Decided to act because i am an introvert and very shy: Tillotama Shome

Mumbai: Debuting as the demure and charming maid Alice in Monsoon Wedding, actress Tillotama Shome has been steadily building up a respectable filmography that includes films like Dibakar Banerjee’s Shanghai and Tasher Desh and most recently Children of War. One of her most recent films Qissa, which made a buzz in the festival circuits, Shome played Kanwar Singh, who was born a girl but was raised as a boy by her father. In between the films, she has been exploring and experimenting with cinema and theatre in its rawest form.

Talking about her latest project, she says, “The narrative around the 1971 India-Pakistan war is changing and the genocide that took place is now in focus. My latest Children of War reflects this shift in discourse. The focus is shifting from the role that India played in a war, which many argue was one country’s internal affair, to the brutality and culpability of the Pakistan army, which used rape and religion as weapons of war,” she says.

There is nothing conventional about this talented actress, which is why we aren’t really surprised when she told us she taught theatre to inmates in New York. “I took to theatre to get a grip on my congenital stammer. But initially when I started out I did’nt know acting could be an antidote to my stammer. This stint lead me a scholarship to study theatre in New York and later I bagged the role of Alice in Monsoon Wedding. During my stay in New York, I taught theatre to inmates at a high-security prison and met the great Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci at his home.”

Tillotama has been a part of the industry since 2001, yet it seems that she has stayed away from what we like to call as commercial cinema. “The commercial versus non-commercial is a very limiting dichotomy. This certainly is not a pre-planned career move. I read the script. If I like it, I go for the audition. If I don’t like it, I sit at home and grind coffee beans into fine powder. I grew up with a stammer and I made a conscious choice to follow that felt impossible for someone like me, who is introvert and very shy: Acting! The magical world of performance was anathema to who I believed I was. I challenged that perception that I had of myself and wanted to see how far I could take that challenge. I am still doing the same thing.”

With her exuding confidence and unconventional looks, Shome is always going against convention to test her limits. “I am constantly on the move acquiring new skills to fight my complacence as an actor.”

Shome prefers maintaining a very low-key presence outside work. “I am not a star. I just have the privilege now to do what I love doing for a living. Earlier I was doing it because I wanted to live and pay my bills! I am an avid reader and I read over 350 pages a day. I am one of those who read encyclopaedias for fun,” she says.