Tisca Zareen Arora aka Tisca Chopra’s stint in Bollywood began over a decade ago opposite Ajay Devgn in Platform . After a few hits and misses, she landed a plump role in Dinner with Friends, a Pulitzer-winning play . She is of course best known for her role in Taare Zameen Par . She has also done television shows and taken an active part in various social causes.Excerpts from an interview:
Theatre artist, actor and writer… how do you approach each of these roles?
I don’t look at each as separate components. For me it’s about doing each of them to perfection. And having a having a passion for each of these helps me. Acting comes first. Though it requires a different sort of focus, writing comes naturally. Other things are just various forms of acting; there’s nothing spectacular about the way they all flow seamlessly.
You are also an active supporter of education and women’s rights. Can you talk about this facet?
They stem organically from where you come from and what’s going on around you. As a person you just cannot shut your eyes because its reality that you face almost everyday. As and when something comes up and if there’s any way I can make a difference I’m always at it. As far as education is concerned I come from a family of educationists and I see a stark difference in how a country and its people who are educated look at life and society versus people who are unlettered. It affects the way they think.
I strongly believe that basic education should be free for all. I believe in human right and I’m a humanist and I believe that a society where women are disregarded is a place where human beings are disregarded because we must remember we all came from a woman’s womb. It’s common science and not rocket science.
How does it feel to be a part of The Hindu Lit For Life 2015?
I am very excited to meet a discerning audience both in terms of readership and the kind of intellect they have. They are detailed and meticulous. They are an intellectual bunch and how one’s discussion is perceived and absorbed is proof enough. And it will certainly be nicer, because you know they are receptive at a very high level.
Your book Acting Smart is for cine-goers, movie buffs and beginners in the industry. Which part of the book did you particularly enjoy writing and why?
It’s hard to say...I’d say altogether I do relate to different parts on different days but yes, it’s the end of the book where there’s a summation from the actor to the human being at large and it talks about how acting is just one form of expression. The book will hopefully reach out to people who are in other professions like corporates or businessmen who deal with people in general. Because the elements that I have tried to include in the book lend themselves even to people who are not from showbiz. The last chapter talks about how to connect with individuals and how the Universe is made of Uni and Verse: One song and we are all a song, unified and we can’t succeed in unison.
There is a lot of speculation about your forthcoming movie Qissa, which opened at the Toronto International Film Festival, because of its controversial plot. How do you think it would fare commercially?
If I knew that answer I would be a millionaire. But, I want it to be a super-duper hit. It’s an unusual film and I hope the audience likes it.
Talks are that you have plans to write another book and you are working on a script. Can you tell us a little more about this?
For the first three to four months after finishing my first book, I was like “been there, done that” and am not doing that again. But in the past few months, a worm has started crawling in my head. In fact I have just called my agent and told her about it. It will be fiction; a love story. As far as the movie goes, my husband has written a collection of short stories and two of them are going to be made into films. I am helping him with that and they are well underway.
