A short interview with veteran, actor, lyricist and filmmaker Piyush Mishra

An artist is one who lives in the world that he creates for himself. An artist is the most selfcentered person you will ever meet; there is a reason why most great artists die alone, in miserable conditions. There is a reason why most of them battle depression, and why many succumb to it. It is a difficult life, one that of an artist. From the wife-beater Ernest Hemingway to the ‘infidel’ Pablo Picasso, each one has been known for the eccentricities their genius brought in them. It then appears to be a burden an artist must carry on his or her shoulders, a small price to pay, some would say, in exchange for such extraordinary talent. When the history of 21st century art will be written, several of its pages would be dedicated to one such man, whose arrogance and artistic pride would have destroyed his everything, but life had a different end in mind.

Piyush Mishra, the artist in question, is known to be a man of many talents. He is an actor, singer, lyricist, and scriptwriter, and he slips into each of these roles effortlessly. Mishra is an unquestionable talent, there is nothing that he cannot do, and he has no qualms in admitting it. Mishra, who was born as Priyakant Sharma in the small town of Gwalior, had a frustrating childhood, where he had to fight for everything that he is known for today. Much like the story of every small-towner, Mishra’s parents, too, disapproved of his artistic ambitions, and to make matters worse, Mishra was the adopted son of his bua, Taradevi Mishra, who ran a dictatorial regime in the house. With the inner artist itching to come out, it was obvious that Mishra had begun to earn the reputation of a rebel, a non-conformist; he was the black sheep of his family. It is the anger that was bottling up in him Piyush Mishra, the artist in question, is known to be a man of many talents. He is an actor, singer, lyricist, and scriptwriter, and he slips into each of these roles effortlessly. Mishra is an unquestionable talent, there is nothing that he cannot do, and he has no qualms in admitting it. Mishra, who was born as Priyakant Sharma in the small town of Gwalior, had a frustrating childhood, where he had to fight for everything that he is known for today. Much like the story of every small-towner, Mishra’s parents, too, disapproved of his artistic ambitions, and to make matters worse, Mishra was the adopted son of his bua, Taradevi Mishra, who ran a dictatorial regime in the house. With the inner artist itching to come out, it was obvious that Mishra had begun to earn the reputation of a rebel, a non-conformist; he was the black sheep of his family. It is the anger that was bottling up in him that later became a driving force in his art.

It is in the same small town that his journey as an actor began. His anger found a vent through theatre, and when it came out, it came out so badly, and so beautifully, that everyone who saw it was enthralled. He was a celebrity of the theatre world. He was a god on the stage, and he liked being one.

“People used to love me, they used to respect me and they used to be afraid of me. It was something that gave me immense pleasure. I enjoyed the fear that I inspired in everyone,” he admits. He tells me that had I met him some 20 years back I would have been impressed by him but I also would have been afraid of him and hated him, for such was his arrogance.

When I tell him that I still am a bit afraid he laughs and tells me that he is a completely different man now, he is “all heart and all love”.

It may have been the bottled up anger at his forced upbringinging that found a voice on the small stages of Gwalior. But when he landed up at the National School of Drama in 1983, this inborn talent found a natural outlet. From his first music score that brought forth the hidden muscian and lyricist in him to the acting breakthrough in his second year at NSD under the German director Fritz Bennewitz in the Bard’s masterpiece Hamlet, Mishra had finally found the nursery that became the training and experimental ground for his multiple talents. If NSD was the springboard, Delhi proved to be his creative research lab for the next decade or so till he went on to script another chapter of history in in Mumbai in 2002.

In the days of his glorious egotism, Mishra had picked up several vices, alcohol being one of them. Reminiscing about those days, Mishra says that alcohol gave him a different kind of high.

“Those were miserable days but I was terribly happy in them.” He would be lost within himself without any interference of the outside world. Intoxicated, he would be in a trance and would just create.

Some of his most brilliant songs are a product of this struggle with alcohol. The song Ek bagal mein chand from Gangs of Wasseypur and Sheher humara sota hai from Gulaal were written during these days.

Mishra today is no more an alcohol abuser, he has won this long and hard fought battle, but that too has come with a price. If alcoholism cost him a few people who were close to him, the end of that phase has cost him that madness that brought out the genius in him. “I do miss those days at times,” he says. “In the morning N.K. (Sharma, his close friend and the founder of Act One, the first theatre group Mishra worked with) would ask me to create six songs and by the evening those songs would be ready. Today it takes me three to four days to work on one song.” Sobriety has its price.

Perhaps to him, madness is that state of mind which destroys every aspect of your being, but is also the utmost necessity for a genius. Giving up that madness may as well be the biggest sacrifice an artist can make. And therefore, it is not surprising that he does not like talking much about those times. Mishra, it seems, is afraid of his past self.

That addictive insanity is something he wouldn’t ever want to go near again. “I would like to look at it all with a bird’s eye perspective but not touch it,” he says.

The biggest woe of an artist’s life is the state of emotional extremity that he dwells in. Every artist at one time or the other has battled with the urge of abandoning the physical life and resigning into nothingness. Mishra says that it could have happened to him as well, the restlessness was there, but his circumstances prevented him from doing so, he, after all, had a family to take care of.

Quoting The Godfather he says, “Vito Corleone ki ek mashhoor line hai: ‘A man who doesn’t spend time with his family is not a real man.’ This line had a huge impact on me.” And so he stayed.

His story reads like the perfect Shakespearean tragedy, except that its end has been changed. Mishra, today, is a popular figure. He is swarmed with film offers and gone are those days of despondent joblessness. Life, as it seems, has finally given him the recognition and success he deserves. Cinema, as a medium with several limitations may never be able to do justice to his talent, but Mishra seems to have made peace with it.

The anger that resided in him may still be lurking around somewhere, but he has learnt how to channel it.

From alcoholism he is journeying towards spirituality. An artist, he says, should be, “...A saint, like Gautama Buddha, he needs to meditate, perform yoga, and become the master of his senses.”

That state of thoughtlessness, that state of equilibrium, where all questions are answered and all predicaments end, Mishra says he had once achieved it in his youth and it is those four months that he has been looking for all his life. Whether or not he finds them again remains to be seen, but for now he has found his peace. His eyes still have the glint of a madman, but this is the madness of a saint, of a man who has chosen this high life of traveller, the one whose journey, he knows, will continue beyond the limitations of this mortal life and this physical world. The manifestations of this multifaceted creative madness or should we say creative genius are in his many works that he leaves behind as his mark on posterity.