It’s happened again. Abhija has once again come to the sets of a movie that didn’t have a script. The story by Unni R. is there as a reference. The situations are narrated.
But then the story didn’t originally have a female character, that was director Sanalkumar’s creation. He added Geetha into the small bunch of characters in Ozhivu Divasathe Kali (An off-day game).
Abhija has just finished playing Geetha, who has more action than dialogue. Films have been keeping her busy the past two years, perhaps away from theatre, seeking which she had come to Kerala, leaving her corporate job in Bangalore.
“I worked in animation and graphics, and resigned as a user interface designer,” she says. Initially, it was one or two theatre productions, but then she realised she wanted to do it full time. Not that she stopped designing entirely. That’s been one of her passions too, and she continues to freelance whenever time permits.
But between her work in theatre, films and dance, that could come as a challenge. She hadn’t taken cinema seriously till Rajeev Ravi cast her in Njaan Steve Lopez.
There too she found no script. Neither in Abrid Shine’s new film Action Hero Biju. “I asked him, script undo, and he asked me, script veno,” she laughs. In Love 24x7, Abhija appears as a media professional, wearing western formals, different from the cotton saris and north Indian garments she usually gets to wear in movies.
“That could be the result of working with a woman director like Sreebala,” Abhija says. Another of her upcoming films is Mundrothuruthu directed by Manu, who’s made short films like French Revolution and Goalie. Abhija can’t say if she loves movies or theatre better. The first love has been theatre with productions like Macbeth, Pacha and Invisible Cities by Abhinaya, Las India’s and Tsunami Express by Elias Cohen. Then there was dance — Odissi and Kathak — that she’d learnt in her Bangalore days. “But it’s not taught in Kerala, and I try to go to Natyagriham once a year to train.”
“I worked in animation and graphics, and resigned as a user interface designer,” Abhija says. Initially, it was one or two theatre productions, but then she realised she wanted to do it full time
