My friend Amrita Rao, the lovely actress most people best remember for Shah Rukh Khan’s Main Hoon Na of 2004, is coming back to Bollywood with Sanjay Raut’s biopic Thackeray this week. She is feisty and disagreed with my choice of words. “It’s not like I’ve been away,” Amrita scolded me. I quickly did the math in my head. In 2013, she had three big releases: Jolly LLB, Singh Saab the Great and Satyagraha. And in 2016, she did the musical TV series Meri Awaaz Hi Pehchaan Hai with veteran actresses Deepti Naval and Zarina Wahab. That was also the year Amrita married her boyfriend RJ Anmol. I still counted six years since she was last seen on the big screen. But this week she is back, playing Meenatai Thackeray in the biopic that is taking on Kangana Ranaut’s biopic Manikarnika on the Rani of Jhansi at the box office.
It is the Republic Day weekend. The viewership is bound to be divided. But there are plenty of screens. I don’t know about Manikarnika, but the Shiv Sena will ensure Thackeray is a super hit, it is a film made by the party on their dominant party chief – the Hindu Hridaysamrat, Emperor of the Hindu Heart, Shri Balasaheb Thackeray. When the film was announced last year, I thought Nawazuddin Siddiqui who plays the Shiv Sena supremo had a challenging role. But Amrita is playing Meenatai Thackeray, his shy and reserved wife, and while Balasaheb was notoriously known far and wide, how many people can claim to have even seen the “Maasaheb” as she was known? Yet she was the mother of the party. And popular among the rank and file. For there are Meenatai Thackeray memorials, maidans, gardens, children’s parks, hospitals, theatres, a sports stadium, library, a bus depot and even a banquet hall in her name across Mumbai. And now a Hindi film in which she is played by the petite and demure Amrita Rao who has always been Bollywood’s quintessential girl next-door.
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Amrita Rao photographed with late Meenatai Thackeray's memorial [/caption]
I thought, the actress would not only have to match Nawazuddin’s roaring performance as the iconic and acerbic Shiv Sena chief, but she would have to hold her own as the little-known Maharashtrian housewife. With this in mind, I called on Amrita for an interview. She lives in a Vakola high-rise off the Western Express Highway. An un-Bollywood-like address. But the Uber driver got me there. As I went up in the elevator, I could hear the azhan from a neighbourhood mosque where the muezzin was calling the faithful out to pray. The elevator doors opened onto her floor. Amrita was doing interviews on the landing. Sitting on a couch beneath frames of the Beatles, Volkswagen, and Jack Daniels, potted money plants on the floor, prettily dressed in slim black pants and a printed blouse, beige shoes. As we talked, she played with her hair, jiggled her foot, and had me wondering how director Abhijit Panse would present her as Meenatai Thackeray on screen.
Excerpts from our conversation:
With no proper reference point to Meenatai Thackeray, how did you prepare for your role, what kind of research did you do?
True, there was no reference point to Meenatai because she was media shy and did no interviews. Only a couple of candid pictures of her were given to me by the production team. These were also on the internet. But the good thing was I could see Meenatai as her candid self. From those pictures, I tried to assimilate how she pursed her lips, kept her facial expressions, what was her body language like. And I tried to figure out how she must have been as a person. I could only imagine. I went on the internet and read a lot of Balasaheb Thackeray’s interviews to see if there was any reference to Meenatai. But there weren’t any. The interviews were all about politics. Fortunately, I chanced upon this rate interview of Balasaheb’s sister, Sanjeevani Karandikar, who spoke about Meenatai and how she was as a person, a housewife, a daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, and that became a good reference point for me. I felt that I did not need to approach the Thackeray family. Sit with them and make notes. Not that this information was enough for how I could develop the character. But that was it. My preparation. And then, of course, I had to polish my Marathi. I have been born and brought up here in Mumbai. Marathi was compulsory in school. I also grew up around people talking Marathi. But it was not my mother tongue. I had to work on getting my grammar right.
The good thing was I could see Meenatai as her candid self
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Amrita Rao as Meenatai Thackeray[/caption]
Didn’t Abhijit Panse help you out?
He did. He was in the Shiv Sena himself (as president of the Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, now he’s a Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader) and interacted with Balasaheb often. So, of course, Panse knew Meenatai and was a good insider to give me feedback on the kind of person she was. Panse told me she was very pious, humble and down-to-earth. And also a kind and generous hostess. Anybody who even randomly walked into Matoshree, she would go out of her way to take care of and personally serve. Especially if Balasaheb was not at home. I heard this from a couple of people. And I knew we were on the right track. In the film you will see her as she was – the perfect housewife, Maasaheb.
You have been an actress since 2002 (Ab Ke Baras) and an award-winning star long before Nawazuddin Siddiqui made his mark. How did he feel working with you?
Yes, I have been a mainstream commercial actress and always done main lead roles in the typical heroine space. Nawaz has emerged as an actor. And now is the time of the real actor. Not the superstar or someone who has given many 100 crore films at the box office. Content has truly become king. And Nawaz is reigning in that sense. But when he met me for the first time, he looked at me and said, “Oh my God, you have given many super hit films!” I told him, “You too!” But Nawaz shrugged and said, “Some of my releases run very well and some which are performance based don’t run so well.” But I said, “People watch you on all kinds of mediums now, you’re on digital too, and you’re very, very popular.” I think he’s such a humble human being that the enormity of how popular he is has not really affected him. I think, no matter how big an actor or superstar you are, what matters is how you choose to accept yourself and accept others. And the simplicity with which you conduct yourself.
Yes, I have been a mainstream commercial actress and always done main lead roles in the typical heroine space
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Nawazuddin Siddiqui in a still from Thackeray[/caption]
You do realize you are playing not just Balasaheb’s wife but the present Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray’s mother as well in the film. Any apprehensions?
Yes, and the Thackerays are such a big political family, reigning in Maharashtra and especially in Mumbai, but honestly I didn’t let that factor overwhelm me when I was essaying the role. I would not be able to be in my character then. In fact, I met Uddhav ji the first time at the trailer launch. I had chosen not to meet him earlier and get any kind of background. I could have but I was satisfied with my homework. I watched his reaction, especially his wife Rashmi ji’s because she was sitting right next to me, each time I came on the screen. Rashmi ji would squeeze my hand. She told me that her mother-in-law was genuinely a nice, down-to-earth person, a pristine human being. I really hope I have brought that essence on screen.
What was your understanding of the Shiv Sena and Maharashtra politics earlier?
Arre baap re! I honestly have not been interested in following politics because it goes against my nature, against my thinking. Wherever there is money, wherever there is fame, wherever there are people, there is always politics. And that is something that doesn’t jell with my personality. But then I watch news, sometimes after a long break, but it’s not as if I’m following the political journey of the state or this country. My closest brush with politics is that I’m doing the role of Meenatai Thackeray in this film.
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Amrita Rao photographed in Mumbai[/caption]
I honestly have not been interested in following politics because it goes against my nature, against my thinking
With Thackeray, you may well turn out to be the new poster girl of the Shiv Sena. This is an election year. What if the party invites you to campaign for it?
As an actor, there have been some very specific things that I did or did not do. And money and nothing mattered to me. One of them was promoting political campaigns. As an actor, one gets a lot of calls. Dancing is another thing. I have not been comfortable doing these two things. On screen, yes, I will dance. But not in person. Except at an awards function. Meenatai was somebody I could relate to very comfortably and I don’t know about the other fringe benefits or frills and if I will be perceived as the poster woman or lady of the party. These thoughts haven’t come to my mind so far.
