I am all for freedom of speech and fully respect that everyone has the right to an opinion but cyberbullying has become a fact of life and actors are often soft targets for anonymous vitriol. Most times it is best to ignore the comments but there are times when I feel compelled to rise to the bait.
In this case 140 characters were sufficient to frame an apt reply: ‘LSE doesn’t stand for the London School of Entertainment and “dumb actresses” are citizens with valid opinions on economic policy #nuffsaid.’
There are times, however, when the character limitation on Twitter does not allow for a mature and considered reaction. Such as when I was trolled more recently for wearing a sari. Yup, you read it right—not a bikini or a short skirt—both of which, incidentally, I have been photographed wearing in the past (as has my mother who was famously the first Indian actress to model a bikini on a magazine cover way back in the 1960s) but a six-metre traditional Kanjeevaram silk sari.
These are some of the milder comments worth repeating:
‘So finally you have become a Hindu’
‘Shame on you, you are not a Muslim’
‘Aap ye Khan surname lagana bandh kariye. Ye surname hamari hai, kaffiro ki nahin’ (Stop using Khan as a surname. It belongs to us, not to infidels)
The whole nine yards
At that moment 140 characters and all the emoticons in the world could not suffice in helping me express the indignation that swelled up inside me. Of course the comments belie an ignorance of religious customs and tradition—one has only to look to the sari-clad Muslim women of Bengal and South India to understand this. The issue, however, is a deeper and more troubling one. I am only one of millions of women who have been criticized for their choice of clothing and this particular sari incident reveals that the issue is not with an expression of sexuality or suggestive choices of apparel; it’s about attacking a woman simply because she is a woman—plain old sexism. Every woman has the right to wear whatever she pleases and to even suggest otherwise is totally unacceptable. It’s not the length of our hemlines that need to increase; it’s the breadth of your minds.
A few days later I posted a picture of myself in a white dress printed with a motif of green leaves and took the opportunity to make what I thought was a subtle point with the caption, ‘Leaf and let leaf’. It’s entirely possible no one made the connection but I felt pleased with myself!
Leaf and let leaf
In 2004 public criticism such as this may have crippled me, but today I can proudly display a dense and difficult-to-penetrate armour of thick skin which insulates me from insult. It has been diligently developed over the past thirteen years by regularly being outside of my comfort zone—playing roles that are far removed from who I am, performing complicated dance numbers live on stage, hosting game shows and interacting with strangers on an almost daily basis. I have acted in numerous films—some have earned critical and commercial acclaim, many could not achieve their full potential for various reasons and a few on whose release date I have felt compelled to leave the country.
Indisputably Rang De Basanti (2006) is my most successful film to date—both in terms of box office success as well as in terms of garnering me awards and credibility as an actor. It also remains the only film I had to audition for. I got a call from Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s office to read for an integral part of an ensemble-cast film starring Aamir Khan to be produced by UTV. A.R. Rahman had already been signed as the music director and Binod Pradhan as the cinematographer. It was a dream project with a massive production budget of Rs 40 crore (in those days a whopping amount) and every young actor wanted to be a part of the cast. I remember enacting three scenes with Mehra cuing me himself. Two were light-hearted and breezy and one was my character Sonia’s reaction to the announcement of the death of her fiancé Ajay (played by R. Madhavan) on national television.
The office had a sterile clinical environment with no props, no music to help create atmosphere. I had five minutes to centre myself and to imagine how I would react if I was to suddenly learn that the man I loved and was about to marry had died. It must have gone well because Mehra came up to me afterwards and said he wanted me to do exactly that when we shot the scene for real. And that scene is what finally won me the credibility that I sought as an actor.
Upon its release Rang De Basanti, I am proud to say, broke all opening box office records in India. It was, at the time, the highest-grossing film in its opening weekend in India (Rs 23 crore) and had the highest opening day collection for a Bollywood film. The screenplay, dialogues, music and performances were all very well received and it went on to win the National Award for most popular film in 2007. The film is notable not only for its success but also for the impact it had on people’s lives and attitudes; in fact, the term ‘RDB effect’ was coined to describe the chord it struck with people.
