New Delhi: When Mira Nair first called Shefali Shah for Monsoon Wedding, she spoke in Hindi, assuming she was the character Pyaari from Satya.
“When Mira first called me, she spoke to me in Hindi, ‘mujhe pata nhi agar tum angrezi bol paati ho ya nahi (I don’t know whether you speak English or not)’,” Shah writes in her recently launched biography, The Audacity of Being: A sort-of memoir.
Published by Bloomsbury India, the 224-page memoir touches upon different phases of Shah’s personal and professional journey. From her stint in Gujarati theatre and walking out of Rangeela to working in films like Satya and Monsoon Wedding, she puts her guard down and gives a sneak peek to the readers.
Talking about her first conversation with Nair, Shah said, “She had seen me in Satya and probably mistook me for the character of Pyaari I portrayed on screen — an uneducated, underprivileged, grassroots woman. I took that as the biggest compliment for my work.”
Shah calls that telephonic conversation “the beginning of a fantastic collaboration” between them.
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‘I learnt the art of disappearing’
Notably, Monsoon Wedding completes 25 years. Shah played the role of Ria Verma, who had experienced sexual abuse as a child.
The actress writes in her book that Nair challenged her as an actor and wanted to see whether Shah could handle the “sophisticated, quiet, English-speaking world of Delhi’s upper middle class after I had just played a boisterous girl from Mumbai underworld.”
She describes Nair’s set as an “acting school” with no hierarchy and how they would start their day with “group yoga” followed by a massive home-cooked breakfast brought by Nair.
Monsoon Wedding also starred Naseeruddin Shah and Kulbhushan Kharbanda. Shah says that her goal and “one of the strengths” was to blend into the larger picture, the larger story with her co-actors.
“I learnt the art of disappearing,” she added.
Monsoon Wedding went on to win the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, making Nair the first female director and first Indian or Asian woman to win the festival’s top prize. The film also earned a Golden Globe Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. It also received ‘honours’ from various international film festivals and critics’ associations.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)