Rakesh Bedi performs at Hansraj College in Delhi

Aaj kal toh movies bhi yehi dikhati hain – follow your heart, follow your passion, zamaana aapse hai,” actor Rakesh Bedi said to DU students after his performance at Hansraj College recently. This was part of a four-day theatre festival organized at the college by The Film and Theatre Society, Delhi.
He enacted the journey of Pandey, a fictional character in Vijay Tendulkar’s play Massage, who starts out with the aim of becoming a Bollywood star and ends up as everyone’s favourite masseur.The funnyman had Hansraj students whistling, clapping and hooting for him with his performance. Deriving humour from the journeys of struggling actors – through the casting couch and other forms of exploitation or struggle – he swiftly changed roles between a drunk, loud producer, an older woman and a roadside goonda.
Even though he had to stop twice during the play to get some rowdy students in the balcony and outside the auditorium to behave themselves, the actor told us after the performance that he had fun performing for college students. Students cheered the loudest each time Bedi described a scene that even hinted at making out or swearing, and he even paused to tease them, saying, “Yeh bahut achha laga aap logon ko, huh?”