Among India’s most viewed actors

Actor Ajay Singh Pal plays Nandu

Women inevitably observe better," one, Ajay Singh Pal, 44, from Bhopal, tells me. He knows this, because? Wherever Ajay goes, he says, "People just look totally confused, towards me."

They look away, after staring at him for a while, wondering alongside, "If he's really that guy, why would he be in Bhopal?"

Which is where Gwalior-born Ajay lives, in Indrapuri area, around BHEL township. And it is women ("ladies"), he notices, who recognise him after all: "Men are always stuck in zindagi ke kashmakash (life's struggles)."

"Kashmakash" is a word Ajay uses often. Kash, for the last syllable, also means the drag of a cigarette.

"Haal mein aisa kuch hua?" I ask Ajay. As in, has he been through this ordeal of people attempting to retrace memory for where they've seen him, lately, until the penny drops. And if there's a funny story to tell, perhaps?

A smoker, in an ad featuring Akshay Kumar

Ajay mishears haal for hall: "[Cinema] hall mein, it's not going to happen, na? People have just seen me, right there, anyway!"

Ajay is an actor. In the larger scheme of screen/showbiz, that's a profession full of well-known faces, but unknown names. Unless you play leads, and then you get billed the star.

That said, Ajay is among the most viewed actors in the history of Indian cinema, since 2018!

Before any movie starts in a desi theatre - regardless of genre, language - superstar Akshay Kumar and Ajay must jam together on the demerits of smoking cigarettes, over the necessity of sanitary napkins.

Yes, it's the healthy ministry's cigarette "phoo-phoo" public service announcement (PSA). Bhopali Ajay is, indeed, Akshay's friend, Nandu. Yes, you've seen him! I watch him at least twice a week - and don't mind Nandu at all.

Because his predecessor was one, Mukesh, in the most disturbing ad, ever. The one with the oral-cancer patient, speaking from his hospital deathbed.

Mukesh Harare, 24, passed away, shortly after delivering that cancer-gutkha monologue, in 2009. The severity of that PSA is only matched by the grotesquely destroyed lungs-mouth images on Indian cigarette packets itself.

Don't know if there's such a thing - but my favourite no-smoking ad still remains the gravelly Gary Lawyer's number from the early '90s: With a cigarette in my hand, I felt like a man.

Though things on this front changed completely with the Bollywood song, Chikni Chameli, from the Hrithik Roshan starrer, Agneepath (2012).

That was the first time, "Smoking is injurious to health" scroll featured on the cinema screen. And it's appeared every time a character lights up in a movie, since - telling audiences to stay away from cigarettes.

No such warning exists against murder, rape, arson, that the same character may have indulged in, on screen, let alone hogging unhealthy foods - right before placing a cigarette between the lips.

Over the past few years, the government has been threatening to impose this no-smoking scroll across OTT content. Which would be a logistical nightmare.

Given how huge the OTT libraries are - for them to place this sign, every time a character uses a cigarette, throughout history of cinema/series.

The OTT industry has suitably been liaising with the government so far, apprising them of how unfeasible this move would be. Never mind the sheer absurdity of it.

Placing random PSA in the middle of a scene could also be seen as defiling art, after all. Or maybe not with the movies, because we are okay with subtitles too, right?

I never asked Nandu/Ajay, if anybody has quit smoking, because of his ad.

I'm sure people have quit, multiple times - I quit quitting, at some point! Stats suggest there has been a general decline in smokers from at least a decade before Nandu's PSA. Lately, I've been smoking some ultra-mild cigarettes, although there's no such thing as ultra-mild cancer!

The general science around smoking and cancer, as a friend who studies these cells for a living, tells me, is that if your body already has the genetic propensity to develop lung cancer - the fact that you're also a smoker simply seals the deal.

Serious science apart, I'm more interested to know how Nandu could be friends with Akshay - for the superstar to give him gyan on smoking/sanitary pads!

Nandu, as in Ajay, was an extra on the film Padman (2018) - brought in from Bhopal for the shoot, to Maheshwar, nearby, for nine days. Eight of which he spent on scenes among crowds.

Final day, he got a two-line role, where he sells cotton to Akshay's character. Fifteen days later, he got invited to Mumbai's Film City to shoot the anti-smoking PSA.

Which, Ajay says, was first made for the promotion of Padman, that the government subsequently picked up! In the recent movie, Selfie (2023), Ajay sells a driving school's car to Akshay, who plays a superstar in it.

That's the first time Akshay asked Nandu, on the set, what his real name was.

Nandu is a fine name for Ajay to live with. So long as you don't ask him to shoot reels with you - repeating lines from the ad - once you do recognise him. He hates that.

I also had to ask Nandu, if he actually smokes: "Very, very occasionally, with close friends, over jaam (drinks). Will never do it in public." Of course.

Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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