Sharman Joshi with rajkumar Hirani

Where is Raju Rastogi hiding? After 3 Idiots created history, we could track the whereabouts, on screen and off it, of the other two idiots (Aamir Khan and R. Madhavan) but Sharman Joshi has been missing in action. There were a couple of releases last year — Toh Baat Pakki and Allah ke Banday — but those were signed and shot before the Rajkumar Hirani film.

So where has Sharman been hiding? “Waiting for the right roles,” he says over the phone. That’s something he had told t2 even before the release of 3 Idiots, which was a couple of years after the raging success of Rang De Basanti.

But a friend of the hero, no matter how good he is, usually stays a friend of the hero and Sharman’s been branded that for some time now. “For sure, I am looking at lead roles, there’s no question about it,” he says, the usual matter-of-fact tone slanting towards a more serious one. “The role has to be interesting and challenging. It has to have enough meat for me as an actor.”

Does that mean nothing has changed even after the humongous success of the Vidhu Vinod Chopra production? “I keep getting offered all sorts of roles like before. Now there is a bigger rush with those offers. Naturally so... you expect that post a success like 3 Idiots. But not many have interested me.”

This waiting and rejecting might have paid off for Sharman. Finally. He has grabbed the role of the leading man in the upcoming Vinod Chopra production Ferrari ki Sawaari about “a young boy’s aspirations about a car, Sachin Tendulkar and wanting to play at Lord’s”.

“Yes, I am going to start work on the film from next month or so,” he confirms. “It’s being directed by debutant director Rajesh Mapuskar. Rajkumar Hirani is writing the dialogues of the film.”

You can’t miss the Hirani connection here. The bond between the men is so strong that Sharman has gone ahead and become the brand ambassador of 7UP, primarily because his 3 Idiots director is helming the campaign.

“Apart from the fact that it was a very interesting campaign, Rajkumar Hirani was directing it,” he admits. “The campaign is drawn from various moments in life. It says that if we can control our temper at the right juncture of our lives, things can turn out quite differently. It’s about Gussa Hatao, Chill Machao. All in all, it was a complete win-win situation.”

Sharman was all gung-ho about collaborating with Hirani again. “We worked on 3 Idiots for a long time and so working together again after such a gap was very exciting for us. The feel of the commercial is pretty much in the same space as 3 Idiots, even though this is just a 40-seconder,” he signs off.