With Bhai at the IIFA Awards in Leeds, UK
For those of you who have not seen the film it is about a group of disillusioned, restless college students who reluctantly participate in a film on the political activities of militant revolutionaries led by Bhagat Singh and Chandra Shekhar Azad and who, after experiencing a personal tragedy, decide to take action, to fight for justice. The film cleverly illustrated the fact that one can be as revolutionary today as our national heroes of yesterday. The story seemed to tap into an angst, a cynicism with systemic corruption that people, especially the urban middle class and the youth of our country was harbouring.
Recalling the idealism of our own recent past it ignited a patriotism in the audience, an awakening, a sense of the need to take responsibility and to effect change. This was perhaps best displayed by the candlelight vigil that took place at India Gate after the Jessica Lal murder and the perceived legal injustice that ensued. The march was very much a mirror of the one led by the protagonists in RDB post Ajay’s death. I do not want to exaggerate the popularity of the film or its influence on the desires and anxieties of the audience but RDB remains a film that will always hold a special place in my filmography for reasons beyond its profitability.
It is Khoya Khoya Chand (2007), however, that stands apart for me as my favourite film, my most memorable performance.
The movie was directed by Sudhir Mishra, and traces the rise and fall of an actress, Nikhat Sheikh, in the 1950s and is perhaps the most challenging role I have had the opportunity to perform.
One doesn’t often get the chance to prep for months before a shoot, to really get into the skin of the character. I had to learn Urdu, Kathak, horse riding and sword fighting, among other skills, and that took time, although I readily admit I learnt the shortcut crash-course varieties!
Set life
When the film wrapped I felt empty, I felt I had given of myself in a way that I had never done before and I was drained but happy. It is very satisfying for an actor to feel that way. The film did not fare well at the box office and the reviews were mixed. This time I chose to dwell on the positive reviews and ignore the negative ones; I was proud of my work, and the fact that one of my strongest critics, my mother, loved me in the film meant the world to me.
I remember her coming up to me during the interval at the film premiere. ‘You are so good,’ she said. Just four words but I was overjoyed. I felt reaffirmed. Perhaps it wasn’t going to be a disaster after all—this career choice, this left turn I had taken into the abyss.
Still from Khoya Khoya Chand
It has been ten years since then. I have been a part of good and not-so-good films; I have grown as an actor and now feel at ease in front of the camera, although I am aware that between ‘action’ and ‘cut’ my heart rate inevitably spikes but that is an adrenaline rush I relish and one that adds a necessary energy to my performance; I continue to read and watch reviews and acknowledge some if not all the mentions I get on social media.
There is something called the ‘Celebrity Index’ in a national newspaper which measures and ranks your fame relative to others. Fifty lucky actors and fifty plucky act
resses make the cut every month, depending on their exploits, film-related and otherwise. I myself am living on borrowed time—having featured at a modestly moderate 26 in July 2016, to hitting a personal best of 18 in September (during the 31st October film promotions) and being currently dangerously close to being ousted at 46, a precarious position I know.
It brings one fact into sharp focus: People will say negative things about you personally as well as criticize your work but over time you realize that the worst responses are not the disparaging ones, it’s when they don’t respond at all—when you’re simply not relevant enough to be discussed. Perhaps my being a student of history helps me reconcile an actor’s desire for fame with a fear of being forgotten—I am aware that no matter how much notability and prestige you garner in your career, in the larger scheme of things most of us will be consigned to oblivion. In the absence of this understanding it is easy to get caught up in a desire for prominence which breeds a competition for attention that can be intense and claustrophobic.
