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"MAY I speak to the best actress in India?" The boy's voice on the mobile breathes exhilaration at his mother's achievement. A thrilling moment for Kiron Kher, who has won the National Award for best actress this year for her powerful role in Rituparno Ghosh's "Barwaali", her third film.

In Chennai last week to snatch a few days with actor husband Anupam Kher who was shooting here, and just back from Tirupati, Kiron Kher looked perfect for the contented woman's role that she has not done on stage or screen. "Feels wonderful to be a celebrity at forty plus, when most women settle for emptiness, afraid of growing old, missing the children who've left home, not knowing what to do. This reaffirms my belief that you can start at any time to do anything you want to."

Her first marriage had failed. But joint custody and continuing friendship with his father ensured that son Sikander grew up with a sense of security. Also, she opted to stay at home during his growing years.

Kiron's early experience of the stage was a course in theatre in Chandigarh University after an MA in English. Always chosen to play emotionally charged roles like Medea (Euripides), Antigone (Anouilh) and Miss Julie (Strindberg), paired often with the "livewire actor" Anupam Kher, young Kiron became his confidante in college romances. "I had crushes on others then, never on Anupam!" she laughs.

After her divorce the chemistry changed. "I found myself married again and enjoying Anupam's success, with no need to prove to the world that I could do it too!" Ten years of being housewife and socialite ended when director Feroze Khan persuaded the couple to do "Saalgirah" together, a play which won both popular and critical acclaim. "With this we could explore the grey, tentative areas of contemporary experience."

Kher launched into chat shows with challenging themes as in Purushkshetra, where male issues were discussed with a woman. "I thought I'd be a good anchor because I'm interested in other people's lives, in gender bias, in social attitudes in the continent. I'm not shy of talking about myself either." That's how Kher found men from all kinds of backgrounds, talking openly about sex, perhaps for the first time in their lives. And people weeping and losing control. "I could handle it," she says somewhat wryly. "I didn't have a perfect life myself. I knew failure and heart break. I could hold some one's hand and say, it's all right...tomorrow is another day..."

It saddened her to see that women brought up their sons differently from their daughters, accenting gender inequality. "If I was aggressive as an anchor, well, that's how I felt! Can YOU be objective about incest, polygamy, medical negligence, or when a man says, "She asked for rape, wasn't she wearing a short dress?"

All this exposure became a fiery matrix for Shyam Benegal's "Sardari Begum", and Kalpana Lajmi's "Darmiyaan". Admitting that she was unsure about working after the long break, and nervous to start with so renowned a film maker as Benegal, Kher soon gained confidence with his clear instructions. She treasures the playback singer's compliment of her having sung the songs realistically ("I can't sing a note in life!")

But the best compliment came from Mrinal Sen, who told Kher that Zeenat Begum in "Darmiyaan", teetering between the sane and the insane, "is a very sensitive portrayal of vulgarity."

With "Barwaali" Kher notes a curious fact: in the film the director tells the protagonist that his crew would start shooting in her house on 17th February. The actual shooting commenced on that date, so did its premiere at the Berlin Festival in the following year! "At the question and answer session, everyone talked about the difference between what I was in real life and the unsure, hesitant woman on the screen who kept her mouth covered when she talked," she recalls. "They were moved by the film and said they felt guilty to think how lonely their own parents, aunts and uncles were..."

Kher's future plans include commercial projects, starting with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's film, with roles that allow her to stretch herself, and a chat show to be aired in October. She is looking forward to flexing her muscles in comedy with Priyadarshan's yet to be named film. She finds the climate good today for actors because the younger film makers offer scope for distinct characterisation even in big budget films.

So how does she pitch and detail her characters? How does she manage to identify people far removed from her own upper class and elite sphere? "See, the pain of the woman in the mansion, in silks and perfumes, is the same as that of the woman in the chawl.

That's the basic emotion. How she reacts depends on her nature, time, circumstances. I make an imaginary history of that person - her parents, school, home. I draw on my reading, experiences, the people I have known and seen, to thresh out the physicality of the character. Then, I put the three together."

Simple - if you are Kiron Kher.

GOWRI RAMNARAYAN

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Section  : Entertainment
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