Last December, two-time National Film Award winner Konkona Sen Sharma won Best Actress in a Leading Role at the Asian Academy Creative Award, for her portrayal of a Dalit factory worker in the short film Geeli Pucchi from the Netflix anthology Ajeeb Daastaans. Through a host of remarkable characters, Geeli Pucchi, directed by Neeraj Ghaywan and co-starring Aditi Rao Hydari, describes the painful ways in which caste, class and gender hinder a gay woman’s journey to love, respect, and livelihood.
A couple of weeks later, over phone, I spoke to Konkona and we discussed her role in Geeli Pucchi, her acting, how she chooses her films, and her reflections on freedom of expression. Edited excerpts:
What does the latest award for your performance in Geeli Pucchi mean to you?
I was so thrilled when I heard about it. It was on my birthday, so it felt like a little gift from the universe. But when I do the work, I am not thinking about winning an award. In fact, I am not even thinking about how much people are going to like the film. Those are completely out of my control. So, if I have liked it and found a reason to do it — whether it’s because of the script, or the part, or the director — that is fulfilling to me. In that sense, the award and the appreciation are really a bonus, an icing on the cake.
Sometimes, one makes films for very little money or despite knowing that the film has limited commercial prospect, because you feel it is important to do it. It’s great when you work by your convictions and then, once the film is appreciated, it gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Can you talk about Bharti Mandal? What interested you in the role?
I wanted to work with Neeraj Ghaywan and I knew this before I read the script and even before he got in touch with me. I had watched Masaan, which I enjoyed very much, and Juice, his short film with Shefali Shah, who I adore.
Then I read the script and it was such an unusual role for me. I have been acting since I was a kid, and I have never come across a story like this. The script was well written. There were small details which showed that the character had been well thought-out. Outside of this, I found the way the story unfolded to be very powerful, like a neat revenge story.
It’s nice to be able to speak up for those whose voices are not heard as much. Often, our protagonists are default characters in the sense that they are almost always able-bodied, Hindu, upper-caste, or the girl-next-door. It’s rarer to find well-delineated characters coming from communities that are not spoken of or represented as often on screen.
You have played quite a few difficult and unusual roles — a rebel (Lipstick under my Burkha), a woman with mental illness (15 Park Avenue), a lesbian and Dalit (Geeli Pucchi). What attracts you to these roles?
I guess it’s just a reflection of my personality. I am not sure how else to answer that because I am probably not aware of it myself. I am interested in small subtleties, in nuance, and in things not spoken about; I am interested in what is not the mainstream; I am interested in dark, unexplored places. Not that this is necessarily reflected in my career always; sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t.
Debuted as a child artist in the Bengali film Indira (1983), and made her adult debut in Ek Je Aachhe Kanya (2000)
Degree in English from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi
Won National Award for Best Actress for her performance in Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (2001), directed by her mother, filmmaker Aparna Sen
Made her full-length feature directorial debut in 2017 with the critically acclaimed A Death in the Gunj
How do you bring out the inner voice/ character in the women you portray. How do you make their voices so plausible?
I think it depends. If the role you’re essaying is very removed from you culturally, geographically, socially, economically, then you might need to do more research to find out the character’s milieu. For instance, if I am playing somebody who is an urban professional, I may not need to do as much research.
On the other hand, I feel very strongly that everything is already inside of us. I feel that there’s a Bharti inside me. I feel that there is a man inside me somewhere as well. It is helpful to understand the character from a place of empathy, as opposed to judging the character, and I try to locate that person in myself, and in people around me. I try to find someone not because I’m going to be like them, but just to have some kind of reference.
Sometimes I tweak my own reality to suit my character’s needs. I have caught myself doing that deliberately. For instance, if I need to be stressed out for my character and in my real life there is a mildly stressful situation, which may not have affected me that much, I let it affect me because I know that I need to use this emotion.
I feel we are all similar in the sense that we all go through the emotions of love, loss, and betrayal. It is part of the human condition, and we go through these for different reasons. I mean I may not be angry for the same reasons as Bharti, but I have known righteous anger in my life. I have known loss. But it’s not a very conscious process, a lot of it is intuitive.
Geeli Pucchi tackled caste and gender-based discrimination in a powerful way. These are issues that filmmakers and OTT platforms are quite careful and wary of depicting. Can you describe the value of freedom of expression in a society like ours?
Freedom of expression is one of the most important rights given to us by our Constitution. However, I don’t always feel that freedom. Suddenly out of nowhere, there might be an FIR against you, or people may have taken offence at the drop of a hat, and they want to ban this or that.
I’m not at all in favour of censorship. You may disagree with something, but you don’t have to participate in it; you can debate about it, but you can’t stop it from being watched and viewed.
What was wonderful about OTT platforms earlier was that there was no censorship. This allowed you to experiment with content and format. You could have a mini-series, an anthology, a short film, a documentary. But now there’s censorship and it’s very unfortunate. We are such a large country, and we can’t expect everybody to have the same values. People have their own customs, traditions, cultures, and we ought to respect the diversity of thought and expression.
If you hadn’t become an actor, what career path would you have chosen?
I didn’t know back then what I would do. I just assumed I would get a regular job somewhere, maybe in journalism, publishing or advertising.
The writer is a freelance journalist.
