Rajat Bedi

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.

In 1968, Bollywood saw the debut of a handsome hunk called Vinod Khanna. The guy had all the features of a typical hero but entered as a villain and after playing some memorable negative characters, went on to become one of the top heroes of the film industry. It set a precedent that even good-looking men can be negative and later, some handsome villains like Shakti Kapoor, Gulshan Grover, Mahesh Anand and Dan Dhanoa followed.

In the late ’90s, one more actor with dashing looks and macho personality debuted as a hero but his career as a lead never took off and right after his first film, he started accepting negative roles and became a well-known baddie of Bollywood. This actor featuring in our Qamyab series today, is none other than Rajat Bedi.

The mid ’90s was the time when popular faces from the modelling world were making their mark in Hindi films. Rajat Bedi also started as a model and then switched to acting in films around that time.
Not many know that he was not an outsider to Bollywood but his family shared its roots in the movie world. Rajat’s father was Narendra Bedi, a successful director in the ’70s and early ’80s, who directed films like Jawani Diwani (1972), Khote Sikkay (1974), Benaam (1974), Rafoo Chakkar (1975) and his biggest hit Sanam Teri Kasam (1982). His mother was a costume designer and has also written the 1982 movie Insaan. Earlier, his grandfather Rajinder Singh Bedi was an award-winning film writer as well as producer -director.

Rajat Bedi was born on 1st January, 1973 in Mumbai with this filmy background. He was the youngest of three siblings – Ira Bedi and actor Manik Bedi. Rajat was always a sports enthusiast and played basketball, kabaddi and hockey in school.

Before entering the modelling world, Rajat assisted the legendary Ramesh Sippy for few years after his mother introduced him to the Sholay director. He assisted Sippy in the movie Zamaana Deewana (1995) starring big names like Jeetendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Shah Rukh Khan and Raveena Tandon.

While working on Zamaana Deewana, Rajat was involved in all aspects of filmmaking and was named Tiger by Shah Rukh as there was another Rajat also on the sets. It can be said that Rajat Bedi learnt acting on the sets of this movie.

Around the same time, Rajat saw a newspaper advertisement by the famous tycoon Maureen Wadia of Bombay Dyeing, which mentioned about the first Manhunt talent. Rajat Bedi decided to meet Maureen to express his interest in this pageant but had no pictures to show her. Maureen Wadia was instantly impressed by Rajat’s macho personality and personally arranged to get his pictures clicked from a top photographer.

The year was 1994, when the first ever Gladrags Manhunt & Mega model contest took place. Rajat Bedi took part in the pageant along with thirty other contestants. One of his competitors was known model and actor Kelly Dorji.

Rajat believes this one night changed everything for him and he never realized when he reached to the number one position from the count of thirty. He was sent to Australia for training after winning the contest.

1994 was the year when Sushmita Sen became Miss Universe, Aishwarya Rai was crowned Miss World and Rajat Bedi won the International Men’s pageant. It was indeed a proud year for India in the fashion world.

Quite naturally, producers started approaching Bedi with movie offers but the first offer to click for him came from Keshu Ramsay, who had then parted ways from his other brothers and was making his own kind of films, other than the horror stuff they were famous for.

Thus, the first film Rajat Bedi signed was the murder mystery Do Hazaar Ek (1998) with senior actors like Jackie Shroff, Dimple Kapadia, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Deven Verma and Gulshan Grover. He was paired opposite then upcoming star Tabu and played a cop investigating the murder case.

Do Hazaar Ek didn’t do well at the box office but Rajat Bedi was lucky to work with Keshu Ramsay, who introduced him to director Umesh Mehra and he was cast in his next film International Khiladi (1999).

Akshay Kumar with his Khiladi tag, was playing an anti-hero in the movie opposite Twinkle Khanna while Rajat played a cop. But this time, he was not the main hero but a somewhat negative character. Though the movie had Gulshan Grover playing the main antagonist, Rajat’s character turns negative in the climax, which found appreciation from the audience. The film was a moderate success at the box office.

After International Khiladi, negative role offers started pouring to Rajat where he was pitted against big stars like Sunny Deol, Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Govinda, Hrithik Roshan and Bobby Deol. His characters in these films would invariably be playing the spoilt brattish son, brother or friend of the main antagonist.

Rajat Bedi went on to appear in many successful films like Indian (2001), Jodi No.1 (2001), Yeh Dil Aashiqanaa (2002), The Hero: Love Story Of A Spy (2003), Koi Mil Gaya (2003) and Partner (2007).

Particularly, Anil Sharma’s The Hero: Love Story Of A Spy (2003) was one of the most expensive films of that time and did quite well at the box office. The same year, Koi Mil Gaya became a huge hit and an award-winning film and it remains the biggest hit of Rajat Bedi’s career.

Unfortunately, the success of Koi Mil Gaya didn’t help Rajat much though he is still remembered for his negative character of Raj Saxena and often referred as the main villain of this movie. In one of his recent interviews, he claimed that his role was significantly edited in this film and that caused him depression.

Post Koi Mil Gaya, Rajat went on to work in many movies, where he sometimes played positive character of a cop in films like Rakht (2004), Fun – Can Be Dangerous Sometimes (2005), Aksar (2006), The Train (2007) but none of them clicked at the box office.

In 2006, Rajat played the main antagonist called Anthony D’ Silva in the film Rocky; a character which had a lot of depth and remains close to his heart. But it is said that Rajat’s role was badly edited out at the behest of Sanjay Khan, who was closely monitoring the career of his son and the film’s hero Zayed Khan. Rocky was a box office washout.

The following year in 2007, Rajat was seen in the super hit Partner (2007) starring Salman Khan and Govinda, but again his role was heavily edited and he was hardly noticed in this film.

Rajat was unhappy about getting sidelined in most of his films. He was doing villainous roles in a few films with Sunny Deol, where the cheques issued to him by the producers got bounced. Finally, Rajat felt that he was not getting his due in the industry and decided to bid goodbye to movies.