Rahul Bose

he did his first play Tom, the Piper’s Son. He enjoyed acting but his mother introduced him into sports and young Rahul got involved in sports from rugby to boxing to cricket. In fact he was given coaching in cricket by India’s greatest Cricket sensation Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, father of popular Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan. During college he played both Rugby and Boxing and won a silver medal for boxing in the Western India Championships. Rahul Bose was in the First Rugby Team of India Readers would be surprised to know that Rahul Bose not only a professional Boxer but was even a profession in Rugby and was one of the team members who participated in the India’s First Rugby Team. So readers will wonder if Rahul was so good at sports why did he select career in films. Well Rahul, since childhood had passion for creative art and he displayed his art in class I when he did his first play but his mother was not interested and did not want his son Rahul to choose cinema his family belonged to Elite of society and working in films was down grade. After Mother’s death Rahul Bose took to creative writing In his mother’s life, Rahul never disappointed her and did as per her choice but when she expired he began his tryst in creative writing and took up job as a copywriter in the famous Advertising Company Rediffusion. His work was so intelligent that very soon he graduated to become the advertising creative director in the company. While working in Advertising agency Rahul Bose came in close contact to Rahul D'Cunha, Ad Filmmaker who created the famous Amul Advertisement. Incidentally D’Cunha was also running a theatre group and Rahul Bose had done few plays in his theatre like Topsy Turvey and Are There Tigers In The Congo? D'Cunha's aunt, who was a casting director in films, happened to watch Rahul in one of the play and was overwhelmed by his acting genius. She was casting actors for director Dev Benegal's film English, August and asked Rahul Bose if he would work in films. Rahul Bose nodded and thus he got his first film 'August'. Readers would be enlightened to know Dev Benegal held the prestige of making India’s First film in English and after August the trend began and such films were labeled by English media as ‘Hinglish’ films.

With August Rahul Bose was recognized internationally Filmmaker Dev Benegal was so impressed by Rahul Bose’s excellent Screen Test that he immediately gave him a character actor role of a civil servant Agastya Sen in the film 'August'. The movie was a huge success as it was bought by Hollywood Film Company 20th Century Fox for distribution. This was 20th Century Fox’s First Indian film and with this film they paved way for distribution and film production in Indian cinema. The film won many awards at international film festivals and gave recognition to Rahul Bose as a new actor on horizon. Rahul Bose brief stint into TV The success of August opened doors for Rahul to act in India’s First English TV serial A Mouthful of Sky. In addition Rahul Bose also got an anchor’s job at the reputed BBC TV network and co-hosted with British actress Laila Rouass in the BBC World TV’s show Style! Rahul Bose wins his first International Award After the hit film August film director Dev Benegal started his second film, Split Wide Open and approached Rahul Bose to play a key role of a roving water vendor. Rahul Bose known for method acting did a rigorous research to get into the skin of the character of roving vendor. He spent many days in Mumbai slums and keenly observed the drug dealers. Thus when he finally portrayed the role he was so excellent that he fetched his first award - Silver Screen Award for Best Asian Actor at the 2000 Singapore International Film Festival for his performance. Thus Rahul Bose won International acclaim and acted in the English version of Tim Murari's play, The Square Circle at Leicester Haymarket in England. Rahul Bose’s journey in mainstream Bollywood has been failure Though Rahul Bose made his entry in Bollywood with veteran director Govind Nihalani’s Thakshak opposite Bollywood superstar Ajay Devgn but the film failed. Rahul played a vicious villain in the film but his efforts went into drain. Similarly all the films that Bose did in Bollywood like Bombay Boys (With Naseeruddin Shah), Chameli (With Kareena Kapoor), Dil Dhadakne Do (Anil Kapoor), Pyaar Ke Side Effects and Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam, (both with sex queen Malika Sherawat) etc were flops and his talent went unrecognized. Rahul Bose took film direction in 2001 Rahul Bose in 2001 jumped into film direction with his own script and directed his first Hinglish film Everybody Says I'm Fine! The film had an offbeat story exposing the real face of the Elite Class society. The film depicted how they hide their traumas of life and pretend to be fine and lead an empty life! The film fetched Bose runner-up John Schlesinger Award for best directorial debut at the 2003 at Palm Springs International Film Festival. His next film as director was again a thought provoking called The Whisperers which was screened at South Asian Film Festival in New York City and won applause.