Mansi Choksi | TNN (THE TIMES OF INDIA; February 26, 2012)

Tamatar Mandir, a Digene-pink shrine in Dharavi’s Shastri Nagar, was a spontaneous pile of waste till a woman stumbled upon a tomato with an image of Ganesh on it. The discovery prompted a god-fearing local corporator to clear the dump and establish a temple. But devotees who began streaming in were usually in pursuit of a nirvana more typical of Mumbai — a break in Bollywood. As it happens, Tamatar Mandir is advantageously pureed alongside Dharavi’s one and only, Baburao Ladsaheb’s Five Star Acting Classes. The shanty-turned-studio is a two-room house where chipped clapboards hang on fuchsia walls, a rusted key light stands alone, steel cupboards hide behind velvet curtains, a wall montage of a 101 facial expressions printed on glossy paper bewilders unsuspecting visitors and an easily angered woman in a floral nighty lords over the rattle of kitchen utensils. Every Sunday, from this humongous receptacle of aspirations known as Dharavi, a motley crew of men in ‘Guezz’ t-shirts, women with blonde streaks and animated children dragged in by optimistic mothers queue up to claim a ticket to Bollywood or its half-brother, the telly soap.

Baburao Ladsaheb, the marquee name adopted by Narayan Pundharik Lad, is the man who promises distinction to the star gazers. His fourcourse recipe to ‘make it’: acting, dancing, fighting and modelling. Sitting beside a crimson refrigerator— there’s nothing if not colour in this More >