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The stage, their life
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Paresh Rawal and Swaroop Sampat were in the city recently with their play shaadi@barbaadi.com. In an interview, the couple talk about their common passion — theatre.
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BOLLYWOOD'S FAMILIAR villain and theatre world's established hero, Paresh Rawal seems apprehensive when approached for an interview. The actor, known for his characteristic dialogue delivery, hesitantly opens up to talk about his life.
An hour before the curtains go up on his comedy play, "shaadi@barbaadi.com", sitting in the green room of the Music Academy, clad in a simple white T-shirt and jeans, his attention frequently gets diverted towards the preparations for the evening's performance. At the other end of the room, his wife, former Miss India, model and actress Swaroop Sampat is busy donning make-up and chatting cheerfully with co-artistes.
A die-hard dramatist, Paresh for the past 30 years has had the best of both the worlds. "I have never let my film assignments come in the way of my first love, the stage. You should always take time out for the good things in life," he says matter-of-factly.
He has been doing Gujarati plays since school days and feels, Gujarati theatre has been flourishing due to encouraging audiences and exciting scripts.
In fact, it's the passion for plays that turned Paresh and Swaroop's professional relationship into a happy marriage. And the couple has continued to work together to keep their interests alive. "It's a special rapport both on and off stage. I really enjoy working with Paresh for he is a marvellous actor," adds Swaroop with the same smile that made her a household name with the superhit teleserial, "Yeh jo hai zindagi".
Besides Gujarati, Swaroop and Paresh also do plays in Hindi. Paresh's recent production "Khel" along with Naseeruddin Shah (staged in Chennai last year) has had many shows and is still going strong.
He entered Bollywood with "Arjun" and became the most sought after villain. "Our films fail to offer variety. Once you excel in a role, you will be typecast for the rest of your life," says he. For an actor of his calibre, this could be quite frustrating. "Films like Ketan Mehta's "Sardar Patel" or Mahesh Bhatt's "Sir" and Pooja Bhatt's "Tamanna" are far and few. You have to consider yourself blessed to get such offers." But Paresh is not a back-seat cribber. "Despite all the limitations in films, I try hard to give the roles my individuality, and turn to the stage to fulfil my creative desires. A good script sends my adrenalin rushing and I just grab the role. But now theatre too is suffering as there are hardly any good writers," avers the actor.
The charming face on Shingar Bindi, Swaroop has over the years done a lot of serious plays also. As for films, she did a few initially and gave up. "Though I loved the medium, I felt stifled in the big bad world of films and realised stage was more enjoyable and enriching. After marriage and two kids, I cut down on my assignments".
Swaroop may not sound very ambitious, but has multi-faceted interests. For the past six years, she has been teaching disabled children and is currently researching on "Drama in education", focussing on learning disabilities. But she is totally against child actors. "Daisy Irani, the famous child artiste of yesteryear is a good friend of mine and has told me how she hated facing the camera and mouthing dialogues," says Swaroop. "Acting is an adult's world. The hardships and stress can ruin a child's life by robbing the innocence". A thinking actress indeed!
CHITRA SWAMINATHAN
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