SEEMA PAHWA BREAKS FREE
Having played spirited matriarchs in Bareilly ki Barfi! and Shubh Mangal Saavdhaan, Seema Pahwa is a stiff contender for the title of the coolest on-screen mom. But the 54-year-old actor chafes at being repeatedly cast as a mother worried about marrying off her daughter. “Hindi films don’t try to break the stereotype as far as a woman is concerned,” she says. “Why can’t a woman run a chai tapri, be a judge or a police officer? Even in this day and age we think of a woman as a mother, a bua or chachi.” In contrast, theatre encourages experimentation, says this veteran of the National School of Drama Repertory, Little Theatre and Sambhav groups in Delhi.
This month, Pahwa takes to the stage in Aurat! Aurat! Aurat! from April 10-15 at Mumbai’s Prithvi Theatre. Directed by Naseeruddin Shah, who has staged several of Ismat Chughtai’s works, the play is drawn from the renowned writer’s autobiography and essays. Pahwa’s performance in Shah’s production, Kambakht Bilkul Aurat, in 2009 led to her first notable film role in Ferrari Ki Sawaari (2012), prompting director Rajesh Mapuskar to rewrite a part initially conceived for a man to accommodate her.
In Aurat! Aurat! Aurat!, Pahwa performs the story Soney Ka Anda, which deals with a mother’s pain when society shuns her newborn girl. The all-woman play also features Bhavna Pani, Trishla Patel, Jaya Virlley, Prerna Chawla and Shruti Vyas.
The contemporary relevance of Chughtai’s prose is not lost on Pahwa. Chughtai, she says, was way ahead of her time. “It is sad that very little progress has been made since then,” she says. “[These days,] I don’t think a writer has the courage ki woh kataaksh kar sake kisi pe [be critically sarcastic about anyone].” There’s a lot that women can learn from Chughtai, feels Pahwa. “She fought to do things that women were not allowed to—be it study or talk to boys in college,” she said. “Her life is proof that if you don’t fight your own battles, you cannot blame anyone else. Don’t be insecure, be fearless.”
“Hindi films don’t try to break the stereotype as far as a woman is concerned”