Sudesh Berry

QAMYAB – THE FORGOTTEN GEMS OF BOLLYWOOD

Qamyab is our humble tribute to all those lesser-known actors, one hit wonders and junior artists who we see umpteen times but don’t know about; beyond their faces. These actors have been an integral part of Bollywood but didn’t get their due. This series is our sincere attempt to put a name to these faces, familiarize them to our readers and celebrate their achievements in life – however big or small. We believe that every artist contributes in his/her own way to the cinema’s success. Qamyab will explore the unknown lives of such actors and artists as we believe even these forgotten gems of Bollywood deserve their due recognition today.

The ’70s Bollywood saw the emergence of the angry young man phenomenon with superstar Amitabh Bachchan as the brooding cop fighting the corrupt system in Prakash Mehra’s Zanjeer (1973). This film became a trendsetter for action films to rule the box office with actors like Mithun Chakraborty, Jackie Shroff, Sunny Deol, Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgan following suit as the wronged hero fighting against crime. Of course, the angry young man tag remained with Amitabh, who made an envious career out of it.

In the early ’90s, one more actor entered Bollywood as a dashing young cop. He was compared to Amitabh due to his looks and personality after this film’s success. He is Sudesh Berry and the movie is Vansh (1992).

Though Vansh is commonly referred as Sudesh’s debut movie, it is not actually true as he had started his acting journey much earlier with a few small roles. Vansh’s success made the media compare Sudesh Berry to Big B’s angry young man avatar but this undue comparison with superstar Amitabh ended up damaging his career eventually.

Sudesh Berry was born in Mumbai on 20th July, 1960. While studying in college, he loved boxing and aspired to be a professional boxer. Acting was never in his mind then. But a certain incident in college changed his career path. During an intercollegiate boxing match, Sudesh was knocked out by his opponent and he fell down unconscious. After this dangerous incident, his father asked him to quit the sport. Sudesh listened to his dad and gave it up.

Next, acting happened to him quite unexpectedly. He accompanied a friend to an acting workshop, liked the experience and started doing drama and later joined Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA). His first play was Safed Kundali with Shabana Azmi and Sudesh recollects being appreciated by the veteran actor. Sudesh was a tall and handsome youngster and soon enough, Hindi film offers started coming to him while he was doing theatre.

Sudesh signed his first film titled Tadap in 1982. The movie had an ensemble cast comprising Navin Nischol, Zarina Wahab, Bharat Bhushan, Tom Alter, Beena, Mohan Gokhale and Vijayendra Ghatge. Sudesh Berry played a small role of a local goon called Pyare, who fights for everyone’s rights.

Unfortunately, Tadap got stuck infinitely for various reasons but Sudesh continued doing plays as well as blink and miss supporting roles in films like Khatron Ke Khiladi (1988) and Hisaab Khoon Ka (1989). He also appeared in B.R. Chopra’s highly acclaimed TV series Mahabharat (1988) as Maharaj Vichitravirya. But none of these roles boosted his career as he got eclipsed between the big stars.

Sudesh Berry was not getting the meaty kind of roles in Hindi films but was playing the lead on stage. While working in the famous play Saiya Bhai Kotwal at Prithvi theatre, Rajkumar Santoshi’s assistant Lateef Binny met him and arranged his meeting with the noted director, who promptly cast Sudesh without any audition in his directorial debut Ghayal (1990) starring Sunny Deol and Meenakshi Seshadri. Sudesh played the character of Rajan Berry, Sunny’s jail mate who helps him take revenge against the villain Balwant Rai (Amrish Puri) along with his two other friends.

Ghayal became the biggest hit of 1990 and propelled Sunny Deol to the top bracket of stars. Sudesh Berry also got noticed for his supporting part. Particularly, the film’s action director Pappu Verma was impressed with Sudesh and decided to cast him in his own directorial venture Vansh (1992).

Vansh is invariably mistaken to be Berry’s Bollywood debut as he along with his co-stars, Siddharth (Sushant Ray) and Priyanka were credited in it as debutants. But both, Sudesh as well as Siddharth, had worked in Hindi films before while Priyanka was a famous child artist in the ’80s. In fact, Sudesh was credited as ‘Introducing’ in Ghayal as well.

Vansh released on 25th January, 1992 alongside Rajiv Rai’s Vishwatma, which was a big budget film with huge star cast. Nevertheless, Vansh managed to be a decent success at the box office and was termed a hit.

Interestingly, Sudesh Berry’s entry scene in Vansh was in a boxing ring where he knocks out his opponent. It was ironical that he wanted to be a professional boxer in real life too. His fine act of a tough cop in Vansh was loved by the critics and audience alike and many started calling him Amitabh Bachchan of the future. His one liner in the film “Arrest him” became quite popular.

With the success of Vansh, it looked like Sudesh would be the next big thing in Bollywood. But nothing of that sort of happened as the Amitabh Bachchan comparison did more harm to him than good!!

Sudesh Berry went on to sign movies like Yudhpath (1992), Kayda Kanoon (1993), Policewala Gunda (1995) and Veergati (1995); all of which bombed badly at the box office. In Ashutosh Gowariker’s Pehla Nasha (1993), he made a special appearance as himself in a scene where top stars of that time are shown attending an award function. Sudesh was seen with rising stars of that time like Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan (SRK), Rahul Roy and Saif Ali Khan.