From NSD training to OTT fame: The inspiring journey of Kumud Mishra

Kumud Mishra is among the most sought-after senior actors on OTT these days. Even though Mishra is a veteran in films and television serials of the 90s, a sudden rise in his visibility occurred during the period of Covid-19 pandemic (2019 2022) when people were bound to sit at home, and OTT, television became the primary source of entertainment.

Some web series, namely Dr Arora, TVF Tripling, and the ongoing IC-814: The Kandahar Hijack, have given him more visibility and recognition after he earned fame with substantial roles in Rockstar, Kuttey, Tiger, Mulk, Thappad, and Article 15.

A short film, Laddoo, on syncretic culture is revisited almost every week on social media.

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Mishra is an effortless actor, akin to a helping neighbour next door who would smilingly wave at you from his balcony, come down for a cup of tea, or invite you over while passing by your home. He is pretension-less, non judgmental, educated, and a well-behaved human being.

As an interviewee, he is humble, polite, respectful, a great listener, and shy about receiving compliments. Talk theatre, life, philosophy, history, culture, and books with him, and you discover a great conversationalist with clarity in his thoughts.

Perhaps a good part of his humility comes from his early days in Mumbai after completing his acting course at Delhi’s National School of Drama (NSD). His teacher, Pandit Satyadev Dubey, had invited him to Mumbai to do a play. Dubey insisted he could live at his home, but Mishra was hesitant, so he moved to a friend Sanjay’s invitation at PMGP Colony.

Mishra recalls fondly, “Though I had decided to go back after the play, when I landed at the colony and stood with my bag, something inside me said, ‘Now I won’t go back from here.’”

Maybe because that colony didn’t look like a Mumbai metropolis but a small residential area of one room each, resembling the humble background this Allahabad-born actor came from. The story of unpretentiousness began here.

“When I reached there, I got to know that Sanjay was not in the city. With my bag in my hand, I didn’t know where I would go. But as luck would have it, our senior D Inamdar saw me and asked what I was doing there. Upon hearing, he offered, ‘Stay with us.’ There were six boys already, but no one showed a single crease on their forehead. We had one room with one kitchen, a washroom, and a balcony big enough just to stand but not stretch.”

His colony mates included Anurag Kashyap, Sanjay Goyal, Rajpal Yadav, and Sanjay Sonu.

“We used to have limited budgets, so either of us would foot the bill for the food we consumed or cooked during those days. I never felt it was a struggle,” he says. Mishra insists that the sanity he still retains in the high-fi Mumbai film industry is because his roots in the city were strengthened by the humility of those helping friends and strangers without making each other feel obliged. He stayed there for almost a month, then shifted to Mahada Drive.

Luck by chance

“I was about to leave Mumbai and continue theatre in Delhi when I was offered one teleserial after another in the 90s: Talash, Zameen Aasman, Swabhimaan, Mahayagya, etc. Amid all that, I got an offer from none other than Shyam Benegal for Sardari Begum.

“It was like a dream come true,” he says. However, for almost a decade after Sardari Begum, Mishra wasn’t seen on the silver screen but on the small one with serials. “Money from the serials would take care of my expenses. My parents needed no financial support from me. But I think I had taken my family for granted. My income through the tele serials was enough for me, and I never thought I should buy a house or a luxury car, so I continued doing theatre as a passion and perhaps an escape,” he says.

Dad’s the hero

Mishra’s creative streak is inherited from his father, CL Mishra, the topper of his school. His interest in dramatics, music, and folk traditions was amazing. He was a great performer and a star at Ramlila functions. He would visit temples and gurudwaras and deliver sermons, performing like a pro.

“Since he was an amazing performer and orator, I used to watch him, mesmerised, thinking, ‘How impressively he speaks!’ Somewhere, that must have passed down to me. He was my hero,” recalls Mishra about his father, sharing how he ran away from home to become a fauji (soldier)—more to look after his parents and several siblings.

He completed his triple post-graduation out of a passion for studies, establishing his strong societal position.

“In the Army, too, he was at the top of cultural activities,” Mishra adds.

Hailing from Village Amaw in Allahabad, Mishra completed schooling at Military School, Belgaum, and went to Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal. He lived in a hostel for seven years but says, “Mera wahaan dil nahi lagta tha.” Adding, “I nearly went into depression as I had no friends there and didn’t know what to do.”

“Once, he came to me with a form to participate in theatre. Perhaps that performer in my father was inherited by me.”

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From Bhopal to Delhi

“When I look back, I feel that when I decided to go to drama school, I had just basic information about acting but didn’t know the grammar of drama. So, I guess that was my need to learn drama technically. However, at Bharat Bhavan and Rangmandal performances, where I was learning by observing, I received a lot. I could understand the difference between trained actors’ and untrained actors’ approaches. At NSD, people like Alok Chatterjee and Ravi Lal Sangre came. They were brilliant actors adept in folk traditions. It was BV Karanth’s [then NSD Director] brilliance that brought technically untrained and NSD-trained actors together in Bhopal,” he says.

But Mishra still feels he hasn’t been able to use anything from what he learned during his training days.

Delhi’s food and arts

Whenever Mishra is in Delhi, the foodie never forgets to “take a bow” at Nathu’s Chole Bhature in Bengali Market. “I have an emotional connection with this place.”

Though he used to live on NSD campus food served in its mess, parathas at ITO, Purani Dilli’s delicacies, Kake Da Dhaba in Connaught Place, other delicacies at Refugee Market, and Nathu’s were his destinations “whenever budgets allowed.”

For Mishra, Delhi is the place to be, especially around NSD.

“What a happening space that is. Fakir Lane, where I lived, was surrounded by so many venues for exposure—Pragati Maidan for international cinema, the Russian Culture Centre, Max Mueller Bhavan, Kamani Auditorium, Shri Ram Centre, Shri Ram Kala Kendra, art galleries, and Doordarshan Kendra.

“For a student at that young age, those three years were never dull,” Mishra says. He misses all that in Mumbai.

The writer is a senior journalist, poet, co-author of ‘Muslims in Media’ and art and music curator