Actors are especially susceptible to this shallowness. Intent on their individual life maps, they see the world with themselves at the centre—every success exaggerated, every failure amplified.
My first on-screen appearance was a very respectable one. The Hindi film Dooriyan (1979), starring Sharmila Tagore and Uttam Kumar, deals with marital discord—where the personal ambitions of an urban working couple and the responsibilities of marriage, namely raising a child, create seemingly irreconcilable differences between them. There is a song where my mother is holding their child, a mere infant, in her arms and trying to get it to sleep. That infant was me.
On-screen mothers
The film received huge acclaim as a rare progressive vision of modern urban relationships. And what I lacked in dialogue and clothing, I more than made up for in gravitas and believability. Thirty-odd years later I would rock my own borrowed baby to sleep in 31st October. Apart from that similarity of action, performed by every leading lady at some point in her line of work, there has been little that my career has had in common with my mother’s.
Amman is a superstar, a living legend, Bollywood royalty. I am what is called a ‘working actor’—this essentially means I am an actor who while I may never achieve superstardom, have had a long and productive career, earn a better than decent living and have the admiration of my peers (to the extent that anyone today has the admiration of their peers!). My achievements are assuredly meritorious and allow me to hold my head high in society, but I am aware that when compared to Amman’s, they pale like a gluten-free muffin in the face of red velvet.
You would not be wrong to wonder then why an academically inclined, stability-seeking private banker chose to jettison her corporate job with its cushy perks for the mercurial medium of the movies, and with it, the inevitably unfavourable comparisons to iconic mothers and brothers. I will get to the why, but first let me tell you the how.
So there I was pushing papers at Citibank in 2003—less than content but not unhappy and certainly not motivated enough to actually do anything about it—when I received a phone call that would change my life. Amol Palekar called me and asked if we could meet to discuss a film he was directing. I could have just said I wasn’t interested in acting in movies or I already had a job and a plan or that my parents would be furious I was even considering this. Instead I said, ‘How’s Saturday?’ and then went home to speed-watch every Amol Palekar film my DVD guy could source. There is no harm in meeting him, I thought. Surely it would be disrespectful to refuse such a senior member of the industry, I told myself. Also there was no need to share this development with anyone who may read more into my inconsistent disposition.
I didn’t need to remind myself that acting in Hindi movies was a career option I had summarily dismissed at the age of eighteen when a very well-established director came to our home in Delhi to meet my mother, offering me a starring role opposite a properly famous hero. The idea of dropping out of Oxford to act in a Hindi film was so alien to me it was laughable and, much to the relief of my secretly terrified parents, I rolled my eyes at the proposal and never gave it or the few other offers that came my way a second thought.
Hindi movies were simply ludicrous: loud and unrealistic, filled with regressive characters spontaneously breaking into song and choreographed dance at the drop of a dupatta. Or so I thought. In my defence, it was the 1990s, not exactly the golden age of Indian cinema—made infamous by dialogues such as this gem: ‘Mera naam hai Pote, jo apne baap ke bhi nahin hote,’ or ‘Tune meri behen ko maar daala, theek kiya. Magar tune meri behen ka rape kiya, bahut bura kiya.’ You can’t make this stuff up!
Thankfully, when we met at his office, the story Amol Palekar narrated to me was a very different one. His film was based on a Rajasthani folk tale and was about a young wife, Lachchi, whose husband leaves her the day after their wedding to go on a five-year business trip. The wife is then visited by a ghost, disguised as her husband, who is in love with her and takes her husband’s place. The ghost is warm and winsome and much more attractive in demeanour to both Lachchi and to the family than the real husband, Kishanlal.
When Kishanlal returns at the end of five years, Lachchi is presented a riddle between the manifestation of all of her desires in the form of the ghost and her real husband. At the time Amol ji wanted to call the film Ghost Ka Dost and he wanted me to play the role of Lachchi. I immediately fell in love with the script and all its fantastical magic. I imagined myself as the vivacious Lachchi and when presented with my own riddle of Citibank versus Cinema I chose the charm and allure of Cinema.
The truth of the matter is that, given the opportunity, everyone wants to be a hero and, much to my chagrin, I too was not above this flight of fancy. The role of Kishanlal was to be played by a new actor; the film would introduce us both and I was told we needed to do a couple of months of workshopping, followed by three months of shooting in Rajasthan.
I was aware that to do this film, even as a one-off, I would have to quit my job at the bank. I had faced the camera before; I don’t mean Dooriyan, but a more substantial role (four seconds long) when my father, among other sporting legends, was asked to carry a torch of national integration on a short programme called Spread the Light of Freedom. This was way back in 1988 when there was only one TV channel in India, Doordarshan (those of you of that vintage will remember the green genie from Alif Laila and India’s most loved superhero Shaktimaan). You can find a list of the prominent sports stars who ran with the torch: P.T. Usha, Kapil Dev, Milkha Singh, Sunil Gavaskar, Prakash Padukone, M.A.K. Pataudi—and Soha Ali Khan (thrown in last-minute for her irresistible cuteness, aged ten). The more cynical among you may remain unconvinced by these cinematic credentials and I grudgingly accept that my parents may possibly have had some hand in my being cast in Dooriyan and Spread the Light, but the Samsung ad I was to do many years later was all me!
