A role of a lifetime comes in as a rare opportunity. For Seema Biswas, it happened at the beginning of her big screen career, but she is still waiting for roles that will challenge her wits.
In the city on Tuesday, Ms. Biswas spoke about her career graph in the intensely “glamorous” Hindi films where she has managed to create space for her acting talents.
Shekhar Kapur had told her all along the making of the Bandit Queen that the film was on her shoulder and that she had to carry it. The hard work to live up to the challenge was not to be lost in all the meaningless roles that came her way, said Ms. Biswas at a press meet.
It was perhaps blasphemy for the casting directors that someone could even ask for a script when the role was to play mother to the reigning superstar. But Seema Biswas had stuck to her guns .
But over the last five years, things have changed somewhat. “It is now acceptable if someone asks for a script, whatever the role,” said Ms. Biswas. There was hope that Hindi films would come up with roles for women past their prime. Though men who were not typically handsome had made it as top level stars, but women had to be essentially beautiful, she said. The concept was changing, she added.
Malayalam cinema had always had content that reflected more of reality and I grew up watching regional films on Doordarshan, especially Malayalam, she said.
“It was my choice to take up what was comfortable to me… that is connected to my soul. Acting is what I love where I live with the characters.” She will soon be seen on the mini screen in a series called Maha Kumbh. It was a new medium for her though it was basically a writer’s medium, she said. The project was taken up on a friend’s request. Shooting would be essentially in Benaras, but it was being held up because of the rains, she said.
She had remained a hardcore theatre person even when films kept happening at regular intervals, with some career-defining roles like in Vivah, Hazar Chaurasi Ki Maa, Midnight’s Children, Water.
“Doing solo performances on stage was daunting at first, but I found that it was not impossible,” said Ms. Biswas, who has to her credit 12 solo performances in one night.
She will be giving a solo performance based on Rabindranath Tagore’s Streer Patra at the Kalikota Palace, Tripunithura on Wednesday at 6 p.m. as part of a curtain raiser for the Ekaharya Performance Festival 2014 that will be organised in December. Organised by Rajeev Varma Memorial Trust, the Festival’s logo was released at the press meet by Ms. Biswas. Riyas Komu, of the Kochi Biennale Foundation, had designed the logo.