‘Women were pivots even before the last 5 years’

Veteran actress TABU has displayed her spectrum with roles which include that of a nautch girl, a police officer as well as Shakespearean characters. But she believes that her best is yet to come given the tradition of powerhouse women onscreen, says Asmita Sarkar

Versatile and dignified. These are the words that pop into one’s mind when looking at Bollywood actress Tabu, 46. She handles questions regarding her relationship status, which is single, with as much aplomb as when discussing the poet, Gulzar.

Gulzar, in her eyes, is the quietest director, who gives the artist the freedom to interpret a character. She has worked with him in Maachis and Hu Tu Tu. “I don’t remember him giving any instructions to actors. He’ll tell you when a tweak is needed. There is a lot of love and respect on his sets,” she said. She still wonders why she was picked for the role of Veeran. She says that till today he only smiles when she asks why he picked her for the role. Her role in Hu Tu Tu was one of the most difficult ones she has ever played. “The character is inaccessible to me,” she said.

During the inauguration of the Jagran Film Festival, which is doing a retrospective of her works, she spoke in detail about some of the seminal works of her career that will be screened. 

From Chandni Bar to Namesake, she has essayed a large variety of roles and credits Maachis as the the turning point in her career. From there on, she has been taken seriously as an actor, she believes. Since then, she has twice portrayed Shakespearean characters and one Victorian in the movies Maqbool, Haider and Fitoor. While her latest movie, Missing, did not break grounds she still has much to celebrate in her works.

The characters she portrays are not limited to the dark and complex ones. There have been also movies like Cheeni Kam, in which she romances Amitabh Bachchan, a man 20 years her senior. She feels that it was the most relatable character. “I could be that person. I almost played myself in that movie,” she said.

She also points out during the evening that women-centric roles were not an invention of the last five years, they have been there forever. “In movies like Maachis and Astitva, I was noticed for my meaty roles,” she argued. “Careers are chequered. I did those movies because I wanted to experience doing good work. Prior to these, the song and dance Bollywood movies were also fun, but I wanted more,” she said.

She claimed that many have questioned her about her choice of roles because of how bold and unconventional they were but never has she felt any regret or fear for the strong roles she picked. About her role in Chandni Bar, she said, “I had no doubt it would work. This character’s background was really hard to replicate. I went to a dance bar with Madhur (Bhandarkar) to observe. It was dark and dingy and I couldn’t stay long. You can only observe from a distance because the bar girls wouldn’t talk to you.”

She has worked not just with the poet-director Gulzaar but also with painter MF Husain in Meenaxi: A tale of three cities. She said that the experience was esoteric and the film didn’t need a script because the vision was inside his head. The interactions and incidents on the set had become larger and the film secondary. “Every night, after shooting in Prague, he would take us to restaurants and introduced me to a life I had never seen before. He opened new doors for me,” she said, while recollecting her days on the sets.

Her work has also taken her to foreign shores with movies like The Namesake and Life of Pi. In the former, she plays the character of a Bengali girl who marries and immigrates to the United States. The story is about the discord between the first generation immigrants and their children, who are second generation. “People could identify with Namesake because most of the people in the United States are immigrants. People were affected by it,” she said.

Her body of work is inspiring for both new and old movie lovers. From being a child actor, to the teenybop movies and finally serious roles, her journey has been been anything but predictable.