Mandeep Puri

Actor Anupam Kher met “Fiddler On The Roof” legend Topol recently at an International Film Festival in Israel and it was nothing less than a dream come true for him. Since his early days, Anupam wanted to meet or work with two international cinema personalities - one is Topol and the other is Woody Allen with whom he has managed to work. Anupam went there, as his film ‘A Wednesday’ was the opening film in the festival on December 6. It made a huge impact on the audience and totally empathized with the theme of terrorism as Israel has also been suffering from terrorism for a long time. And that’s where he met Topol, the Israeli star from ‘Fiddler On The Roof’ and ‘Galileo’. They spent a quality time discussing world of cinema.

Anupam is delighted to know that Topol was a close friend of the late and great Raj Kapoor Saab. There he came to know that they were very close friends. They met on several occasions and according to Topol, he saw a lot of himself in Raj Saab. When Topol met Anupam Kher in Israel, he just flooded Kher with his questions on Raj Kapoor and he also knew about Amitabh Bachchan so he asked a few questions about Big-B too.

Before the screening of his film ‘A Wednesday’, he shared his thoughts with the present audiences by saying, “It is an honour to meet Topol who’s ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ is just like a textbook for all the aspiring actors. More than anything I wanted to meet him and that is why I am here. I always wanted to meet or work with two international cinema legends and by some quirk of faith; I managed to work with Woody Allen and met Topol within one year.”

He adds further, “We didn't know much about one another's work but to our surprise we discovered we had both been doing a one-character autobiographical play for years. Topol’s play ‘Life Of Lazslo’ has had numerous shows all over the world. Luckily so has my one-actor play ‘Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai’. We promised to watch each other's play in the near future.”

They both actually have something very unique in common. Both played old men in most celebrated works when they were very young; Anupam Kher played the role of a 65 year old father who has lost his young son in ‘Saraansh’ when he was just 28 and Topol was 36 when he played Tevye’s character in ‘Fiddler On The Roof'’. More uniqueness occurred in Israel. Anupam also met the celebrated comic actress Hannah Lazslo who had won the best actress award at Cannes in 2005 for ‘Free Zone’ during the festival.