It’s not a low resolution photograph—we're just too fast for the camera!
It was halfway through my stint at Citibank that I was cast as director Homi Adajania’s girlfriend in an advertisement for a Samsung television which claimed to emit bio-rays that relaxed not just your eyes but your whole body. It begins with a couple sitting on the couch, arguing. The girl turns away from the boy in anger and, at a loss for the right placatory words, the boy turns on the TV. Soothing rays in the form of rose petals radiate from the television set and envelop the couple in a mist of tranquillity, dissipating the tension and enabling their happy reconciliation. Do look it up on YouTube—as of writing this book it has 1439 views and it could do with some more.
TV makes you happy
Being cast in a glossy advertisement is either the successful result of hard work and dedication in the form of diet, exercise, investment in an expensive photo shoot for some glamorous headshots, and exhaustive auditions—or the culmination of a random but fortuitous series of circumstances, also known as ‘being in the right place at the right time’.
For me it was the latter. The right place being on the sofa in the study in my brother’s house and the right time being when the ad film-maker, who happened to be a friend of Bhai’s, came home for dinner. I’d like to think he saw me and was captivated by my fresh, dewy appeal and the sincerity of my television-watching face . . . and who is to say he wasn’t? The point being that as I contemplated leaving Citibank to embark on an artistic adventure with Amol Palekar as the new captain of my ship, I could truthfully state that I had persuasive prior experience in film, television and advertising. And given the somewhat indispensable involvement of Amman in film, Abba in TV and Bhai in advertising, I was keen to take this step into the abyss by myself.
The more discerning cinephiles among you may have recognized the Amol Palekar film as Paheli (2005) which, incidentally, was also India’s official entry to the Oscars that year. You will have also remembered that the role of the lively and lovable Lachchi was played not by yours truly but by Rani Mukherjee. And the role of Kishanlal was not played
by a debutant actor but the complete opposite of that—Shah Rukh Khan.
And therein lies the irony which laces life like one of Alanis Morissette’s bitter pills. The film that finally made me quit my stable and secure job for a life of uncertainty, risk and insecurity, didn’t happen—or, more accurately, it didn’t happen for me.
I had just about convinced Human Resources of my commitment to the job and total lack of interest in becoming an actress when I decided I was, in fact, very interested in acting in a film and had no sense of commitment to the job. I handed in my notice and walked out of the bank, braving the accusatory stares of colleagues; their eyes shouted ‘hypocrite’ at me but I didn’t care because I was finally free of boring bonds and dull debentures.
The very next day Amol ji called me to say that they had decided to go in a different direction with the film. It may not have been the very next day but in my recollection of events it seemed to follow directly, like guilt after a chocolate binge. It was a direction, he said, that involved superstars and a bigger production and marketing budget, and that regrettably left no room for me. And so there I was: sans job, sans salary, sans having told my parents about loss of said job and salary, and very much sans a plan.
And that is how my first film, my ‘big’ debut, came to be a small Bengali film, Iti Srikanta (2004), in which I played an ashram-confined Vaishnavite called Kamalata who rarely spoke (thankfully, as I am far from fluent in Bangla). The producers met me in Mumbai—they explained it was a small-budget film and so they could pay me a very minimal amount. Let’s just say my laundry bill for the month was more than my fee. We would be shooting in Santiniketan for four weeks and so would stay in a guest house, there being no hotels in the vicinity. It was not exactly the glamorous launch I had imagined but the film was a period drama based on Sarat Chandra’s 1917 novel Srikanta and it was going to be directed by two-time National Award–winning director Anjan Das. I decided it was the ideal test of my wanting to be an actor—in rural Bengal, away from the media glare, I could discover for myself whether I enjoyed the process of film-making, of being in front of the camera and playing a part. And if I didn’t I could quietly resume my earlier life in a more corporate setting.
First frame
I will always remember the first time I faced the camera—except I wasn’t really facing it; it was off to the side but still so close I could reach out and touch it. Adil Hussain, an insanely accomplished actor who played the titular role of Srikanta, was sitting beside me. I had learnt my lines and I knew not to look directly into the camera—that was the first piece of advice my mother had given me.
‘Think of the camera as a boy you like. You want to impress him so you will offer him your best angle, you will make sure he can see and hear you but you will not address him directly. But you will always know where he is.’ And so began my flirtation with the camera. At first it was a breathless, uncoordinated, clumsy affair that left me blushing to the roots of my hair, but gradually, over time, I relaxed—I learnt to exhale, to take my time, to bask in the camera’s focused gaze.
And when the film ended I felt bereft. I called my mother from the airport in Kolkata, close to tears. I didn’t understand why I felt so unanchored, so lost. She explained it was a natural reaction to being a part of a film—it’s such an intense and personal experience, you give so much of yourself to playing a character for weeks and months, and then it all suddenly ends. And you have to learn to let go, to move on.
And so I moved on, albeit reluctantly. I had loved playing the cloistered and enigmatic Kamalata; the film’s cast had become my closest friends; the unit felt like family. And now I was untethered, flapping feebly in the wind. What I needed was another film, another role to attach myself to.
