She lied to her parents and came to Mumbai

Behind every Bollywood debut is the hope of a success story waiting to happen. But for the scores of aspiring youngsters who land on Mumbai’s shores defying their “small-towner” tag and conservative parents, armed only with their dreams, a debut itself is a success story. Actress Pia Bajpai’s tale is no different and if anything it is, in fact, inspiring. Soon to be making her entry into Bollywood with Syed Ahmad Afzal’s Yeh Laal Rang, Pia tells us her story of making it in an industry rife with stereotypes and dynastic set ups that make it a nightmare for “outsiders”.   

“Many people wouldn’t even give me an audition.” Pia says that it wasn’t the rejections, but reasons behind them that confused her more. “They would tell me things like I need ‘hot’ looks or a ‘girl-next-door’ look and I didn’t know what they meant.” Coming from a small north Indian village called Etawah, Pia had no Bollywood dreams initially. She only wanted “freedom”.

“I first moved to Delhi not because I wanted to become an actress but because I didn’t want to stay in a small town. My father didn’t want me to leave because he was worried about how I would survive.” Once in Delhi, Pia gave tuitions to children to make ends meet. But that had its own challenges. “The houses I went to had air-conditioned rooms and it felt so nice. So I used to give homework to kids and go to sleep. One-day one of the parents caught me taking a nap and I was fired the next day! And this didn’t go well with my father, who would scare me by telling me that I would do nothing worthwhile with my life.”

With things not working out for her in Delhi, Pia had to return to Etawah and that is when she came up with a ‘plan’. She thought of lying to her parents and going to Mumbai, as otherwise they wouldn’t allow. She says, “My father was unrelenting. He would say, ‘If you dare to go to Mumbai, I’ll get you married in the village’. My mother, on the other hand, would watch all TV soaps. So I told her that I got a role in one of those serials and they were also taking care of my stay.”

Once in Mumbai, she got a job as a receptionist. “Back then I didn’t even have money to afford a PG, so I stayed in the office. Money was such a big problem that I had to choose between skipping a meal and taking the bus to visit production houses.” And if money was hard to come by, motivation was even harder. “Several people tried to pull me down and told me to go back. I was a star in my hometown; I would ride my father’s jeep and even beat up men. Also my biggest pressure was that my parents would constantly ask me to come back.”

However, things started to brighten up when she began landing on some voice-over jobs. “I started doing some dubbing. I would get around Rs 300 to dub one line. I still remember, the first time I got that money. It felt like it was Rs 3 lakhs. But I wanted to be an actor. So I started focussing more on ads.”

Pia has worked with Amitabh Bachchan and M.S. Dhoni on campaigns that got her instant recognition. She shares her experience of working with Big B. “My hands were literally shaking and I didn’t know what to tell him. Then he suddenly came and shook hands with me and said ‘I am Amitabh Bachchan’. That was a big day for me.” While it didn’t get her a Bollywood debut, it led to more than a dozen big projects between 2008 and 2015 down South with leading actors. “It was difficult to find movies here, but when I met Kunal Shah (her casting director) I landed Yeh Laal Rang in just a few months,” Pia says.

Whenever her mother would see or hear anything negative about the movie industry, she would call Pia. “My mother was always worried about me,” Pia says. With the recent Pratyusha Banerjee suicide case adding to the industry’s bad reputation, we ask her how does she deal with pressure and failure. “There is a lot of pressure, sometimes it’s as if everything is working against you. But if you keep your options open, you will get more out of life. Back then, I had no plan B. I have seen some very tough times. But that’s why I value my success, because no one supported me. You should promise yourself to never give up.”