Life as an actor can be stifling. Our Hindi film industry is prolific—producing more films than any other in the world. Every third person in the gym wants to be a hero/heroine—the competition is intense, and envy and insecurity, rife. It is easy to feel validated or destroyed by other people’s opinions and living on the surface becomes a simpler, more appealing option. It becomes easier to scroll through Instagram judging people by the way they look instead of delving deeper. And consequently it becomes more important to look good.
Shortcut options are popular now: steroids to sculpt one’s body, instead of proper diet; muscle-building and cardiovascular exercises to burn fat. Cosmetic enhancements such as Botox, fillers and tummy tucks are now as mundane as waxing your legs. One just does what it takes to look good. Relationships too seem to survive only on the surface, with an emphasis on having fun and living in the moment. It is too tedious to share our deepest feelings, too hard to commit to being there when things get tough, too demanding to learn from our mistakes.
If we are unwilling to dig deeper within ourselves to get in touch with our dreams and fears, we are unlikely to give that chance to our friends. So much so that people have stopped really knowing each other or impacting each other’s lives. It is more of an existence and less of a life, a life more empty than full.
The irony is that as an actor you are required to dig deep and unearth emotions, to empathize with the characters you play on screen. But how can you do that honestly if you are convinced the world revolves around you? If, like Mercator, you have not stepped out to experience the world in all its diversity and magnificence? That is why it is essential to take the plunge and dive deep. Move outside of your comfort zone. Test yourself. Learn to live and love completely. And one of the best ways to do that is to pack a bag and get out of Bollywood. Remind yourself of the tiny speck you are in the universe.
Because if you continue to live on the surface you will flatline.
7
We’ll Always Have Paris
‘We won’t go unless you are absolutely ready. But when I say go, you run. Don’t look back and for God’s sake don’t hesitate.’
You would be forgiven for thinking these are dialogues from the epic 1963 American film The Great Escape, spoken by actor Steve McQueen to a nervous prisoner of war about to embark on a daring escape from a high-security Nazi war camp. In actuality they were said by Tom to me as I sat dangling my legs over the guard rail that acts as a protective boundary to keep vehicles from straying off the road. We were stranded somewhere on the M25, one of England’s busiest motorways—a dual four-lane roadway—that encircles almost all of Greater London and is used by hundreds of thousands of cars every day. It was a beautiful spring day in March 1997 and we were hitch-hiking from Oxford to Paris as part of a university cancer-awareness fundraiser.
With Tom on the ferry from Spain to Morocco
Up until then we had fared incredibly well, having traversed a little more than half the distance to Dover (150 miles from Oxford) where we would catch the ferry to Calais. We had got lifts from a man on his way to work, a woman dropping her children to school (who gave us sandwiches), and the driver of a massive juggernaut who very kindly got on his CB radio to spread the news that he had two passengers on a cross-country voyage in need of assistance. There was a flurry of favourable responses to his announcement, which I suspect had something to do with his description of us as two scantily clad buxom Scandinavian damsels in distress! A man promptly and very generously assured him he would take us all the way to Canterbury, a mere 20 miles from Dover. When he saw a decidedly un-female Tom and un-Norse me climbing out of the lorry he managed to mask his disappointment but 10 miles into the journey, he had a sudden change of heart and unceremoniously dropped us on a slip road in the middle of nowhere.
And so there we were, stranded on the wrong side of the M25 with vehicles zipping up and down the eight lanes between us and where we needed to get. We had no option but to make a dash for it. That or wait to be picked up by a police car.
