The moment they gathered around a coffee table filled with full and empty cups at The Chambers in Taj Bengal one April morning, it was evident that they had got on like a house on fire during the making of the film. Set in modern-day Mumbai, Aparna Sen’s Sonata about three middle-aged women friends — starring herself, Shabana Azmi and Lillete Dubey — is an open-ended song on the nature of female bonding and companionship. t2 asked the trio to share what’s on their mind... 

Behind the story
Mahesh Elkunchwar had written the play Sonata about three feisty, independent women back in 2000. Today, one wonders why would two women, who are not homosexuals, make such a choice? Why did Dolon (Shabana) choose to live with Aruna (Aparna) instead of moving to Seattle with her boyfriend? Don’t you think there’s a grey zone there?
Aparna: (Smiles) If there are grey areas, I like to leave those as they are. 
Lillete: It’s nice to have these little unresolved things…
Aparna: Yes, I love that!

But you felt the need to introduce a transgender character in the film?
Aparna: Yes.... If there’s an exploration of the ‘feminine’ in a film where there are only three characters and the canvas is limited, how many aspects of the feminine can you bring in? There’s the bai, who cuts across class borders, asserts her independence and puts these three women in their place. She’s empowered in a different way that they are not. The other one is this transgender friend (played by Anusuya Majumder) of theirs, who’s also a female and this is very much a today’s phenomenon . It has come into advertising! I loved that (Vicks) ad that shows a transgender female as the mother. And it comes into the conversation many times in Sonata... they talk of sex reassignment surgery. 

There are sexual undercurrents between Aruna and Dolon. The way Dolon looks at Aruna, so admiringly, is very suggestive...
Shabana: You know I didn’t see it as that. I really find Aparna an extremely beautiful woman and person and I think it’s perfectly possible to admire another woman without being a lesbian. And that’s how I saw Dolon. I saw Dolon as slightly more than obsessive about Aruna... she wants her approval, she wants her to be involved...
Lillete: She’s kind of in awe of her at a level...
t2: A little dominated by Aruna...
Shabana: I don’t think she’s dominated. 
Aparna: I think she’s a little dominated but ever so often she rebels against it.... You see, my character (Aruna) has completely shut her mind to love and sex after breaking up with that man years ago (cameo by Kalyan Ray). So she channels all her energy into her work. 
Don’t you think there’s an appropriation of the husband-wife roles in Dolon and Aruna, though interchangeable?
Aparna: No, but they have the same problems as a married couple. The emotional ups and downs, the kind of bickering that all people who live together have, even a mother-daughter relationship will have that... getting on each other’s nerves, companionship... that is all part of the territory, but not husband and wife.
Shabana: I didn’t see it like that at all. In my playing, I didn’t play it like that. I saw it as an extension and reflection of my relationship with Aparna, as somebody whom I respect greatly, and somebody whose approval is important to me. Dolon needs Aru’s approval more than I need Aparna’s. (Laughs) You see Rina (Aparna) and I have a very intimate relationship, it is not a formal at all, and it comes from deep love and admiration. That’s why for me it was pretty effortless and it gave me the freedom to be so unrestrained. I just loved playing this role!

Yes, it was wonderful to see you so relaxed and letting go of yourself on screen...
Shabana: That’s right. I think it’s also comes from the fact that we were so sure it was going to be a chamber piece and we had to shoot it in a short time, and all three of us are theatre actors, and I think the theatre discipline came in handy. The good thing about Aparna as a director is that she loves her actors, she is very protective towards them and she helps them a lot. It didn’t matter who had the longer part, because you play off each other. Like Anusuya Majumder in the transgender character. She’s a very good actress, I have worked with her in City of Joy... and in that one scene, she leaves such a strong impact. 
You know, Ingmar Bergman is my absolute favourite director and it used to always fascinate me that he could get these brilliant performances out of the female actors who knew that he was involved with Liv Ullmann. And yet how they could repose their trust in him! Obviously because he was so true to the subject he was making, and that I think Aparna has been able to do. There was so much trust among the three of us and we could give each other suggestions without worrying ki yeh ab aayi hai mujhe sikhane ke liye. I think that helped us a lot. It worked like an ensemble piece. 

How was it playing a Bengali? 
Shabana: I did not stress on the Bengali at all. I think it’s more important to capture the essence, because in a sense Dolon could have been from anywhere. The important thing was these three girls should belong to different parts of India because there’s a metropolitan-ness that comes out of being in Mumbai. And getting the Rabindrasangeet correct was important... 

That you learnt during the course of the film?
Shabana: I had very little time because I was working on another film and it terrified me. And right from the beginning, Rina said, you have to do it. But I had a very good trainer in Sharani Sen, who’s a singer. She gave me the confidence, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it.

But you have done it so well...
Shabana: Thank you so much! What is even more shocking is that I had recorded the songs (Aji jharer raat and Sokhi andhare ekela). But when we were shooting, we didn’t play the recording. I actually sang!
 
You recently said you would prefer a world where women could live together and men could be visitors. How did the only-women world feel in Sonata?
Shabana: (Laughs) I have very, very dear friends who are women. And every now and then we go off on holidays by ourselves and it’s just so wonderful to be together, so I think it comes from that. But basically what is happening now is that the whole context of the family is changing. The family is no longer just husband and wife. So you have two men living together with a child, two siblings living together, two friends living together, a single parent.... So this broadening of the idea of the conventional family is what I find very, very interesting in the context of this film. 

