Rahul Bose



Rahul Bose started his acting career early, when as a boy of six he played the lead in his school play, 'Tom, the Piper's Son'. Ever since then his love for theatre has only grown with a prolific body of work on the Bombay stage, culminating in his last performance at the Leicester Haymarket in England where he played the lead in Tim Murari's 'The Square Circle'. His film career took off with the unprecedented success of his first film, 'English, August', today a cultish favourite amongst cinephiles. Acclaim followed for his work in movies like 'Split Wide Open' (Best Actor, Singapore Film Festival, 2000), Mr. And Mrs. Iyer, and 'Jhankaar Beats' - all international award-winning films. Although 'Thakshak' and 'Chameli' may be considered to be more mainstream, his image as India's premier actor of the alternative cinema finds concurrence across the world. 'Time' magazine called him 'the superstar of Indian arthouse cinema' while 'Maxim' (Italy), 'the Sean Penn of Oriental cinema'. His latest work in Buddhadev Dasgupta's 'Kaalpurush', was his fourth film to feature in the Toronto International Film Festival this year. Being hailed as his strongest work yet seems to have prompted four more film makers to sign him on. His next films include Aparna Sen's '15, Park Avenue', and Rajeev Virani's 'The Whisperers'.

As is widely known now, Rahul's social concerns occupy an equally important space in his consciousness. Primary amongst these has been his unrelenting, post-Tsunami (he got there the day after it hit the islands), efforts in the Andaman and Nicobar islands - Rahul, as part of the Solidarity Network, has provided relief materials, vehicles, and is now working with the local administration to provide experts on water shed management. Another key area of his focus is communal harmony and gender equality. He has lectured at Oxford on the former, written extensively about the issue and now regularly works with over 80 Muslim girls as part of an initiative created by Akshara Centre, a Bombay-based NGO. He is on the advisory board of 'Breakthrough', a New York-based NGO committed to gender equality and human rights. He has lectured on the same at the World Youth Peace Summit in 2003. He is also an ambassador of the American India Foundation, a New York-based NGO committed to funding social projects in India, as he is for the Spastics Society of India. His latest efforts include raising funds and assisting Akshara Centre in flood relief activities during the recent deluge in Bombay.

In a piquant twist to the tale, Rahul is also a member of the Indian rugby team, having represented the country ever since its recognition as an official rugby-playing nation by the International Rugby Board in 1998. He has played 14 internationals against countries like Japan, Kazhakstan and China. His interest in the sport developed 24 years ago when he first learnt it in his school, Cathedral and John Connon, in Bombay. Ever since then it has been one of the greatest influences in his life. His last tournament for the country was the World Cup Qualifiers held in June, 2005.

An advertising professional (at 26, he was creative director of Rediffusion D,Y &R) who chucked it all up to become a full time actor, Rahul wrote and directed his first feature film, 'Everybody Says I'm Fine!' for which he won an Honourable Mention, The John Schlesinger Award for Best Debut Feature Film, at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, 2003. The film also garnered a Gold Award at the WorldFest in Houston. The first English language film out of India to attract (non-Asian) American theatrical distribution, '...I'm Fine!' released across 14 cities in the U.S. in 2003. It garnered extremely good reviews in publications like L.A. Times, L.A. Weekly, Philadelphia Enquirer and Time magazine. Rahul is currently writing the screenplay of his latest next directorial effort due to hit the floors in November 2006.