Neil Bhoopalam: ‘We would walk and talk as mic followed us’

Neil, who has lent his voice to audio book of Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, recalls how the team recorded on the streets of Mumbai and Alibaug

Acting is his first love. But considering Neil Bhoopalam’s passion for stories, it’s not surprising that the actor has lent his voice to the audio version of Rohinton Mistry’s acclaimed novel, A Fine Balance. Producer Nadir Khan, his frequent collaborator in theatre, approached him for the Audibles project. The recording was unusual, recalls the actor. “We recorded in Alibaug, at a makeshift studio at the resort and on the streets of Mumbai. The prep involved learning our lines for the scenes, then we would walk and talk and a microphone would follow us around. The narrator bits had to be done in a studio,” he says.

Mistry’s novel, which begins in 1975, studies the next decade through four characters, with a focus on the 1984 Emergency. While Bhoopalam serves as the narrator, he also voices the character of Maneck. “I had not read the book before getting my hands on the dramatised script by Ayeesha Menon and Kewel Karim. I watched the book summary on YouTube before reading the script. My performance starts off as the narrator and then [I voice] Maneck, a reluctant student from the mountains. Director John Dryden wouldn’t rest till it sounded right,” he says, before quipping, “He promised us that if we finish our work on time, we could all go for a dip in the pool and have gin!”

The actor, last seen in the second season of Made in Heaven (2023), agrees that an audio book is a delayed gratification exercise. “The response is initially slow as audio projects don’t make a big bang on release, but as time goes by, more and more people start listening to it.”

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