On the path less trodden

Given that she took up Gulzaar’s Maachis as early as 1996, merely two years after her first prominent role in the Hindi film industry, she seems always to have taken the road less travelled, and very consciously so. “I’ve always done what I was not supposed to do,” she says with a hearty laugh and affirms that her priority has always, since the very beginning of her acting career, been her own satisfaction and conviction as a performer. “I’ve never done something simply because someone else told me that it was the right thing to do. And especially not if it was what everyone else was doing,” she says as she goes on to explain that this seems to be the way she is wired as an individual, so to speak. “If everyone else is doing something and I want to do it too, then there’s nothing like it. But if everyone else is doing something I don’t want to do, I simply won’t do it. I’ve always been that way. Maybe that makes me the only one to stick my neck out or make decisions that drive people to think I’ve completely lost my mind, but that’s who I am. I’ll do something I want to do even if no one else wants to do it. It’s how I’m built and it has worked for me so far, thank God,” she adds with a chuckle.

With her most recent release, Drishyam, having already brought her rave reviews for her performance, one can’t help but ask her why she doesn’t appear on screen a little more often. “I’m at a stage in my life where I’m actually happier with fewer films that consume fewer hours of my day. The kinds of roles I’ve done have already earned me the label of an ‘intense’ or ‘serious’ actress, but I’m not nearly that dramatically intense in real life! I like relaxing with friends and family and going out for weekends too… I need and enjoy my ‘me’ time now,” she signs off.