‘The fluidity in transition, the spaces where we are freely seeking all the time—that to me is the idea of freedom’
One of my favourite writers, Kurt Vonnegut, has an amazing quote. He says, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” I find it funny and provocative. In that sense, I have pretended to be a cinema lecturer, film curator, film researcher and now an actor. These have all been conscious decisions. But I use the word ‘pretend’ cautiously and self-consciously.
In the many things I pretend to be, sometimes I pretend to be a woman because society asks me to. It is also how my first piece Lady Anandi came about. While working in theatre, I was told, you stand like a man, sound like a man and can you please be a woman? But I’m already that, I thought. What are the markers of being a woman? We have all these notions of what a woman should be—delicate, fragile and my favourite, ‘ladylike’.
That’s why I go back to my great grandfather, Madhavrao Tipnis, a Marathi stage actor who pretended to be a lady perfectly—from the way he wore a sari to how he gazed coyly. I found it an interesting and funny premise. Here was a man who could be a woman convincingly on stage and I, a century later, was struggling to be one. I dug out his photos, researched the piece for over a year and then decided to write, direct and act in it. I connected it to pretending to be a woman. So the quest began to do away with these pretensions and find who you are. Theatre or the arts allow you that search.
Many have described Lady Anandi as raw. I call it an unfinished work. It challenges a certain form of theatre, it is fighting against an idea of a polished, complete product. I read the script. It is apparent where it is stitched together and where it is in a transitional space of becoming something. That, to me is exciting. I like the fluidity in transition, the spaces where we are freely seeking all the time. That to me is the idea of freedom.
The ability to express myself, my sexuality and challenge things. I’m not going to be stereotyped, shackled by what society thinks, to be questioning, searching, in the process of becoming. That, to me, is freedom. (As told to Suhani Singh)