Many manifestations of self
ARKA MUKHOPADHYAY
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There is nothing that doesn't interest actor Nandita Das. Even while she sees a continuum in everything, Nandita wants to be cautious of her moves in future
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MULTIPLE ROLES Nandita Das wears many hats. The most recent one is that of a blogger Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy
Thinking actor, activist, and now, celebrity blogger — she wears all these hats, and more, with ease. Nandita Das, was in Bangalore to soak in the theatre atmosphere at the Rangashankara Theatre festival. In a freewheeling chat, she speaks about blogging, Leapfrog, the organisation she started with her husband to harness the power of communications media for the social sector, and more.
Apart from being an actress you're now also a blogger?
Yeah, (laughs) you heard about that?
Yes, I read the blog actually. (intentblog.com, floated by Deepak Chopra and Shekhar Kapur.) So how did it come about?
Well, I've known Shekhar for a while, and through him I got to know Deepak, and through him his whole family, and Mallika, his daughter, who's actually behind this — she asked me to write, and I said "Look, I'm not a writer at all, that's not my skill, I don't even have the time, I wouldn't even know how to begin... ". Writing isn't something that I've ever thought I'd be good at, because... I don't know... it's just not... I don't think it's one of my skills at all. But at that time, when she asked me, I'd just come back from Cannes, and lots of friends had e-mailed me asking: "So how was the experience?" So I didn't want to write... it was like a ten-day experience, so how do you put it down in e-mail? So on my way back on the flight, you know, on my laptop I was writing the Cannes thing. So I told her, "Look, this Cannes bit is there, and it's fairly spontaneous... I don't even know if it's well written or not, but I could post that." So she said: "Yeah, why don't you do that?" And that time we were just starting off, you know, there were just a couple of bloggers. So I wrote the Cannes thing, and then something else happened, and I said ok, let me share this. And so sort of one thing led to another and you start getting comments, and you feel like reacting to something. And then, I went to Gujarat — I don't know if you've read that post. So the Gujarat thing I wrote I got a lot of hate mail from some of the Hindu fanatics... especially the NRI crowd. So then I wrote one more thing compelled to respond... you know, I felt I needed to write certain things. So, it's nice because in a way you can be spontaneous, you don't feel that you've written in stone. There's certain anonymity about it and every person gets to talk. Otherwise we're all so celebrity centric, unfortunately. There are tonnes of people who want to share, who are brighter than the so-called celebrities, who have deeper insights.
Tell us a little bit about Leapfrog
Leapfrog was started by my husband Soumya and I. The idea being, I mean I'm from social sector, and he was from advertising, and we both had frustrations about it and we wanted to do something in the field of communication, and we felt there wasn't enough... you know, the worth of communication in the social sector wasn't felt enough, wasn't being used enough. So we thought why don't we start something which is like a communication organisation, but for the social sector.
Something that's not preachy, not high-handed, not boring, not pretentious, but just something that's nice and acceptable. So, we started doing some public interest spots, I did one on rainwater harvesting — I directed them and Soumya did the concept, and leapfrog produced it, and we did three on education, and I thoroughly enjoyed directing.
We did a whole campaign, peace initiative, called "Beyond Boundaries". So we took street children from India to Pakistan, it was all through cricket. And that was a wonderful experience for these kids who went there and also for the adults who interacted. And we did a similar thing in India where they travelled to Delhi, Hyderabad, Calcutta, Ahmedabad, to smaller towns Kishangarh in Rajasthan. It was a wonderful thing and we hope to carry it on.
You've done films in about six or seven different languages. One hates to attach labels, but if it was "commercial" cinema it's not even a consideration what language you do it in, but trying to do "meaningful" films in languages that you're not familiar with — hasn't it been an impediment?
It is, I'd say it's a challenge. It's difficult, especially initially. You know when you start, like when I start a Tamil film or a Malayalam film, I do have nightmares. I do feel like saying "please let me go, I'll get you another person", you know... but you do get over it, because once you know you have to do it you put in all your concentration in it. Also, I love learning languages, so conceptually doesn't bother me, I feel "wow", you know, you get to...
Your beginnings were in theatre?
Not really. I mean, it was more like an interest at that time as well, and I did street theatre with Safdar Hashmi, with a group called Jana Natya Manch, so that was with college... it was something... that it was a new form, it was more driven by the social issues that had touched me at that time. Professionally I've only done two plays really — I did a play called The Diary of Anne Frank, which came to Bangalore. I did another play called Heads Ya Tails, which was about the impact of materialism on couples, and relationships.
So do you plan to pursue it more now, as in it's a done thing these days, people from films doing theatre.
Yeah. I see everything as an interest, you know there is a kind of a continuum in all of them. While it may seem like you're doing an audio book, you're doing a play, you're doing some social work, giving some talks, so they all seem disconnected, but to me they're all manifestations of the same thing. So they're in a way connected to each other. I want to be a little more cautious than I've been, and do less work and do good work. Even though I realise it's still a gamble.
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