Most of us remember her as the uppity yet loveable Maya Sarabhai, but actor Ratna Pathak Shah is so much more.
A self-professed quintessential Mumbai girl who stereotypically fell for a Muslim man from UP, Ratna has a lot to say with respect to today’s political climate.
In a recent interview with ScoopWhoop Unscripted, Ratna gets candid about the entertainment industry, politics, her personal life and more.
With anchor Samdish Bhatia, here are a few things she articulately discussed.
1. On how accidentally becoming a comedy actor ‘saved’ her.
She mentions how she’s thankful for a show like Idhar Udhar which saved her from being typecast as the ‘serious’ or ‘arthouse’ type.
2. On her far too ‘boring’ happy life which doesn’t deserve a biography.
Even though she’s had an illustrious career, Ratna mentions how her life has been too uneventful to write a biography about.
Although, we would love to read about her life just to be reassured that even when you’re amidst the glitz and glam one can lead a normal life too.
3. On the cutest explanation of why she got married.
She explains how she and Naseeruddin married out of their collective hatred for the titles ‘boyfriend’, ‘girlfriend’, and ‘lover’.
4. On how art can never really be ‘apolitical’.
When asked whether politics and art can be separate entities, she succinctly explains how art engulfs everything and leaving politics out is close to impossible.
5. On how our PM has still not met his full potential.
Although she praises PM Modi for being equipped with the right frame of mind to lead our country, she says he can do so much more with the kind of resources he has at his disposal.
6. On the ‘Bollywoodisation’ of identity politics.
Ratna jokes about how if our PM were a character in a Bollywood film, he’d have had an interesting backstory.
7. On the lack of good content Bollywood has to offer.
When asked why the quality of content has stagnated, Ratna has an interesting response about the endless loop of confirmation bias big players like to reinforce.
Sadly, she believes not much is going to change for mainstream cinema and television. However, she does have hope for online content which she feels is revolutionary in its own way.
This being just a glimpse of the interview, Shah talks further about her life in Mumbai, the wage gap, and a lot more in the episode.