Bajpai looks like anything but the star that Satya has made him. He walks quietly into the room full of journos and sits with a slight uncertainty that seems at odds with his success. If Bajpai lacks the bravado that confident stars put on, it is only because, as he says, ``I am uneasy with success. Up to now, I have been so used to failure that I can handle it, but success is something so new that I cannot handle it.''

Ask him to talk about his struggle with stardom and he is quick to retort, ``Why should I call it my `struggle'? People in the industry romanticise this word and play up to it. But I feel that if I have had a bad time trying to reach my goal, it is only because I chose this profession. I should have the guts to accept all the ups and downs, all the uncertainties it throws at me. There are people who are suffering much more than `struggling' actors, all you need to do is go to our villages to know what a struggle life can be. I feel that actors who brag of their struggle are selfish.''

Instead Bajpai describes the days before Satya happened as ``idle''. ``When I was in Delhi, I used to spend 18 hours a day with theatre activities. We used to do plays, have workshops for spastic children. It was my whole existence.'' But a very meagre one for ``theatre has no money, actors cannot feel the financial security that films bring.'' says Bajpai.

It was after his role as Man Singh in Shekhar Kapur's Bandit Queen that the idea of films began to germinate in his mind. ``Shekhar asked me to leave theatre and come to Mumbai. But when I got here he had to leave for London.'' When he made Mumbai his base, he had to put up with the fact that roles were not easily available. At one point he even packed his bags to go back to Delhi.

``I was feeling depressed and had decided to go back when Plus Channel offered me Sunil's role in Swabhimaan. Acting for television gave me the necessary experience for films. On stage you are used to interacting with your co-stars. But here you had to do that with an inanimate camera. Though I was nervous initially, later I got used to it.''

It was a meeting with Ram Gopal Verma that changed his life from the ordinary to extraordinary. ``Shekhar's chief assistant took me to meet Verma. At that time he told me that I looked too young and I should grow a stubble and get back. Later when I was sitting on the sets, he kept staring at me and later took me for a walk. Then he told me that he'd make a movie and I'd have a big role in it.''

And Bhiku Mhatre was born. And with that Bajpai has proved that for an actor, talent is the better asset to have than just good looks. ``An actor has the capacity to look good. Often you see that good looking models become actors and later the very same audience that hailed their good looks, labels them as a wooden face. How does this happen to a good looking person?''

If lack of talent decimates good looks, then Bajpai has no worry on that count, for he has lots of it. ``I feel that to be a good actor, one must first and foremost, be a sensitive human being. An actor must look credible on screen. One cannot afford to look like a Martian doing a film on Earth. You have to be aware of what's going on in the world around you to be acceptable. Besides that, one needs to put in a lot of hard work. I spend most of my time preparing for my role. ''

Mention spontaneity and method acting and he blasts off the idea of spontaneity. ``What is the use of spontaneity if you don't know your character? Spontaneity will not match if it comes from the actor and not the character. Spontaneity has to be prepared by first understanding the character. As an actor I would like to achieve the standards I have set for myself. I want to die a complete actor.'' But before that he will have to get used to success, that he now holds in the palms of his hands.