It’s hard to put Nandita Das in a box. Over the years, she’s worn different hats — actor, filmmaker, social commentator. And just when you think she may have exhausted all options, she realises untapped facets of her talent. Last year, she took off to the U.S. for four months with her son Vihaan where she attended Yale University on a World Fellows Program. Between a flurry of classes and lectures, she’d stop to pick up her son for lunch. Those four months of hands-on parenting without the luxury of the help one gets back home, she says, brought her closer to her son. “Like most women, I have learnt to multi-task from a very young age. Often it is a challenge, but one needs to remind oneself not to feel guilty or be a superwoman,” she says over email, before jetting off to London on a work commitment. “We are all more privileged than the woman who gets her child ready for school, cooks and packs her husband’s tiffin, cleans the house, catches the bus or train to work, slogs in a male-dominated environment all day and then travels long hours back home to again be the good mother, wife and/or daughter,” she adds.
While that is true, Das doesn’t have it any easier. Years of practice may have taught her how to balance her various pursuits, but thanks to her wide range of interests, the roles keep multiplying. When her son was a toddler, she was the Chairperson of the Children’s Film Society, India, was doing advocacy work on social justice and writing a monthly column, amongst other things. She decided the best way to cope with this phase of incessant multi-tasking was by taking on yet another role — that of a playwright. “I felt working on a play on the subject of working women juggling different roles would be cathartic. But it was harder than I thought!” she says.
The play, Between the Lines , ended up being a milestone in Das’s career as an artiste. True to form, she wrote, directed and acted in the play. She’s dabbled in direction in the past with her acclaimed film Firaaq , which captured the aftermath of the Gujarat riots of 2002, but this was her first stab at theatre. “When you do something for the first time, of course there is fear of not meeting expectations. But thankfully, right from my childhood, my parents didn’t instil any fear of failure. I was always encouraged to enjoy the journey,” she says.
The play is also, perhaps, Das’s most personal project, in more ways than one. It marked the acting debut of her businessman-husband Subodh Maskara, who also plays her better half on stage. In fact, a lot of their private conversations as husband and wife, were written into the play. On stage they play, Maya and Shekhar, both lawyers on either side of a court case. Eventually, the lines between their professional and personal lives begin to blur. Not surprisingly, that ended up happening with Das and her husband off-stage as well. “There are challenges of life and work overlapping, but like in the case of the couple fighting in the play, this experience has also thrown up a lot of stuff in our lives,” she explains.
A common thread that runs through all of Das’s projects is its social relevance. Most recently, she lent her name to the Dark is Beautiful campaign that discussed the age-old colour bias in our country. As an actor, she’s picked projects that touched upon prickly social realities, often stirring controversies. Her play, is no different. Although, here she tries to drive home her point more gently. “I wanted to explore the relationship between couples that perceive themselves as being ‘equal’. There are issues that are need to be addressed time and again in different ways. My endeavour was to make the play soul-stirring without being didactic, and witty without being frivolous,” she says.
The theme of gender equality not only struck a chord with urban couples in India but also found resonance in foreign shores. It was screened as a CinePlay at the Museum of Moving Image (MOMI) in New York. “So far the response has been overwhelming. The commonality has been that people tend to discuss the play and what it says, way after watching it, and for me that is what I wanted,” she says.
Even as she travels far and wide with her play, Das has her plate full with her new projects. “In CinePlay (her husband’s company that captures theatre on film), we have just finished the shoot of Khamosh! Adaalat Jaari Hai , a Hindi translation of Vijay Tendulkar’s Marathi play,” she says. She is also planning to make a film on Saadat Hasan Manto, the celebrated short story writer. And so the juggling continues.
The play Between the Lines directed by and starring Nandita Das will be performed at The Hindu Theatre Fest 2015 in Hyderabad on August 21, and in Chennai on August 23.
