Meet Pappu Lekhraj, the man who supplies actors for Salman Khan to beat up onscreen

Pappu Lekhraj reclines in his cabin like Michael Corleone at the end of the Godfather trilogy. He is a tall, serious looking man. A thick gold chain peeks out from the neck of his ganji. In his frayed jeans and shirt, Lekhraj looks unremarkable and non-descript. He could easily blend in with the countless “boys” that are made to do the running around on film sets. You wouldn’t believe he counts Bollywood greats like Yash Chopra and Sooraj Barjatya among his near and dear. That’s because like Michael Corleone, Lekhraj is an uncrowned king in a murky business he inherited from his father. Pappu Lekhraj is the man to call when a film, television or advertising crew needs “junior artists”, or actors to play bit parts and extras.

Lekhraj’s job is to match a junior artist from his stable to the director’s requirements. The small-time goon you saw getting beat up by Salman Khan in Kick, the pretty friend of the actress who has exactly one dialogue and the much-abused dwarf in countless films are examples of the kind of actors Lekhraj supplies every day. “Kal pachaas aadmi bhejo, kal hazaar aadmi bhejo” is how he describes his daily rigmarole. [“Send 50 men today, send 1,000 men tomorrow.]

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The air of shadowy disrepute that surrounds his part of the industry, a small battalion of subordinates at his command, odd working hours (Lekhraj’s day begins at 4.30pm) and a job that requires him to look at people clinically rather than sentimentally – the more you listen to Lekhraj talk about his work, the more the similarities between him and Corleone gather strength.

He may not be famous in the conventional sense, but his reliable supply of junior artists plays a critically important part in almost every Bollywood film that comes to mind. For the past 15 years, Lekhraj has also been president of the Cine Agents Combine, a group that protects the interests of the suppliers in the film industry. He has an army of 22 assistants and his two mobile phones are constantly ringing. Today, Lekhraj supplies to almost every production house in town, from Yash Raj Films to Nadiadwala & Grandson.

Ask him about those who have earned Lekhraj’s respect and affection, and Lekhraj immediately names the late film producer, Yash Chopra. “Yashji really used to treat me like family,” he said. “I just had to call Sally (Chopra’s assistant) and say that I wanted to meet him and he would call me over immediately. Even he when he was unwell, he called me to his residence and advised me on personal matters. There will never be anyone like him again.” Lekhraj complains that today, the sense of hierarchy within Bollywood is much more pronounced.

One aspect of Lekhraj’s job is to act as a mediator between film producers and the union of junior artists. He makes sure that regulations regarding time and payment are complied with and also ensures “quality control”. Junior artists are usually segregated into a strict hierarchy: “good-looking class”, the “decent class” or the lowest rung, the “B-grade”. Film-makers usually push for more people from the first to make their films look glossy. Does it bother him, reducing people to statistics and categories? Lekhraj just shrugs. Having grown up surrounded by the artifice that characterizes Bollywood, the stress upon the superficial barely registers in him. He doesn’t decide the rules by which Bollywood plays; he’s just doing his job.

Lekhraj has also been part of efforts to bring concrete benefits to junior artists. To be part of the junior artists’ union – without this membership, you can’t work as a junior artist – aspiring actors must get a card that costs Rs 3 lakh for men and Rs 1 lakh for women. For many, it’s a lot of money and some suspect these fees may hide some sort of corrupt racket. Lekhraj says the money collected from these fees actually go to retired junior artists who rarely have savings.

Both in terms of sensibility and experience, Lekhraj straddles two worldviews. The conservatism of the ’80s’ Bollywood is deeply embedded in him, but he is also forced to exist in the more modern and relatively liberal industry of today, having lived and worked in both eras. His carefully-calculated façade of being passively professional slips at unexpected moments, like when he’s asked about female junior artists being mistreated. “Dekho filmo mein aisa nahi hota,” he said. “Agar ladkiyan badtameez hongi, toh unke saath ladke bhi badtameezi karenge”. [Look, this stuff doesn’t happen in films. If the girls will misbehave, then others will misbehave with them.]

Lekhraj also insists that the working conditions of junior artists have become much more respectable over the years that he’s been in the business. “The conditions for junior artists have actually improved over the years,” he insisted. “They don’t do the humiliating work they did in the ’80s; they get decent pay, they have bikes, they have houses as well.”

Of course, Lekhraj’s “they” is limited to a lucky margin. It doesn’t include a large number of junior artists who are underpaid and exploited, particularly the women and young girls.

Most junior artist suppliers are former junior artists themselves and well aware of how ugly the business can be. Lekhraj’s story is different. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be the ’thing’ that is being supplied. He inherited the business from his father, a former junior artist who had worked with the likes of Sadhana and Joy Mukherjee. His father was one of many suppliers and the ambitious Lekhraj capitalised on being a relative insider and strategically positioned himself to limit the number of competitors in his arena.

For the past 15 years, Lekhraj has been the President of the Cine Agents Combine, the body that regulates and limits the number of suppliers in the industry. “Of course there is competition, there is competition in every field,” said Lekhraj. Except in this field, it is limited to the extent that is acceptable to Lekhraj and his associates.

In the 32 years he’s been in the industry, Lekhraj has seen a lot of changes, including the fall of mighty family-owned studios (like RK Films and Filmistaan) and the makeover that Bollywood has undergone with the entry of corporates and foreign studios, and the exit of more dubious financiers. He may have struggled less, but Lekhraj has survived more than most of his competitors. If time cements a relationship, then his kinship with Bollywood goes deeper than any star kid’s. Or as Lekhraj puts it: “Yeh industry 100 saal purani hai, par hum bhi 60 saal purane hai.” [“This industry may be 100 years old, but I’m also 60 years old.”]