The global acclaim and Golden  Globe and Oscar awards won by the feature film Life of Pi which narrates the story of a ship-wrecked Puducherry teenage boy adrift on a lifeboat in the Pacific for 227 days, has transformed Bangalore students Md Abbas Khaleeli (16) and Vibish Sivakumar (23) into minor celebrities in this garden-turned-garbage city. They were selected by celebrated Hollywood director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain,  Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger) to play the role of Ravi Patel  —  the teenage elder brother of Piscine (aka Pi) — from among 4,000 students who auditioned for the brief cameo roles totalling 4.5 minutes in the 127-minute box-office busting movie.

Currently a class XI student of the city’s St. Joseph’s Boys High School (SJBHS), Abbas was a class VIII student when he was picked to play 14-year-old Ravi Patel. “Even though I had a screen presence of only three minutes, shooting with a 70-member international production crew on locations in Taiwan, Munnar and Puducherry for almost 45 days has been a life-changing experience. I’ve learnt a lot about 3-D cinema and skillful editing of film footage,” says Abbas.

Likewise, an SJBHS alumnus also known in the city’s Toastmasters International circuits for his power-packed public speeches and a recent telecommunications graduate of Bangalore’s R.V. College of Engineering, the selection to play the 19-year-old Ravi Patel from 3,000 auditioned nationally, has been a defining experience for Vibish. “Initially I had auditioned for Pi but Delhi student Suraj Sharma bagged the role. Of course I was disappointed with the alternate offer to play Pi’s elder brother who dies in the shipwreck, but I accepted anyway,’’ says Vibish.

Despite a short 1.5-minute screen appearance, Vibish acknowledges that shooting with Ang for over a month was a “mind blowing’’ educative experience. “Ang’s thorough professionalism, and technical application of three dimensional special effects to serve the movie’s artistic vision were truly inspirational,” he enthuses.

After the filming in mid-2011 and acquiring his engineering degree in August the same year, Vibish signed up for a two-month acting course at the New York Film Academy.

With a class X board exam score of 84 percent despite the distractions of shooting for a Hollywood cameo, Abbas has his eyes set on law school after  class XII, and has also shortlisted acting as a career option. Ditto Vibish, currently studying for entry into flying school after turning down several job offers from well-known IT companies, who is “more than receptive’’ to film/stage roles.

Clearly, cinema is addictive.

Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)