A Real Stand-Up Guy
A Real Stand-Up Guy
Kunal Vijayakar
Nice guys can finish first, too. Kunal is living proof. The food-loving man is a successful house of talent, be it as a theatre actor, director, a TV show host, a comedian, a columnist, and even an artist!
Text & Photographs: Farzana Contractor
You can’t help but like this roly poly, sweet ball of fun and humour. Except there is a serious danger of us losing out on the roly polyness. Kunal is on some kind of diet and determined to start looking like Sad Sack! Those from my era know who Sad Sack is.
“How can you, Kunal!” I exclaim as I enter his cute and compact apartment in Bombay and notice his 'slimness'. “That’s your USP…,” I tease him. But seriously, even though Kunal himself cracks jokes on himself being ‘rotund’, I don’t think he is or ever was fat; plump, maybe. Round-faced and happy. How foodies should be. The ones who love food with a passion and eat without guilt.
The second thing I immediately noticed was his lower half – he was in shorts. While his upper half was all ready to face my camera, his lower half was in chaddis! “Oh, oh,” he goes, questioningly, “you will shoot full body or what?” Kunal can crack you up every minute you are with him.
No wonder that awesome TV show, The Week That Wasn’t is about to complete 15 years, uninterrupted. Very few shows have that kind of run. But then it is a hilarious show; witty, satirical, well-enacted. But more about that later.
First let’s deal with Kunal, the foodie. I think the term foodie itself got popularised with Kunal’s show on Times Now, called The Foodie. “What year was that, somewhere in the mid '90s? And how did it come about?” I enquire.
“You knowwww, I have to rewind a little to come to that. You remember when Malavika Sangghvi was editor of Bombay Times, I used to write a column, which I really enjoyed, called Fool’s Stop. It was a broad spectrum column where I had the freedom to write what I wanted. Humour, of course. Dare I say, something like Busybee’s Round And About. Then one day when Malavika was not holding that post, my column was axed! Since I really had fun writing it, I went and met the next editor-in-charge, who was Ayaz Memon. Ayaz said, I want you to write about food, not humour. So be it. I started writing a food column called, Cordon Blah. Which was also fun.”
“After that my writing went on and on, for Hindustan Times, DNA, Mahanagar, The Week, where my column was called Funda Mental! Then in 2006, Times was launching their TV channel, Times Now and they approached me to do a show. How could I refuse? This was right up my street and the money was good! So there I was, living it up as The Foodie. All I did was eat. Go here and eat, go there and eat, everywhere I went I ate! And my foodie journey began. You see, until then all cookery shows on TV had chefs stirring the pot, politely teaching you how to cook. There was only one show, Vinod Dua's, where he went out on the streets and to restaurants and ate.”
“You also went travelling a bit… in India and overseas? I remind him. “Oh my God, how can I forget that! I went to every corner of India. But everywhere I went, UpperCrust had been! It was unbelievable, but you stole a march over all of us. And I have to thank you, for we dipped into all the research and stories done by UpperCrust quite freely. I used to say, ‘Lets see where Farzana has been and follow her!’” “Well, thank you for acknowledging. Even Siddharth Kak used to tell me that when he did his show on Star TV.” I replied happily.
If I have to understand why Kunal is so happy and grounded and likeable, I have to delve a bit into his childhood and growing up days. He is a Mazagaon boy. Grew up at the Docks, where his marine engineer father worked. “Oh my, I can’t tell you what a happy phase of life that was. As a shippy, my dad had access to great booze, not that I was drinking as a kid, but it made them happy. So we went dancing and singing, playing tennis… and at home there were always cans of ham, cheeses, and chocolates. Mazagaon at that time was all Anglo Indians, so you can imagine.” And then tragedy struck and Kunal’s dad died in a ship explosion.
“And mum returned to her maiden home with us in tow, me six years old and my sister two,” says Kunal gravely. The only time his voice dips…
But as I see it, it was another good phase in his life. You see, Kunal comes from very decent Pathare Prabhu stock. An extended family of two sets of grandparents, from both maternal and paternal sides had him spoilt for life. He was now living at Chowpatty in a family- owned mansion where both grandfathers loved food and the good life, and who loved travelling the world bringing back recipes that their wives would cook from. “So there I was at 10, sitting in the kitchen watching them cook. Both my grandmothers’ homes were in adjoining buildings, so I would run to and fro between both. Good thing was, in those days, there was no taboo, no hassles with children being in the kitchen and so we had a rocking time. My dad’s dad loved cooking on the terrace and we would be the little helpers.” By ‘we’, Kunal means he and his cousin, Rahul Velkar, another genuine foodie (who we wrote about in the previous issue), with who Kunal has travelled the world and eaten at the best of restaurants, especially in London.
