Manoj Bajpayee recalls the experience of making Aligarh, calls it ‘blissful spiritual journey’ – Times of India

Aligarh is about Professor Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras and his solitude. The greatness of Aligarh as a cinematic achievement comes entirely from the way Hansal Mehta captures the protagonist’s isolation. There is no attempt to heighten the pathos of the professor’s predicament. Siras’ professional and social ostracism comes only as further ratification of his stunning solitude.
Hansal Mehta and his cinematographer look for legacies of lingering loneliness in the mundane.
The unremarkable acquires an immense importance in the way it qualifies Shrinivas Siras’ state of alienation. For large stretches of storytelling Mehta favours a bare stripped-down soundtrack with incidental sounds, and of course the sound of Lata Mangeshkar’s voice where the Professor seeks solace in the singer’s audio portrayal of ideal love and its thwarting by social forces.

Says Manoj Bajpayee, “I believe Aligarh has improved me as an actor and a person. I approached the role in a way other actors wouldn’t have. I saw my character as a literate Lata Mangeshkar fan rather and not just a gay man. My whole focus was on his insistence on his privacy and his passion for whiskey and Lataji’s voice. It was a blissful spiritual journey.”
Says Manoj happily, “When I played the homosexual professor Ramchandra Siras in Aligarh I realized what true loneliness is.The man’s isolation was more of an issue to me than his sexual orientation. I feel the Supreme Court verdict is a triumph for all discriminated and persecuted people of our country, whether it is segregation on the basis of sexual orientation, or gender, or caste or economical condition. We all need the law and the Government to support the weaker sections. If the Professor in Aligarh were alive today he wouldn’t have to die.”

Manoj recalls the struggle he went through while playing the gay professor. “I felt the man’s isolation, his need for companionship more than sex. All our friends in the LGBT community need our help and support.”

Contrary to many, Manoj doesn’t feel the industry to be particularly homophobic. “There is as much of it in this industry as anywhere else. But I don’t think our film industry is specially homophobic.”