Ratna Pathak Shah- Master Of Her Craft

Variety drives and defines Ratna Pathak Shah, who has left a mark in whichever medium she has pursued, big screen, small screen or stage. Hemchhaya De examines her body of work.

- Hemchhaya De

It was an unusually cold January evening in Kolkata, but the crowd that had gathered on the lawns adjacent to the iconic St. Paul’s Cathedral was warming up for a starry session at a literary festival in Kolkata. Aparna Sen, Mira Nair, Vishal Bhardwaj, Nandana Dev Sen and Ratna Pathak Shah were to speak on women in media ‘crossing the lines’. While the internationally acclaimed filmmakers on the panel gave the audience enough food for thought, it was the inimitable Pathak Shah who won hearts with her remarkable witticism. Sample this: “I have this fear… supposing World War III happens, and it will happen sooner than you or I think, and civilisation as we know it comes to an end, what if future generations only find Salman Khan’s Dabangg as a reference point for our entire civilisation and all of humanity… (In that case) what will a future person or an alien say about us?” Or this: “My generation has grown up watching films where Shammi Kapoor teased heroines mercilessly, in the most awkward and ugly way possible, and all she had to say about it was, ‘you stupid!’ So men of my generation thought that’s all they are going to get, ‘You stupid!’ So they continued to behave in ridiculous ways...” There was, of course, a context to these— Pathak Shah was talking about how films are a record of their times and how popular cinema moulds our minds in many ways.

Off-stage too, Pathak Shah’s self-deprecating, wry humour was evident in the exclusive chat she had with Femina.

Life after Lipstick...