Raveena Tandon, who having completed 25 years in the film industry is almost a veteran, will be putting all her years of experience of emoting in powerful women-oriented films like Satta and Daman and meeting aggrieved women in her role in upcoming flick Maatr which deals with violence against women.
Not a stranger to women-oriented subjects on reel, Raveena in real life too empathises with the plight of teenaged girls becoming victims of violence or city women being crudely made a scapegoat in a male chauvinistic work environment. This can be seen from the way she comes all the way from Mumbai to meet women who have gone through trials and tribulations because they have been victim of a system which has failed to give them justice. And this is precisely the reason why the actress, who as a homemaker and mother of four children had slowed down the pace of her work in Hindi films, grabbed the opportunity of working in Maatr.
“The subject of Maatr is based on violence against women. It shows how our system works; there are times when our system almost fails us. It is a subject which connected with me,” says Raveena, on the sidelines of an event organised by FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) to announce start-up initiative ‘Dyuti’ for generating employment for women in jewellery.
Films on women are now being made with more frequency than in earlier times. “Every decade we see release of films which have raised women related subjects. During the 1980s and 1990s we would witness release of one heroine-oriented film in five years. We had Insaaf ka Tarazu in 1980; then in 1990s there was Bandit Queen which revolved around the life of Phoolan Devi. These films left a mark but were not such big hits so people don’t remember them,” says the actress, who strongly feels that violence against women needs to be reflected in our cinema.
Recently, Raveena interacted with Nirbhaya’s mother. It seems that Maatr is based on the life of the student.
“The film is not based on Nirbhaya’s life. I met her mother Shanta Devi recently. We interacted after so many years yet her wound over the unfortunate incident of her daughter, which became a national outcry, is still fresh. She was teary-eyed and told me that the system has failed to give her justice. In recent times we have been witnessing lot of violence against women. There is injustice in our society and I feel we need to raise such issues through our films. That is why I chose Maatr as it brings alive the plight of women and how the system fails to protect them,” said Raveena.
Interestingly, Raveena never dreamt of becoming an actress. “My dad Ravi Tandon was always into movies. He made films like Khel Khel Mein and Jhoota Kahin Ka . Wherever we would go together his friends would inform him which filmmaker was launching his daughter in movies. There was Pooja Bhatt who was being launched. Aap Raveena ko kabh launch karege? (When are you going to launch Raveena?). He never gave it a thought. I was a little roly poly laddu. I never thought of acting in movies.”
Contrary to her image on the screen and off it, the actress was an introvert child while growing up.
“At school I would sit in the backseat and not put up my hand even when I knew the answer. I did not want to be teased by mean boys and girls of my class.” Work outside films started early for the actress, who was groomed to become independent.
“Right after school, I started working as I came from a family which encouraged me to take up part time work. I would do an odd job like cleaning up a car for Rs. 10. All this starts with your upbringing, environment at home. I was treated equally at home. When my brother learnt biking, I learnt too. My father would open bonnet of a Fiat and explain how the radiator worked. I was lucky to be brought up equally.”
New breed of filmmakers like Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee is experimenting with new themes. These are interesting times to be an actress. “Creativity in cinema has opened up. It is good that there is work for everybody. Our cinema has broadened the vision of audience. They have now become broad minded. It is great time for everybody.”
Explaining how the treatment of women in cinema over the years has been changing, Raveena says cinema has grown from 1945 when men would enact women’s roles to now when women have taken upon themselves the task of playing the protagonist. “Those days, men would wear long wigs and hideous costumes. From there on, women slowly and suddenly started getting more evolved and have now reached more of a commanding level. Of course, we had this powerful era of black and white films like Jhansi ki Rani , Anarkali and Mughal-e-Azam . And now we see films like Mary Kom and NH 10, which have strong women characters, being made.”
