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'Call me an actress, not a star'
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Mita Vasisht, whose scintillating acting has won rave reviews, talks to C. Maya about acting, theatre and Bollywood
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If the theatre bug hadn't got into her, she would probably have been a sailor, so passionate was she about yachting.
In fact, `passionate' is a word one would naturally associate with Mita Vasisht, for she talks about her pet dogs with as much fire as she breathes into her roles on the silver screen.
Was this her `mad streak' that director Govind Nihalani was talking about? "Oh yes, he'd picked me up for `Drishti' and `Drohkaal' and was one of the first to have borne the brunt of my passion on sets. I had just started doing films and was so volatile at times,'' says Mita.
Mita was in the city to receive the Aravindan Puraskaram on behalf of her husband Anup Singh, whose maiden film `Ekti Nadir Naam', had been chosen for the honours this year.
A graduate from the National School of Drama, Mita has worked with almost all avant garde directors like Kumar Sahni, Mani Kaul, Govind Nihalani on the one side and Bollywood's money- rakers like Subhash Ghai (`Taal'), Vikram Bhat (`Ghulam') and Rahul Rawail.
``It makes sense to me to do all kinds of films, because I have never been too bothered about the market of the films that I do, but about the characters that I portray,'' she says.
She's very much home portraying the scheming Devika in Mahest Bhatt's mega television soap `Swabhimaan', the battered housewife finding herself in the music video `Man Ke Manjeeray' or even doing a la Titanic with Govinda in the Lehar Mirinda commercial.
Where was she when the Bollywood entrants at the time were either swinging in the rain or running around trees? "Somehow, I could never see myself doing such roles and at the time, the kind of films in Bollywood didn't turn me on. Whether parallel or commercial, I couldn't do a role to which I cannot add a part of myself,'' she says.
``The trouble with Bollywood is that once you've done a film, you are expected to go ahead and become `commercially viable'. For them, it is not enough that you are an actress, you are expected to be a star too,'' Mita points out.
Theatre is a very integral part of her life and she's been conducting theatre workshops and teaching students. Since last June, `Mandala', the arts and theatre forum that she heads, has been working on a theatre production with a group of minor girls who were rescued from the redlight area in Mumbai.
The play, `Neethi Maankikaran' is a comedy about how everything in life, including laughter and tears, have become standardised. It has had several stages and people who patronisingly made an appearance to `encourage the poor girls', went back astounded at the terrific performance of her girls, she says proudly.
Mita is currently working on a one-woman play being directed by Bansi Kaul. Another forthcoming project is the English movie, `Bokshu, the Myth', directed by Shyamaprasad. She is also counting much on her Bengali film, `Pataal Ghar', directed by Abhijeet Chowdhary, due for release in April.
She married Anup Singh in 1995, after eight years of `intense friendship'.
`Ekti Naadir Naam' is as much her film as it is Anup's. ``When people ask me whether I have any children, I tell them that this film is our child, into which we've put in all our energies, love and money, Today, it is an overwhelming feeling to accept accolades for the film, to watch it make its own journey on the big screen,'' her eyes brim over as she says this.
Photo: K.G. Santhosh
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Life
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
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