That was the foodie Kunal.
Let’s talk about the actor Kunal.
“Raell Padamsee was working on a play for children and she asked me to come audition for a part. Cyrus Broacha, who I had met fleetingly only once before, was casting director and he thought although I was quite bad at the auditioning, my face would work for the role. The play was called Alibaba and Bablu the Bear, and you can guess who the bear was!”
That apparently started a good friendship between the two who, with their common love for food and drink, went on some great culinary odysseys, apart from teaming up for the famous, The Week That Wasn’t. “This is such a superhit show, we have been shooting every Wednesday for it for the past 15 years. And believe me between a cast of three of us, we have enacted 600 roles, each. That’s 3,120 roles over the years!” I have to admit, I love it when Kunal plays a woman, he is just so good at that. I asked him to tell me who he really enjoyed portraying… "Mayawati'," he replies, "and Jayalalitha, who sued us!" That apart, Kunal as Usha Uthup, Sheila Dixit, Sushma Swaraj, was terrific. As also, Bappi Lahiri, Nitin Gadkari, Sharad Pawar, and Narendra Modi… Don’t know how he does it, guess it's called talent. A blessing from God.
After Bablu The Bear, Kunal never stopped acting on stage. Theatre also threw up another good friend for him. Boman Irani. It was when Alyque Padamsee was casting for Roshini, a musical, that Shiamak Davar brought Boman to Alyque. “You wont believe it, he had just one, three-minute song, that he would come on stage, belt out and leave! And he became all the rage for that. A superstar!” Then came Family Ties 2 and I Am Not Bajirao, and the rest is history. “A historical fact which also includes the fact that, Zenobia, Boman’s wife cooks the best Parsi food, I have eaten, anywhere!” concludes Kunal.
Talking of Parsi food, which is among Kunal’s favourites, he also loves eating at Cyrus’ home. “Look, Cyrus’ mom, Olivia is Anglo Indian and dad, Parsi, can there be a better combo, arre the food in their house is out of this world!”
I don’t know how the subject veered back to food, but it did. And we were now talking about our favourite cuisine. “Indian cuisine for me ranks the highest. I can go anywhere in the world and eat the best from assorted cuisines, but hey, in about five, six days my palate starts protesting. I want my Indian!
Agree. No cuisine in the world can match up to Indian cuisine. The diversity, variety, textures and tastes are unmatchable, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, we have it all.
“I was in Kashmir recently and I had the time of my life at the wazwan. Likewise in Goa, for which my heart beats all the time. I have to narrate the time when Sylvie (Sylvester da Cunha, the advertising guru), said to me, he wished to go there, open up his ancestral home in Arpora, chill for a few weeks, would I join him?” Of course I would, what a question! And what a time I had. We drank ourselves silly, like fish and then sauntered out every evening in search of great places to eat. Will never forget those days!”
Incidentally, Kunal worked at Da Cunha Associates for 11 years. As copywriter and visualiser. To him, Sylvie is like God. Let’s hear him, “Sylvie is my mentor, my second father. I treat him like God. I owe him. Everything I know, I learnt from him. I used to talk like him, walk like him, even drink like him! Many afternoons I have lunched at The Yacht Club, just soaking in every word he spoke. It was he who welcomed me into serious theatre, with Topsy Turvy which he directed. He is a great man.”
Now for the last little bit about Kunal. He was terrible at studies. Pathetic. Low-grade student, all his life (but he loved drawing). He even flunked in the 12th standard. Twice! “What could I do? I hated Science. I should never have opted for it. Wasted three years of my life. Two because I failed in 12th and wasted doing the 11th standard when sensibly I could have gone straight to JJ School of Art, as I eventually did, after 10th standard itself.” Read it again, you will figure out what Kunal means. Poor chap. Wanted to study architecture, but his grades did not permit. Even admission at the catering college, his second option, drew a blank. But you know what, it doesn’t matter, Kunal is a success in life. Turn back to the opening page of this article, check out the painting in the background; that’s a Kunal masterpiece. Good stuff, right?
Well, as I started to pack up to leave, after walloping Jafferbhai’s biryani, I turned to Kunal and asked, “How come you never married?” “What to tell you, never happened. There were a couple of long relationships, but didn’t culminate. Then I got into the habit of being by myself, pursuing other passions, food is a good substitute, right?”
Never say never, I said to him. And so folks, UpperCrust readers, here I am, advocating for one of the nicest guys there is, let's get him hooked! He is a good catch!!