He had a well-planned life ahead of him during his formative years and being equipped with a prestigious professional degree of those times, it was as though he could visualise his life. But destiny had other plans for actor Milind Gunaji – a path that he never thought of in his wildest of wild dreams. A believer in destiny and Karma, he went where the flow took him. Life could not have been any better for him. Perhaps what he desired was not what he did the best. Hence came the strings of failures in what he had planned but unfathomable success in whatever came his way by chance.
Indeed, his was the Midas Touch kind of a story. Whatever he set his foot on by chance, he was successful. A multitalented persona, his claim to fame is – Just give your best to whatever you do. A successful model (and longest serving at that), a great actor, a trekker and nature lover, a writer, a poet, a singer and a spiritual seeker, the larger-than-life persona Milind Gunaji still has a lot in his kitty.
We take through his journey that has been lesser known until now. An engineer by qualification, his sports career was well-planned, and he wanted to be a business tycoon, but destiny had carved a different path for him.
“I was never inclined towards acting. I had certain reservations about filmy people. In fact, I used to hardly watch films. I was more interested in watching Marathi plays. I liked Western films. I never thought that I would be acting in films. In fact, I was pursuing sports career mainly in cricket and badminton. I did my polymer technology and chemical engineering. I worked with Garware, and later with Mahindra & Mahindra before venturing out on my own,” shared Milind going down the memory lane.
Stint in Business
He wanted to start his own business for which his father sent him to learn marketing for few days. He then started his own factory. His father was liberal, sporty but a family person and Milind said that it was little risky for him to get into business because financially he could not support Milind in his business. “I started injection moulding for Fair and Lovely and Closeup caps, and eye droppers. But unfortunately, there was a strike. That particular branch got closed for few days. I had to wind up the factory. Basically, I started the factory in Goa because I am half-Goan. My mother is from Goa and father also got settled there from Maharashtra,” he narrates.
All this while he kept playing badminton with a focus to at least play at Maharashtra level. Meanwhile, he started another factory with two of his friends who were chemical engineers like him. It was a big plant manufacturing some sort of plastic bags. “During erection of the plant there was an accident due to a pothole. So, my sports career got disrupted. By then the government policies changed and we had to start again. By that time, I could get some good orders through my father’s contacts like RCF, Zuari Agro etc,” shares Milind.
His responsibility was marketing, to get the orders and the payments while his other two partners took care of the production. It was only 2-3 components. So, it was not much work. But that was when his life took a dramatic turn.
Unexpected Proposal and The Beginning
“Since the work was not much, I was thinking what else I could do. My sports career had also come to an end. Ace photographer Jagdish Mali and I played cricket for the same team – MIG Cricket Club. Then I met renowned photographer Gautam Rajyadhyaksha. He used to tell me – you have a good personality. He said – you should at least do modelling. He had a soft corner for Marathi people. I thought why not give it a try. I would at least get my pocket money. I had met him just six months back and during that time in 1989 he used to charge Rs 3000 which was very high. We were just upper middle class at that time. And I did not want to depend upon my father. I was earning but then I thought if I am getting additional earning then why not,” he shares.
When the ace photographer looked at him, Milind asked if he really thought he could model. He also confessed that he was short of money but would definitely pay him for the portfolio. To Milind’s pleasant surprise, he did not charge any money but asked him to come the next day. Gautam selected few photos and asked the model-to be to take prints. He gave a list of agencies including big names like Mudra, Genesis etc and asked Milind to hand it to them. During those days, they used to paste stickers at the backside of the photos mentioning name, address and phone number (if any). “I had a bullet and a Mahindra & Mahindra jeep. Those were my two earnings then. I distributed all the copies travelling by my jeep across the city on one single day. The last one was then top photographer Shantanu Sheorey where I had to deliver the photos.
He was associated with all big brands like Vimal, Gwalior, Raymonds, Digjam and the like. After I came home, I got a call from him. I was very tired but thought let me see what it was all about. When I went back, he clicked me again and also shot a video in all angles. That was my first video,” he recollects vividly. He was asked not to confirm any assignment to the other agencies till he got a call from Sheorey’s office that night. True to their words and to Milind’s pleasant surprise, they called the same night informing him that he was selected for Digjam.
“Digjam was a big brand then. Shekhar Kapoor modelled for them then. They wanted to replace him and were looking for a similar looking person, as his contract was getting over. I had beard and they asked me to keep the beard. It was a two-year contract during which I could not model for anyone else. I used to get a remuneration of Rs one lakh then. During that period, it was a totally different kind of ad world. I was instantly famous as the Digjam model,” Milind reminisces.
