Monitoring Desk
LAHORE: Addressing a packed marquee while delivering the keynote address at the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF), celebrated Bollywood actor Sharmila Tagore expressed her delight at being in Lahore.
Attired in a simple maroon sari, the actor said this was the first time she had stepped foot in Pakistan via Wagah. Entering her hotel room, hearing vintage Bollywood tracks playing and coming across books on artist AR Chughtai had reminded her of how similar India and Pakistan were.
Speaking about her childhood, she said she had grown up among a joint family. “Everyone lived in my grandfather’s house,” Tagore said. One of my uncles was affiliated with the Indian National Congress (INC) while another was a communist so I was used to witnessing heating debates that ended inconclusively, she said. Tagore said she had been exposed to a myriad of views since her early years.
The veteran actor said that her liberal upbringing in Calcutta was at odds with the sense of morality prevalent in Bombay when she later relocated to the city. “The actresses wore white, sipped Coca-Cola and did not smile,” she said while speaking about what was expected of a leading lady back in the day. It was in this era that Tagore donned a bikini for a Filmfare cover and An Evening in Paris came out that left the society scandalised by another appearance of hers in a swimsuit.
She said she was naive and it had taken her time to make sense of the society. “I received a lot of flak for it,” Tagore said. The veteran actor said she had taken a conscious decision to reinvent her public image after understanding the sense of morality peculiar to Bombay. “I wanted to be taken seriously,” Tagore said.
The veteran actor also shed light on her association with celebrated filmmaker Satyajit Ray. She said he did not value money. Tagore said the audience still connected with the romance in his work primarily because of its “essential humanism.”
While his work was not premised on politics, she said Ray was interested in exploring the impact politics had on peoples’ lives as a writer and director. Tagore said his work was about the everyday struggles of ordinary people. “There were no villains and heroes in his movies,” she said.
Tagore also spoke about his simplicity. “He answered the phone and responded to letters himself,” she said. Talking about her experience of working with a man of such lofty standing when she was just 13 years old, Tagore said she was not particularly aware of it. She said it was easy to work with Ray as he would explain scenes. “I implicitly felt I could trust him,” she said.
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“I worked in a film even before I watched one,” Tagore said. Earlier, she had stated that allowing children to watch films was frowned upon in her family. Tagore said her father had instantly given his consent to her working with Ray as he was cognisant of his international standing. She said Ray had transformed filmmaking into an art form. Tagore said she felt that Ray’s Devi was one of her best works. She said the film depicted a clash between growing religious orthodoxy and an emerging rationality. “Ray had to defend the film by saying that it was not against Hinduism but against orthodoxy,” Tagore reminisced.