Who plays what
So how did you go about picking actors for the three roles?
Aparna: Lillete was always the first choice for Subhadra. Thank god she said yes, otherwise it would have been hard to find somebody else to do it.
Lillete: And I am saying thank god she asked me, finally, after 16 years to do a film with her! (Laughs) See, Mahesh had wanted me to do this play. Of course I didn’t want to do the part he wanted me to do, or she (Aparna) wanted me to do (laughs). 
Aparna: What did you want to do? Dolon? 
Lillete: I always wanted to do Dolon or even Aruna. See, the director understands the synergy between the personality and the character, but the actor wants to do something diametrically opposite!

Aparna: Let me speak as a director now. Lillete, we felt, was cut out for this role, and we gave Shabana the role which may not have been cut out for her but because she could sing. The only role that was left, I had to do it. Not that I particularly yearned to do it. What happens is that in film, as opposed to theatre, since you have huge close-ups, many things that are not related to acting speak a lot. It’s the look of the person, the baggage that person carries... all of that goes into the making of a character in a film. It’s not just good acting.
Lillete: That I totally agree. It was a big learning for me, because in theatre we are like free spirits! 
Aparna: In realistic cinema, I don’t like larger-than-life characters or virtuoso performances, because it takes away from the entirety of the film. Even in Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Din Ratri, Simi (Garewal) playing the tribal girl just didn’t work me.
Lillete: Didn’t work for me either.... Yeah I realised that people actually are cast in films simply because they look so perfect. So I accept my limitation in films (laughs out loud).
Aparna: But you know, that is only 50 per cent of the job done. Particularly in roles that are difficult and layered, it is such a relief when you have actors like Lillete and Shabana, because they will just keep on adding and adding to what you have got.... So I was stuck with the role of Aruna. 
Lillete: Which is also different from who she is. 
Aparna: It’s very different from who I am. I am not particularly crazy about doing something that’s very different from who I am. I don’t have ambitions as an actor. I am a director. And sometimes it was irritating to act and direct at the same time. It’s just another added burden.
Lillete: But the good thing about these roles was that you were in the same age group, sensibility, economic background and urban milieu as these characters in a way. So it was not too faraway a space. There were so many factors that were resonating. Plus, the emotional landscape that you have traversed in your life, all that can be mined for this part...
Aparna: Yeah, used as resources. 
Lillete: Like my character Subhadra, who’s a journalist, she’s strong, wears the pants, calls the shots. Yet in the personal space, with the friends or in her relationship, she is frightened by the thought of loneliness. She’s clinging to her youth, that’s why I am in jeans and tight T-shirts. It’s a very poignant and true emotion. This loss of desirability, loss of sexuality. All women feel it. 
You know when my daughter Neha bloomed, I remember walking with her one day, and the glances started with me and then rested on her. I felt so proud and happy as a mother, but as a human being there was also a tiny twinge (laughs). I knew that moment had come when I had become the older model and a new model was on the horizon. You know every woman has to go through this. 

Shabana, Aparna said she cast you as Dolon because you can sing.
Shabana: (Turns to Aparna) That’s the only reason?! Thank you very much…
Aparna: Yeah! I didn’t think she would look like a Bengali, so that wasn’t a factor at all. I cast her as Dolon because, first of all, she could sing and she hasn’t sung in a film and I thought that would be wonderful. And second, the fact that both she and Lillete would easily bring out the layers just by reading the script. It is such a tidal wave of relief that I don’t have to train somebody at all. Sometimes Munni (Shabana), of course, would start all of a sudden, ‘But Rina I don’t understand why she’s saying this....’ And I would feel like strangling her! (Everyone laughs) Then I’d say, achha do whatever you want. 
Shabana: No, not at all! She says, ‘Because I am telling you.’
Aparna: But this time I let you go.... But honestly, one of the best actresses I have worked with is Jennifer Kendal. She never asked any questions. 
Shabana: Really?!
Aparna: I think I told her only once when she catches the boy and girl kissing, ‘You feel betrayed but you forgive them.’ That is all the direction that I gave her. Jennifer just wanted to hear the script seven times.
Lillete: Interesting... the process is very different. 
Shabana: Yeah, like Naseer (Naseeruddin Shah) keeps reading the script again and again, matlab he reads the script every day! 
Aparna: You also hang on to the script...
Shabana: Yeah I hang on to the script, my security is the script, I need the script constantly. I write lots of notes in the beginning and then I forget it. 
Aparna: That’s so nice.... Koko (Konkona) also learns her lines completely. That’s all she does. I have never seen her preparing. 
Lillete: Yeah, I also need my script. 
Aparna: Remember that crucial scene in Yugant, where Roopa (Ganguly) fights with Anjan (Dutt)? So every time Roopa would start from the previous scene, work up her emotions and then say ‘take’. It’s an interesting way of doing it. 
Lillete: In theatre, you can’t think about lines, they have to be out of your system. 
Shabana: Yeah, during performance you are concentrating on the emotions, not on the lines. You know some people say acting is in silence and all, it’s all rubbish. In cinema it’s very easy to convey with silences. If it’s a tight close-up and I just look up and it’s put effectively, it can look gorgeous. It is giving previously rehearsed lines the impression of a first time that is the most challenging to me. 
Lillete: Absolutely! 

Reshmi Sengupta
Taj Bengal pictures: B. Halder

It is better to live with friends than get married because.... Tell t2@abp.in