| India | 28 March 2017 | Asia Samachar |
“People think every Sardar boy knows how to do it well.”
Well, it seems not. Not according to turbantor Jaspreet Singh, the Sikh who bumped into turban tying as a job while pursuing the BCom graduate at Guru Nanak Khalsa college in Matunga.
“The turban of an NRI would be different from a Punjabi. A UK-style pagg isn’t the same as the American one. Generally, NRIs sport shorter turbans and short but neat pleats than someone from rural Punjab, where the length may run into 8 metres and messy pleats. There is also a Patiala Shahi pagg and a Turla one for Bhangra. So I tie the turban as per the character,” te 28-year old Jaspreet tells Scoop Whoop News.
Six years later, the young man is a full-time “turban designer” in Bollywood with as many as seven big-budget films to his credit, notes the online media in a lenghty article on Jaspreet.
How did it start. The article, entitled ‘This Mumbai Man Ties Turbans For Sikh Characters In Bollywood Films For A Living’, captures the early days:
It was Ranbir Kapoor who gave Jaspreet – or Jassi as his family and friends know him – the name “turbanator” during the shoot of Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year (2009). The Shimit Amin venture was Jaspreet’s third as a turban-tying professional. The first was Shah Rukh Khan-Anushka’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008), which he landed by sheer chance.
“A friend told me that the film’s crew wants someone to tie a turban on a Sikh character. It was an immediate requirement and I went for it, thinking I would help them out,” he says in a telephonic chat with ScoopWhoop News.
Jaspreet found himself going on the set for four consecutive days and the experience was surreal.
“You don’t go to a workplace expecting to see Shah Rukh Khan. I had a very small part to play at the shoot, but I watched everything wide-eyed,” Singh laughs.
The best part – he was paid Rs 800 a day for something he did not think qualified as a ‘job’.
“I was just a college student then. Imagine my joy!” said Jaspreet, a BCom graduate from Guru Nanak Khalsa college in Matunga.
The next year, another Yash Raj film featured a Sikh character – Rani Mukherjee in Dil Bole Hadippa! The production house called Jaspreet again. A few months later, he was back for Rocket Singh, which Jaspreet says proved to be life-changing.
“Rarely does the protagonist, that too an A-lister star, sports a turban the entire length of the film. It was an amazing experience – I got to work with Ranbir Kapoor closely, the shoot went on for four months which means good money and my turban tying skills were really put to test.”
“I got a lot of compliments for the film, including some generous ones from Ranbir,” Jaspreet says.
Read full story here.
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