mid-day's 39th anniversary: Destiny's permanent roommate

Sumeet Vyas

Summet Vyas, 34
Writer-actor

Summet Vyas, the digital star, who struck fame with Permanent Roommates, and found his moment in the Bollywood sun with the just-released Veere Di Wedding could have easily ended up as a garage mechanic. Sitting at Prithvi Theatre's café, his old stomping ground, he speaks of a time when things looked very grim.

Vyas admits he wasn't a good student. After a failed attempt at pursuing commerce, his writer father suggested that he work as a mechanic at one Adarsh Motor Garage, because Vyas liked cars. "He said 'They'll beat you, but they'll teach you the tricks, and if you're good, you'll become a senior mechanic. In 10 years, you can have your own garage'," recalls Vyas, adding, "And I imagined myself in a chaddi and banyaan, laced with grease, thinking, 'yeh to nahin ho payega'. Then, my father's director friend suggested I go to an editing studio. I did, and within a month, I was cutting promos for countdown shows."

While there, a serendipitous visit to Prithvi came his way. "My father, a National School of Drama graduate, invited me for a play he was holding here. I remember going backstage. It was dark and laced with smoke. But there was a tinge of perfume in the air too. My father would always smell like that. I thought to myself 'this is where he works; this is nice'."

Vyas made his way upstairs, where he saw an actor rehearsing his lines, alone. "I was fascinated. I quit my job the next day," says Vyas, who went on to join Nadira Babbar's theatre group, Ekjute. He worked there for seven years before getting the chance to star in a play by Manav Kaul. And with it came recognition, and the realisation that it's important to do relevant work and create a niche.

Because he was not landing characters of his choice, he began to write. "Nadiraji said to us, 'why don't you come up with a play? If it's good, I'll get you dates at Prithvi'. We short-listed four short stories by Premchand, and I wove them into one for a theatre adaptation."

Of all his writing projects, The Viral Fever's (TVF) web series, Tripling, is closest to his heart. "I wrote the core story. My experiences made it in there. I also made life miserable for everyone on set. That's when I learnt my biggest lesson - the writer should never be present on set."

But it was the web series, Permanent Roommates, where he played one half of the lead pair, Mikesh Chaudhary, that catapulted him to stardom. On that note, we ask when Season 3 is expected. "I hope Bisso [writer Biswapati Sarkar] comes up with something soon."

That could be the short-term dream. The long-term one is ambitious and oddball - to make a movie starring Ranbir Kapoor and Jackie Shroff, where Jaggu dada plays himself.