New Delhi, March 26
With a career that has spanned three decades and many critically-lauded performances, Divya Dutta says she is “very stubborn” about her choices and loves breaking moulds the industry tries to put her in, something that has kept her growing as an actor.
The actor, who has impressed with performances in movies such as “Veer-Zaara”, “Delhi-6”, “Badlapur”, “Manto”, “Special 26”, and “Heroine”, believes that staying relevant means constantly venturing into unchartered space.
“I’m very stubborn and one should be if you want to be a very happy actor. See, it’s your choices – what do you want in life? I want to grow as an actor. I want to keep growing. It’s been 30 years and I think I’ll be here all my life. And I cannot be here until I keep rediscovering myself. Until I feel, ‘Oh, something new.’
“And that can only happen if you convey this message to whosoever it may concern that you do not want to do what they want you to do. You want to do what you want to do. So for that, there are a lot of no’s, which isn’t easy. And yes, you require loads of patience for it. It’s not easy to say no. But I think lots of no’s make a great yes,” Dutta told PTI in an interview.
The National Film Award-winning actor said it wasn’t easy to navigate an industry that never quite knew what to do with her but she is glad that she stayed the course and carved out a space for herself.
“I’ve always been lauded and loved by people for the choices I’ve made… It’s the industry, which I don’t know, strangely, is stuck with ‘where do I put her in the image?’ But I’m like don’t do it. If the audience isn’t putting me in an image, so why are you doing that? So I love breaking those shackles.
“What happened throughout in my career, be it ‘Delhi 6’, ‘Veer Zara’, ‘Stanley Ka Dabba’ and ‘Badlapur’, I tried to bring layers to my characters, and that’s something people really loved,” she added.
The actor now stars in “Chiraiya”, which is currently streaming on JioHotstar. In the show, Dutta plays Kamlesh, a contented traditional daughter-in-law whose world is upended when her younger sister-in-law reveals she has been subjected to marital rape.
The series is set in Lucknow and is an official Hindi adaptation of the Bengali series “Sampurna” (2022). It is based on an idea by Soumyabrata Rakshit, created by Divy Nidhi Sharma, directed by Shashant Shah and produced by SVF Entertainment.
The 48-year-old actor said the show is not about blaming anyone in particular but about the conditioning.
“It’s more societal than it’s about anything else and the show is only trying to tell a story. It’s trying to tell us that we’ve been conditioned to a few things that need to get out of our systems,” she said.
The actor said the show tries to hold a mirror to these issues that have long gone unquestioned in Indian households.
“We are brought up on saying, ‘ladki ki naa me hi uski haan chupi hai?’ And because of this mindset, many people don’t even ask for consent. Two, we do not take the consent of our own partners. I believe it is important to ask, whether it is your wife or girlfriend — ‘Is it okay for you?’
“Two people have decided to spend rest of their lives together and it is important that there is mutual respect between them. Third thing is communication. There should be conversation between a man and a woman. this show caters to that rather than anything else,” she said.
Asked whether cinema in general has also normalised wooing a girl even if she says no, Dutta said society will always be a reflection of cinema and cinema will always be a reflection of the society.
“We cannot say they did this and that’s how we learnt it. No, it is for you, again, to pick up what you want to pick. You’re watching very gory films, are you doing that? You’re watching a lot of action, are you doing that? No, you’re picking what you want to do. You enjoyed the film, but you’re not taking it back home to do something about it.
“So, I think it’s for the people to take what they want to take home, and I’m sure they’ll take a lot from the show.”
On playing Kamlesh, Dutta said she has seen many such characters around her in life.
“They are women who are very happy in what they have been conditioned to. Kamlesh is a very happy woman. Her husband loves her. Everything going for her. Her in-laws love her. And that’s what a normal woman would like. Until that foundation that she has has been totally shaken up,” she said.
Dutta said it was important to show Kamlesh was unaware of the concept of consent in a marriage.
“Because somebody said that I’m not comfortable, a new concept came in her life. So that I think was a very difficult layer to bring into place… So to change that and to stand by somebody you have just gotten to know and you have kind of a rivalry with her because she’s the new bride in the house, vis-a-vis against somebody you totally don’t, wasn’t a very easy thing.”
“Chiraiya” also stars Sanjay Mishra, Prasanna Bisht, Siddharth Shaw, Faisal Rashid, Tinnu Anand, Sarita Joshi and Anjum Saxena.
