As Rani Mukerji saunters into the Atrium of New Delhi’s The Imperial with her cup of coffee, one notices a big C on her T-shirt. Well, she is a mother now, I thought. But Rani is teaching social values these days. She says ‘C’ represents ‘character ko judge karne ki hichki. (the propensity to judge one’s character.) It is a novel way to promote her new film, Hichki, where she is playing a teacher suffering from Tourette’s syndrome that is manifested by purposeless, involuntary tics. “It is a metaphor for overcoming obstacles and discrimination in life. It is like a hichki in somebody’s mind. We have spoken about it in an entertaining way, light-hearted way.”
From her height to voice, Rani herself encountered many such hiccups in the early phase of her career. Before Ghulam , she was considered too homely, after Ghulam she was considered too glamorous. “People had hichkis about me which I think they overcame. I never believed that those were my shortcomings. I always felt that you have to be tall with your achievements. I told myself my voice is my voice and I can’t change it and this is who I am. It is part of my personality. People who were bothered by my image changed their tune because of my performances.”
A platter of sandwiches and pastries is laid before her but Rani is in a mood to talk. “I love Punjabi food and I am so lucky that I have married into a Punjabi household.” She is all praise for her mother-in-law’s preparation of Punjabi food. “I get gobhi and aloo ka parantha with white butter. I get aate ka halwa and kale chhole. Then there is butter chicken and gucchi ka pulao. And who can avoid maa ki daal and rajma chawal.” Before I could say it sounds rehearsed, Rani says her love for Punjabi food hasn’t developed after meeting Aditya Chopra. “It’s a long association. My best friend in school was a Punjabi.” And all this opulence without putting on weight? “There is a special oil that I use,” she winks.
NEW DELHI, 16/03/2018 : For Metro: Actor Rani Mukherjee at Hotel Imperial , in New Delhi . Photo: V. Sudershan
Rani hasn’t given up on her Bengali favourites like begun bhaja either. “My mother-in-law loves the fish that is cooked by my mother. Every week we do an authentic Bengali cuisine dinner. Adi can eat anything that is Indian. So the two cuisines can combine well on our table. And the best example of this combination is my daughter Adira, who loves to have chicken with rice.”
Rani’s performance in the kitchen is limited to Sunday mornings when she makes cheese omelettes for Adi and pancakes for Adira. “Before marriage, I used to talk about how I would turn up in a chiffon sari in the kitchen with a roller pin and make chapatis for Adi and ask, ae ji aur kya loge . But that day hasn’t arrived yet. Every time I attempt something like this, it becomes a comedy.”
But like her acting, Rani doesn’t give up easily. “When I first tried payesh, Adi said I should not go into this zone, but I mastered it in my second attempt.” Rani doesn’t want to have a say in the future course of Yash Raj Films but given a chance she doesn’t mind becoming the voice of Adi considering the producer-director’s media-shy nature. “After all, I am his ardhangini ,” Rani is now talking like a heroine of the ‘80s!
As she lifts a plate to pose for a photograph, the conversation returns to Hichki. In mainstream cinema, people with such syndromes are usually presented as misfits to create some funny scenes. Agrees Rani, “For me, it had to be real and authentic and it had to be true to the people who suffer from Tourette’s . You have to play a specially-abled character with sensitivity, both emotionally and physically. You have to be correct all the time in your performance. None of it should have a wrong sur . I also had to capture the never-say-die spirit of such people, which I think is god-gifted. Their spirit of hope is commendable.”
As for the physical aspect, she watched various kinds of tics on the YouTube. She spoke extensively to Brad Cohen, the American teacher on whose life the film is based. “It is involuntary, it can happen anytime; so I had to invent something on my own. I imagined if I had Tourette’s, what would be my tics. I had to create my own sound and over a period of time it became part of my muscle memory.”
Comparisons with ‘Black’
It is not the first time that Rani is playing a specially-abled character. Her portrayal of a girl without eyesight and hearing ability in Black ranks as one of the most accomplished performances in Hindi cinema. “The two have similarities because both are about specially-abled people and both are about teacher-student relationship. Also the whole idea of hope, the spirit of telling an inspirational story is similar.” But the challenges of playing Michelle and Naina Mathur were different. “ Black was tough because I had to learn the the sign language. The advantage was Michelle’s traits were more internal. With Naina, I had to arrive at a difficult balance between the external manifestation of the syndrome and its impact on the soul of the character. It is a challenging combination,” says Rani with her fingers crossed.
In Siddharth P. Malhotra, does she have a competent guide to help her sail through? “Directors show us the path. We just hold on to the steering wheel. At times, you simply fly at high speed and sometimes it leads to crashes as well.”
Rani is ambivalent for she has had her share of accidents. But every time she has been written off, she has bounced back with a Sathiya , a Black or a Yuva for that matter. But to me, her most impactful performance was as a grieving mother in Talaash . Rani nods, and tries to analyse her nature. “I have always considered myself an actor, and not a star. It is very easy for me to get into the zone of acting and then getting out of it and leading a normal life. I don’t take the tag seriously. It is one of the reasons that I am not on social media because I cannot be consumed by one side of life. I am a wife, mother and a daughter as well. I have to fulfil those roles of my life as well. I treat my acting as a 9 to 5 job. I don’t romanticise it as it is better to be a realist than a surrealist! When a tree grows, everybody sings praises. But when the axe comes and the tree falls, everybody runs away. Nobody stays close. So one has to be prepared for the fall. You can survive it only if you remain grounded.”
This sense, Rani says, was drilled into her by her father, Ram Mukherjee, who knew the intricacies of the glamour world. “Like most fathers, he didn’t want his daughter’s heart to be broken. He always told me not to get excited with success and disillusioned with failure. Both are temporary. He always said, ‘make sure people are with you.’ This is what has happened with me. My audience has always supported me.”
But then there is always that temptation to play characters, which you can play only upto a certain age. “That is a hichki that some people have,” Rani retorts. “When Aamir Khan plays a 35-year-old, nobody questions – because he looks convincing. I guess same should be true for actresses. If I could make Naina Mathur convincing, people won’t remember that Rani has got married to somebody and has a kid now. But if I am not, all these details will come to your mind. As an actor, age is not really a factor. I am ready to play a 60-year-old as well as a 30-year-old.” With the so-called parallel cinema finding resonance with a bigger mass, Rani says, it is not very difficult to find socially relevant scripts now. Will she look for them outside the Yash Raj banner as well? “Of course, if I get the same kind of opportunity,” she signs off with that 100-watt smile.
