“I feel at home here,” says Seema Biswas. She does appear so, draped in a plain, off-white settu mundu . When we meet the veteran on the sets of Idam , her new Malayalam movie, near Kattakkada in Thiruvananthapuram, the first thing she talks about is Kerala.
In Idam , directed by debutant Jaya Jose Raj, she plays Bhanu, a 70-year-old widowed mother on the verge of being send to an old age home. “What makes this mother different is that instead of wilting on hearing this news, she takes a decision that shocks all of them. It was meant to be a plan to test her sons’ love for her. Whether she succeeds or not is the story,” Seema says.
Idam deals with a universal subject, wherein the elderly often find themselves out of place in nuclear families, she points out. “I think the generation that comes after mine has got used to this scenario, but it is not easy for people like me. Now both kids and adults have become private individuals, their lives revolve around electronic and social media. Children have become practical, mechanical and selfish. Parents are a burden for them and some even kill their parents. There is no bonding between siblings.... Idam looks at all these aspects,” she adds.
Last seen in Sanjeev Sivan’s Venalodungathe and Pramod Payyannur’s Balyakalasakhi , she says that Malayalam cinema is close to her heart. “My only disappointment is that I can’t speak thelanguage. So I feel incomplete about my work here. I love being realistic and natural on screen, but when I get conscious of the language I can’t be so,” she says.
Having played strong mother characters, Seema says there is much to feel excited about Idam because it is the mother’s story. “I have done characters who go through a gamut of emotions even if the character was there only in a few scenes, be it Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Ma, Khamoshi or Company . But in Idam I have a full-length role,” she says.
Seema then cuts back to that period when she had to say no to mother roles after playing the deaf-and-mute mother in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Khamoshi . “When Sanjay approached me after watching the rough cuts of Bandit Queen, Shekhar [Shekhar Kapur, director of Bandit Queen ] and many other filmmakers warned me that I would get stuck in such roles. However, I listened to my heart and went ahead. Nevertheless, those directors were right. There came films where I had to play mother to Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, Aamir Khan... I said ‘I don’t have any issue acting as a mother, but tell me the story’. I asked for the script and that offended many. It was either mother or another Bandit Queen, ” she quips.
Seema Biswas in Idam
The conversation naturally veers to Bandit Queen , the biographical film on Phoolan Devi, former dacoit-turned-legislator, which emerged as a milestone in Indian cinema. Seema admits that she was not ready for cinema when the role came her way. “I felt I was not cut out for Indian cinema where there were beautiful actors such as Hema Malini, Rekha, Smita Patil, Madhuri Dixit, Sridevi... I loved being at the National School of Drama (NSD). I was hooked to theatre from childhood, watching my mother perform on stage. I enjoyed doing theatre although it had its share of struggles; the salary was ₹750 and if I missed a day, ₹35 was deducted!” she recalls.
It was at the rehearsal of a comedy that Shekhar Kapur noticed Seema. She wanted to play the role in his film, but had reservations about the bold scenes. Shekhar agreed when she told him that somebody else would have to do the nude scenes. “I thought that it was going to be my first and last film. But I was not prepared for the controversy that followed. People attacked me without even watching the movie. Nobody was talking about my performance, the pain and the effort behind the role. There were comments about my looks, my economic background and so on. However, after a point, I stopped getting worried. Why should I be answerable to others when my parents know the truth? And there started my fight to prove that I did the role because I am an actor... a trained, professional actor,” she emphasises.
It is this conviction that still drives her as an actor. Theatre remains her first love. “Being an actor’s medium, theatre is not monotonous. The magic lies in the variety of characters one gets to enact. I am a perfectionist; I fight and argue for the betterment of a role. The day I stop doing that, that’s the end. Also, I don’t worry about my age. Age kya mayne rakhta hain? I keep on doing something new, I take each work as my first work and that keeps me going,” she says.
Seema also makes a special mention of her co-stars in Idam who are from theatre. “Hareesh [Peradi] and Anil [Nedumangad], who play my sons, surprised me as actors. Their experience in theatre came across in their performance. I believe Kerala has a vibrant theatre scene and it is good to see youngsters showing so much interest,” she adds.
She will soon start shooting for Deepa Mehta’s new movie, the details about which are being kept under wraps. Meanwhile, Seema is enthused about the changes that have swept over Indian cinema. “We no longer need hunks as heroes in Hindi films. Talent counts, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Irrfan [Khan] being examples. Well, I can’t say the same about women because they still have to be beautiful to be a heroine! Regional films are doing well, Marathi movies for example. Then there are web series. But for a clash of dates, I would have done one. I am amazed by the kind of stories that are being told. That’s when I feel that Bandit Queen ought to have been made now!” she says.