Perhaps something more modern, more youthful—an energetic, driven girl, fresh out of college with the world at her feet, with dreams of a successful career and independence. In other words Neha from Dil Maange More!!!, my first Hindi film.
I wish someone had told me at the time that it was not wise to choose a film with three girls in it as your Hindi debut—you must pick a film with a solo heroine, where it is all about you (after the hero, of course!). I was also asked to select from any of the three girls’ roles that I liked best. I wish someone had told me to choose the girl who ends up with the boy. Instead, I simply heard the story and liked it and found the character of Neha to be the most compelling—someone who at eighteen is more keen on a prestigious job at an air hostess academy in the city than on marrying her college boyfriend and settling down in Samarpur, however idyllic a hill station it may be. How silly of me!
Movie mathematics is simple. One boy, three girls. Girl who chooses job over boy = vamp. Girl who chooses boy over everything else = heroine. And so I had in effect chosen not to be the heroine of my first commercial film.
The film’s fate at the box office is well documented so there is no point in mincing words. It was a dud. As someone who had always excelled in everything I had done, this was uncharted territory—a failure, and a painfully public one at that. A popular national newspaper ran a review titled ‘Dil Maange No More!’ And it wasn’t just the film that was criticized. As I scanned the scathing commentary for the section on performances, I saw my name followed by words that will be forever etched in my memory: ‘She looks like her mother but she acts like her father.’ Now Abba displayed some pretty decent acting chops on more than one occasion: Gwalior Suitings, Asian Paints, Lay’s Chips, to name just a few advertisements he did, but I guess these had made no impression on the reviewer who obviously did not mean her statement as a compliment.
I was mortified. I had never failed at anything I had tried up to that point (except ballet) and here was a widely available, withering breakdown of my abilities or lack thereof.
‘Don’t read the reviews.’ ‘It’s one person’s opinion and often they’re just having a bad day.’ ‘You can’t make everyone happy.’ This is what they tell you and there may be some actors who pay heed to that advice but the vast majority of us tend to painstakingly peruse every single online, print and electronic critique and rating.
Most actors who have stuck around long enough to see the inevitable downs that follow the ups sport the hide of a rhinoceros—but an unkind review can still jar to the bone and I had not yet had the time to grow a protective layer or two of thick skin. The last two paragraphs of the review swam before my eyes which had suddenly filled with unshed tears. I felt embarrassed and humiliated, singled out for public shaming. I didn’t understand why they had to drag my family into it, why it couldn’t be my failure alone. I couldn’t bring myself to face anyone; I just wanted to shut myself off from the world until it had forgotten all about me.
I put my phone on silent, pulled the curtains shut and climbed into bed with a large tub of strawberry ice cream and the first season of Sex and the City. Eight hours and 6000 calories later, as the season credits rolled up my television screen, I felt emboldened by the global language of stilettos and funky crop tops. I was a strong, independent working woman and that reviewer was an unhappy frustrated jerk. I picked up my phone, ready to face a spate of sympathies or a torrent of taunts . . . There was one missed call from my driver and a message from Vodafone reminding me to pay my bill before the due date; not exactly the deluge of derision I had anticipated. I decided to hit the gym to try to repair some of the damage my binge fest had done.
Whilst on the treadmill I initially kept my head down and my eyes trained on my feet, assiduously avoiding eye contact with anyone. When I finally gathered the strength to glance around me, I expected to be greeted with smirks and sniggers but everyone was simply going about their normal fitness routines. My brother called me as I was walking out.
‘Should we go out for dinner tonight?’ he asked.
‘My film is a disaster. They said I was a wooden doll with stilted dialogue delivery that sounded like I had been hit in the face,’ I spewed, unable to control myself.
‘To
day’s review lines tomorrow’s waste-paper basket,’ Bhai said breezily. ‘People are going to say all sorts of things about you—good, bad and ugly. You can’t take it to heart or you’re going to want to bleed out in a tub of warm water. Pick you up at eight?’
He was right. I was going to have to learn not to care about what other people thought. I needed to commit to my work and accept that there would be some who would judge me, call me talentless or spoilt or inadequate. And that was okay—it didn’t have to shatter my self-confidence, it didn’t have to destroy my dreams. There will always be good and bad reviews, dream roles and lost opportunities, hits and misses at the box office. Success will never be final and failure will never be fatal. What matters is that you persevere.
My first Hindi film released in 2004, before today’s age of ubiquitous social media. Today as I scroll through my Twitter feed it still amazes me how many people revel in hate, trolling public personalities they have never met and know nothing about. I myself have been a target of this on more than one occasion.
For instance, when I expressed my regret over former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan announcing his exit in June 2016.
My tweet read: ‘Profound loss for India that RBI Gov #RaghuramRajan has been forced to exit. He can only help those who want to help themselves. Shame.’
These are some of the comments I was treated to:
‘Does she know the full form of RBI?’
‘Are we supposed to listen to dumb actresses now?’
‘Why do you have to poke your long nose into everything? Stick to your area’
The Perils of Being Moderately Famous Page 7