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India Today, November 4, 2015

Mayank Shekhar

Smita Patil: The actor who survived time

The unconventional actor lived to the full, died young, leaving behind memories of searingly brilliant work.

Bunkum or not, the Bechdel Test, if you don't know already, measures innate sexism in films (or popular fiction) using a very simple checklist-whether in a movie, two women characters ever talk to each other at all; if so, then is it about anything outside of a man? You'll be surprised how many films fail this test. If there was, however, a version of the same test applied to female actors, here's what I'd like to know. Whether it is possible for people to have a long conversation about her and her movies, without a hyphenated identity with a male co-star ever cropping up-Meryl Streep, for instance. To me, in India, no other actor, besides Smita Patil, with as prolific a career comes to mind. Even Shabana Azmi, Smita's main rival on the arthouse scene, evokes parallel memories of Naseeruddin Shah; let alone reigning female stars of those times: Rekha, Hema Malini, Jaya Bhaduri.

Of course, with Smita, besides her movies, you will notice fans inevitably talk about how penetratingly beautiful she was, albeit in an "unconventional way"-convention, in a deeply 'colourist' society, being defined by what's the preferred shade of brown for the Indian skin, or the movie screen. Smita was dark-skinned, unlike her mom and siblings. She grew up, among classmates in a Marathi-medium school, with the usual racist jibes, "kali, kaluram, ghatan", directed at her. She broke convention to headline some of the most seminal, socially conscious (and later even mainstream) films from the mid-1970s to 1980s. She completely submitted herself to her characters-complex, everyday rural/urban women, mostly-to kindle extreme empathy among audiences. How did that happen? Well, to begin with, both her parents were activists with strong socialist leanings (her father Shiva ji rao Patil is a former state cabinet minister). Pune, where she was raised, had a robust theatre scene. It was a playground for writers and directors such as Vijay Tendulkar and Jabbar Patel who also worked in films. Further, Pune is the home of the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), which was inarguably the cradle of the Indian New Wave that saw the cinema screen as a realistic mirror to the human condition and society at large. This was when Smita was just starting out, even if reluctantly. She debuted with Arun Khopkar's FTII diploma film Teevra Madhyam (1974). As a famous football quote goes: "You have to be in the right place at the right time, all the time anyway. Only sometimes, the ball comes to you." In Smita's case, that happened with her job as a Marathi news anchor on Doordarshan in Bombay. The camera loved her, as it were. There was something naturally arresting about her screen presence. Filmmakers with as diverse sensibilities as Dev Anand, Manoj Kumar and Shyam Benegal were almost simultaneously awestruck. Benegal gave her a break in Charandas Chor (1975). A few years on, Smita seemed like an actor in a serious hurry, piling up a thick filmography-50-plus films in under eight years, in the 1980s. It appears as if she may have even planned her premature exit. But that was the 1980s: a rather odd time for everyone-the film industry and the audiences alike. And Smita starred in several frontbencher potboilers as well. I met her as a little child on the sets of Dance Dance (1987), assuming those are the kind of movies she usually did (not that I knew any other kind anyway). In A Brief Incandescence, Maithili Rao's deeply felt account of Smita's career, which is fairly heavy on adjectives and rightly blind to any flaws in her performances (or even personality), the author most significantly zeroes in on 10 roles that she feels displayed the sheer range of feelings and emotions the actor was capable of firing up. The chapter is titled 'Smita Patil and Her Dasavataram'. The films being-and you may take notes, in case a binge-fest interests you-Manthan (1976), Jait Re Jait (Marathi, 1977), Bhumika (1977), Akaler Sandhane (Bengali, 1981), Chakra (1981), Umbartha (Marathi, 1982; Subah in Hindi), Arth (1982), Bazaar (1982), Tarang (1984) and Aakhir Kyon? (1985). I'm sure most, if not all, would have featured in the retrospective in Paris that Costa-Gavras hosted for Smita while she was still alive. Or I hope he would've included Ardh Satya (1983), although that was so much more an Om Puri film. Now, Rao has been chronicling serious Indian cinema seriously for as long as I can remember. She provides a clean and sharp précis of Smita's finest films in the book, written with a lot of affection and generous detailing-not just with description of Patil's presence in a movie, but of the movie itself, and the world it inhabits. This sort of rigour is rare at a time when anybody with fingers to dance on a keyboard assumes he or she is a film critic. Of course, one's interest levels drop while reading about so many of Smita's other films that have little to write home about anyway. Still, can Smita be viewed purely as the sum of her works? Sufficiently, yes. She naturally comes across as someone more committed to the arts than serving her stardom. There is yet a playfulness about her persona. Something you can instantly catch with her dancing in the rain to the song 'Aaj Rapat Jaye' with Amitabh Bachchan in Namak Halaal (1982). She admittedly hated doing it. Such contradictions are even more appealing. But there's far more at play. Most of which is outside the scope of this book. Sadly, Rao never met her as a journalist or critic. She does gather vignettes to reveal a free-spirited biker woman, prone to premonitions and psychic dreams, heartbreaks and other hiccups in relationships. Smita was a skilled photographer and a well-rounded aesthete, often delving in both costume and production design of her films. It's hard to imagine her falling for Raj Babbar. Most agree. Not because he was a married man with two children (and maybe that too). But he seemed like such a Bollywood garden variety. Rao plays fair to the reader by being curious about it herself. But digs no deeper, I suspect, to desist from being gossipy and voyeuristic. The drama in Smita's life outrivals many of her films. She died at 31, rather unexpectedly, on a hospital bed, after delivering her first child. Mirch Masala (1987), a total tour de force, was the last film she acted in (several others released later). She was at the top of her game. Much like so many other artistes, whose early deaths turned out to be inadvertent moves toward assured immortality-James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Heath Ledger, Amy Winehouse? Smita would have turned 60 on October 17, 2015. Probably the book was planned accordingly. I woke up that day to my Facebook and Twitter timelines being literally flooded with emotional outpourings over Smita. Eh? It's heartening, but odd, I thought. She died in 1986. Public memory is usually depressingly short, especially with popular culture. I felt equally intrigued reading tributes to Smita in this book, from a journalist, blogger, established actor, aspiring stage actor, NGO executive-all of who continue to feel her presence. They were too young, if born at all, when Smita was a star.

This phenomenon feels a bit like Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point-an unpredictably second round of halo and fame bestowed on a product/person much after they were so "in" once. Smita's films have evidently survived the test of time. Rao's account suitably adds to the aura.