But they wanted a celebrity as model and suggested that Milind should join the film industry. They were even ready to sponsor his fees in an acting institute. He made it very clear to them that he was not interested in acting. After modelling with Digjam for five years at a stretch, he began thinking of trying his luck with other brands as well and expressed his desire to model for other brands. “I asked them why they insisted on exclusivity. I told them that it would be my last year with them. They signed me for one more year but did not keep compulsion of exclusivity. I began modelling for other brands,” he shared.
The Big Break and The Glory
During the shooting of an ad, he met filmmaker Govind Nihalini who used to also make ad films. He was shooting for Surf when he asked Milind if he was interested in films. “He said – I have seen your ads. You have an excellent screen presence. If you are ready to express yourself, I will give you a role. I told him I did not know how to act. He told me take your time. The role was not very dialogueoriented but the scene rotated around the character. Actors like Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Nasiruddin Shah were in the cast and Ashish Vidyarthi was introduced.
Manoj Bajpayee was in a small role in Droh Kaal. After Droh Kaal, Om Puri was not available, so I did his role and Ashish Vidyarthi got award for his role. Somebody saw me and informed Sai Paranjape who was looking for a central charcater for her film on forest, Papeeha. Her daughter Winnie Joglekar was also among the star cast. It was about tribals in which her daughter was also cast. She was looking for a person to play the forest officer’s role. It was a beautiful film with beautiful songs. The main character was the forest officer and his tribal assistant played by Raghuveer Yadav,” shared the actor.
During that time, he was also into trekking. In fact, he was into trekking and photography since school days. “Click3 camera was given by my father who used to take us to different forts. I developed interest and he gave me the black and white camera. Everyone used to say I click good photographs. Later I started trekking myself with the help of maps by Harish Kapadia, the doyen of trekking.
“Every fort has a history. To fulfil my interest in history I started using his maps that were very detailed. I used to go to the interiors in my jeep. However, his maps did not have any description. Every fort has a history. I used to take some villagers along with me to climb the mountains. I trekked most of the mountains and clicked photographs in different seasons, sunset and sunrise. I was a great reader also – I had spectacles since standard four and it was of thick glasses. I started finding out more about the forts – virtual and actual. I learnt how a particular fort was built, the strategies. I went on gathering information,” he shared passionately about mountains.
While modelling one day he met Pradeep Verma of Lok Prabha publication. Long before his modelling days I had showed him those photographs casually. “He asked me to write about my experiences. I wrote about Malshej ghat which got a huge response. He asked me to keep writing and to also share my photographs,” he added. The column went on for five years. In 1998 he published Majhi Mulukgiri – a compilation of his Lok Prabha articles. Later he began doing a TV series on forts of Maharashtra, Bhatkanti, which went on for three years. He is the Government of Maharashtra’s brand ambassador for forest and wildlife.
Coming back to the initial days of his break he said, “Sai Paranjape told me that I had the perfect personality for forest officer. I was not a great actor then. I had acted in Kurukshetra written by Kamlesh Pande and it became an instant hit. He gave me a secretary. Based on this role I was asked for Papeeha. Zee TV’s Subhash Chandra Goel and his family used to come for the shooting. He offered me a role in the Hindi film Fareb for a negative role. This too became a hit. I was not known but once the film released, I was among the main stars instantly. I got few more films in a row. After 40 films, including Sarkarnama, I started doing some Marathi films. I did around 250 films. I acted in South Indian and Bengali films too. Even today I am getting offers.”
He was Cotton King’s longest serving model and modelled for Soft Corner also for a long time. At the same time, he was modelling for 5-6 different top brands and 8-10 other brands. “This is maximum number of advertisements for an actor.” His son, an IT engineer, signed as a hero after working in an industry for a brief period. He started liking direction. He also produced few short films. Milind’s wife Rani too was an actress but quit acting after marriage. She hosted some cookery shows on television.
Spiritual Journey
The actor is deeply into meditation and can share lot of knowledge on spirituality. It all percolates down from his ancestors. “My ancestors wrote Gita Rahasya. The first biography of Saibaba was written by my great, great, great grandfather which is the property of Sai Sansthan now. I was fascinated by Gajanan Maharaj. I am into meditation. Once in a year, I visit Shirdi. I am an explorer. Now, I am also getting into astrology. I was with late Bhaiyyu Maharaj for some time. I was trying to learn as much as possible. I wrote a book on basic meditation. I learnt Maharshi Mahesh Yogi’s transcendental meditation (TM). Becoming thoughtless and TM are different, but the goal is the same. Some focus on breath and stop the thoughts. I can go into this stage,” he shared. In the future, he would like to come out of this material world and do something good for nature, wildlife, and tourism.
