer has such a long list of excellent films that few even remember that he showed up in Jackpot, which was released not long ago. On the other side of the spectrum is Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who is still very young but has a fine body of work already. What remains to be seen is his versatility.

Among the four actors mentioned at the outset, Irani has been seen in 3 Idiots, a few Shah Rukh Khan blockbusters, two Munnabhai films and some fine offbeat films. Irrfan has acted in Lunchbox, Life of Pi, Paan Singh Tomar and The Namesake.  These critically acclaimed films have catapulted him into the list of all-time greats already. Manoj Bajpai’s turn as Bhiku Mhatre in Satya is unlikely to disappear from public memory anytime soon. Then, there are films like Shool, Pinjar and Gangs of Wasseypur-Part 1, each of them a major event in Hindi cinema.

Kay Kay’s problem is that his characters have somehow failed to single-handedly dominate in any major film, which is his misfortune. Irani too has a similar problem, the difference being that he has managed to do a Happy New Year, which is bad but a colossal hit. He is now waiting for PK, which will be decent even if Aamir Khan and Raj Kumar Hirani try really hard to sabotage their own film. The important thing is, it will be another huge hit, which explains why Irani who is the chosen one for such projects is a more important player among the leading ‘character’ actors today.

The general perception about Kay Kay is that he is a reserved chap who doesn’t believe in networking, a huge drawback in the Hindi film industry where mediocre actors have been known to enter the big league simply because their PR is fantastic. At 48, he still has time. But years fly. He needs to learn these lessons, and really fast at that, if he wants to be up there with the best when history passes judgement on him a few decades later.

Maybe, he can seek some guidance from Anurag Kashyap. He has changed.