Unlike his creation, Gupte, an Andheri lad, was a brilliant student in school though his marks took a tumble in Mumbai’s Narsee Monjee college when he found the highs of the stage. He worked with “the late Mahendra Joshi, the enfant terrible of Bombay theatre and other greats like Feroz Khan and Paresh Rawal”. In 1981, he was invited to act in FTII’s cult diploma film Chakkar Chandu Ka Chameli Wala and he stayed on for eight years. “Acting was like getting into a tunnel I didn’t want to get out of. I perhaps spent double the time a normal student spends at the FTII, without being one.” Not surprisingly, his parents were not amused.

In 1995, Sanjna Kapoor invited him for a solo show of his paintings at the Prithvi Art Gallery. He held another show in 1998. The gallery packed up in 1999 and joining the art mart didn’t appeal to Gupte. He was already a prolific writer-technician in the TV industry, having assisted directors like Kundan Shah and Saeed Mirza and hosted one of the first talk shows on satellite TV, Bindaas Bol (Sony, 1999). But he decided to share his gift with children through the workshops.“I had something to offer that could connect with children and it was free. So there was no dearth of takers,” he says.

He livened up classes with theatre (now that explains Aamir’s boisterous entry in the film in a clown’s costume) and spontaneity. “I am not a teacher. I am just a friend of children…” It was also a friend’s concern that got him into scripting the film. “If a kid is hyperactive at home because of a decline in playing spaces outside in our urban areas, it’s not a problem. Animals accept their offspring as they are. A tribal father in a jungle will accept the way his kid is; he isn’t bothered about his kid’s pace of climbing a tree, but we always seem to be judging. Even in an art workshop, parents say, ‘Why is your tree not perfect?’ ‘Why are the walls of your house not straight like the others? …’ It’s a pity that we have stopped finding the beauty in the ordinary. Now we have no allowance for deviance,” he says . Some of the anger has given way to hope after the film’s release. “Now I meet more and more teachers who think and sound like Nikumbh. The reactions, especially of fathers, surprised me. That people are coming out of the theatres with wet handkerchiefs shows that the heart of the nation is in place. The success of the film strengthens that hope.”   

... contd.