I bent down to retie my shoelaces, adjusted my backpack and studied the stream of hurtling cars warily, awaiting Tom’s command. I didn’t look for a gap in the traffic but focused instead on Tom’s voice—he had to yell to be heard over the whoosh of rushing automobiles—and when he shouted, ‘GO!’ I ran. It was exhilarating. Liberating. And stupid. So stupid. But also so exhilarating. Nothing like a brush with death to make you feel alive! We walked for an hour or two after that, at first along the motorway and then down a side road, through quaint English villages. We had lunch in a pub that spilled out on to a green where a cricket game was afoot. We talked about what pizzas we liked: me, the cheesy deep pan sort you could sink your teeth into; Tom, the thin crust powdery kind that snaps between your fingers like a biscuit. We passed churches with clanging bells and farms full of cattle, pigs and chickens. We crossed small streams and thatched homes with attached gardens. I was worried we were falling behind in the race but Tom was unperturbed. ‘The good traveller has no fixed plans,’ he said, ‘and is not intent on arriving.’ He told me later that he had been quoting from The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton but then I was overwhelmed by what I had assumed was his wisdom. At some point it started to rain but we walked on, our faces turned up to the open skies, catching droplets on our tongues, laughing with reckless abandon.
It was early evening and the sky was beginning to turn pink when we finally flagged down a passing car. The driver was a middle-aged woman who was initially suspicious of us but upon learning about the hitch-hike’s cancer-awareness goals decided to go an hour out of her way to drive us all the way to Dover. It transpired that her mother had recently lost a painful battle against lung cancer and she was very appreciative of our efforts. We arrived in Dover around 8 p.m. and managed to get on the ferry shortly after. It had taken us twelve hours to travel the 150 miles between Oxford and Dover but it had been such an adventure—and there was more in store.
When the ferry arrived in Calais at 10.30 p.m. we spilled out on to the dock with the rest of the passengers—groups of families, traders and other travellers—who then started to disperse one by one, getting into their cars, hailing cabs or walking away . . . until only Tom and I were left. We had approached several of the passengers, asking for rides to Paris, but sadly there had been no takers. Now you may recall that Tom and I had only met at the start of university, six months before this jolly jaunt. Tom would later go on to set up the global activist group Avaaz, and currently runs UK foreign policy on Syria, Iraq and ISIS. But that public-spirited, responsible streak wasn’t entirely evident back then and though we were friends, finding myself all alone in the middle of the night in a desolate and foreign part of the world with a nineteen-year-old boy, my sense of self-preservation and suspicion was heightened.
I sneaked a glance at Tom from the corner of my eye whilst my brain tried fervently to remember the French word for ‘Help’! Thanks to the British School I had a GCSE in French
and could confidently name twenty kinds of farm animals, the main parts of the human body and count to one hundred—all being of immense practical import of course! Thankfully, Tom seemed uninterested in assaulting me and announced gaily that he had a plan. We walked the short distance to Calais Ville Railway Station intending to hop on to a fast TGV train to cover the remaining 180 miles to Paris in under an hour. If we were lucky we would reach our destination, the Eiffel Tower, before the clock struck midnight.
But we were not lucky. The station was shut and the sign on the door said it would open only at 4.30 a.m.—six hours later. And that is how I came to spend my first, and only, night sleeping on a city pavement. I use ‘sleeping’ in the loosest sense of the word in that I was lying down but my eyes and ears were alert to every tiny movement in the dark. Was that a paper bag blowing in the breeze, a rat foraging for food or a homicidal maniac intent on murdering me for my leftover cheese sandwich? I couldn’t tell if I was trembling with fear, shivering because of the cold or simply shaking from the reverberations of Tom’s buzz-saw snoring, but I didn’t sleep a wink.
We were the first people in the station when the doors opened. And as the inky night sky surrendered to the golden-pink rays of the rising sun, our train finally pulled into Gare du Nord. All the participants of the hitch-hike were to meet under the Eiffel Tower at 8 p.m. to take the bus home to Oxford which gave Tom and me about twelve hours in Paris.
‘The best way to discover a city is by foot,’ Tom declared, and set off at a brisk pace in what he had deduced was the direction of the Seine (how did he know?). What followed was one of the most glorious days of my life. We bought baguettes and cheese and had a picnic by the river. I never knew such an innocuous mix of flour, water and yeast could taste so wonderful—fresh, fragrant and utterly sustaining.
The Perils of Being Moderately Famous Page 8