While Robert De Niro played supporting actor

'The Godfather' star Robert De Niro has been in many many Hollywood thrillers in his illustrious career but I doubt if he ever dreamt that he would be relegated to playing a background junior artiste almost in out-focus in the latest thriller starring Tarun Tejpal.

The Tejpal thriller unravelled in all its glory in exotic locales like a corridor and a lift of a five-star hotel where he was staying. It’s an incredible irony that the whole drama was happening right outside De Niro’s suite while he was sleeping or doing whatever else he might have been doing. The superstar, De Niro, was away from the voyeuristic eyes of life’s movie camera which was busy recording the adventures of Tarun Tejpal. This basically means that the cinema of real life did not care about De Niro’s super stardom and just went about making its own real- life film starring Tarun Tejpal.

I would have given anything to see De Niro’s expression when he first got to know, after he went back to the US, what all was going on behind his back when he was here in India.

He would have recollected his conversations with the ultra dignified and suave Tarun Tejpal and the sweet and cute innocent girl who was delegated to look after him. And then bingo, what took off after that must have made his mouth open in shock when he heard about it. I have a strong feeling that if ever he is invited back to India he will do a background check 20 times before saying “yes” to anyone.

Not that it would result in him knowing any better because if none of the Tehelka magazine readers ever had an inkling that this could be the truth behind the most looked-up-to investigative journalist of all time, what could have De Niro found out?

All said and done, I don’t know if any Indian filmmaker could have ever roped De Niro to star in a Bollywood film but yes Tarun Tejpal quietly managed to make a real-life film right under De Niro’s nose.