Five minutes into a conversation with Anushka Sharma and you realize that the young lady has been pretty much cued on to what to expect as the next question. Though she acknowledges the fact that by now she has been asked the same questions at least 1 lakh times (in her own words), she doesn’t mind answering them all over again.
So over to the pretty girl where I begin the interview with an excuse that quite a lot of what she hears may sound clichéd but she would nevertheless have to bear with me. She is all smiles as she begins answering.
Q.Anushka, considering the fact that you have started your Bollywood innings with something ‘ordinary’ in ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’, won’t it be difficult now to accept anything that requires you to play an ‘extraordinary’ character?
A.The film may be about ordinary people but it was presented in a manner that was quite appealing. This is why I don’t quite look at it as an ordinary v/s extraordinary conflict. Being dressed up in a ‘salwaar kameez’ is what was required in the context of the film but since I come from a fashion background, I am not new to dressing up and being in the glam world. I can look different if the situation demands.
Q.From ramp to ‘salwar-kameez’, now that’s quite a transition!
A.Yes. In fact people who know me for ages were pleasantly shocked when they saw me in such outfits. They had seen a different me all this while and here I was seen on screen as a full on Punjabi ‘bahu’. At the end of the day it is about looking different and acting different for each of the characters I portray. I would like to be different in each of my films and would want my fourth film to be different from my first, my seventh to be different from fourth and so on.
Q.Coming to your choice of ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’ as your first film, weren’t you worried? After all, your character looses her boy friend in first 5 minutes of the film, gets married to a boring man in 10 minutes, goes on to fall in love with the third man around the interval point and then sees ‘rab’ in her husband towards the concluding reels. Didn’t you say to yourself – ‘O God, what am I getting into’?
A.No, I didn’t because I understood the girl’s predicament. I could empathize with her because she didn’t get into a marriage with Suri (Shah Rukh Khan) out of her own choice. She married him because of the circumstances prevailing around her. She was in a love less situation and to make matters worse, she herself wasn’t making any conscious efforts to ignite any love with her husband. This is where Raj (Shah Rukh Khan again) seemed like a ray of hope for her.
Q.But it was adultery?
A.Yes, pretty much so. No denying the fact. But as a dialogue goes in the film goes ‘Insaan Pyaar Ka Bhookha Hota Hai, Jahan Usse Pyaar Dikhta Hai Wo Khicha Chala Jaata Hai’ – same happens to her as well. She is led to adultery; she is about to take a step i.e. elope with the guy, which is clearly unethical. But then she does realise sooner than later that what she was doing was incorrect. God finds a way of making her realize that she had to stop before it was too late. She does carry a lot of extra baggage with her but when she sheds it (after falling in love with Suri), she is all for her man!
Q.Amidst all these complexities in your role, didn’t you miss out on the charm of being a typical Shah Rukh Khan heroine? After all you couldn’t indulge yourself in the passion and romance that Shah Rukh Khan is known for showering on his leading ladies!
A.[Laughs] But tell me whether Shah Rukh Khan himself was THE Shah Rukh Khan in the film as we know him? No one was over the top in the film and Suri too was completely different from Raj. Also, none of the two was Shah Rukh Khan. Suri was boring which Shah Rukh isn’t and Raj, in my personal opinion, had a pathetic dressing sense. These two characters were as different as chalk and cheese and yet so realistic due to which Shah Rukh Khan brought to fore a unique personality of his own. So to answer your question, no, I didn’t feel that I was missing out on anything. Instead, I was seeing something entirely new.
By Joginder Tuteja
