Box - Office

Striking The Balance

But it wasn’t till Kala Pani, Maachis and Virasat came along that this soft-spoken, shy girl was given a second look. Today of course, this National Award winner is one of the most sensitive and versatile actresses we have today.A worthy member of her illustrious family which boasts of some of the biggest talents of movieland...Farha, Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar Baba and Tanvi Azmi and Sulbha Arya.Today Tabu is in exalted company but surprisingly this tag of a “serious” actress weighs heavy on her slender shoulders.

She has been quoted as saying that winning the National Award for best actress was proving to be a disadvantage for her because now she’s suddenly being slotted as an “arty heroine” and that’s keeping the commercial filmmakers away. “I never made such a statement. I can’t even imagine saying such things,” thunders Tabu dripping water all over the sets of Govind Nihalani’s Takshak. “As it often happens, my quotes were taken out of context and misinterpreted. Winning the National Award is such a great honour and I am proud of my achievement. My whole family is. I come from a middle-class family and if a photograph of mine appears somewhere my relatives and neighbours in Hyderabad are ecstatic. They keep all the cuttings from all my interviews. For us someone winning the National award is a very big thing.”

Tabu flashbacks to that moment in Delhi. The evening of the awards distribution ceremony. Understandably, she was very nervous. “I have always been terrified of climbing the dais. I have this fear that I may slip and fall. And that day I was even more terrified because I was wearing a saree. Fortunately, I didn’t stumble. I made it safely on stage and the President came up to me and asked in Telugu, “How are you?” before handing over the medal.

I couldn’t imagine this was happening to me. I will always cherish that moment,” she says dreamily. After winning the award when she returned to Mumbai the ladies of the building welcomed her at the gate with a garland and an aarti. They were thrilled for her and had decorated the whole building beautifully. “I was so touched,” she confesses in an emotion choked voice. It wasn’t all ecstasy though . Now there were a lot more expectations. More responsibilities. “But then I realised that if I kept thinking this way I would never again be able to do anything. So now I’ve decided to work harder and left everything else to God,” she asserts. Recently people saw Tabu in an inane film, 2001and wondered what a National Award winner was doing in such an out-and-out masala film? “I am not ashamed of doing this film,” Tabu says firmly. “I think I had a good role and I did what was expected of me. I have never been able to distinguish between art and masala films. In my opinion when a so-called art film becomes successful, it turns into a commercial film. Personally, I want to strike a balance between the two and I think at the moment I am managing pretty well,” she smiles happily.

No one is disputing that but if the buzz is to be believed she recently lost Indra Kumar’s next film opposite Aamir Khan because she was a couple of inches taller than her hero. “I don’t know what the reason was. May be it was my height,” Tabu sighs. “But in the past I have worked with heroes who are not very tall and nobody objected to my height.

May be there are still some people who think a heroine should always be shorter than the hero though in real life I know many wives who tower over their husbands and nobody considers the couple abnormal and they lead perfectly happy lives. I am proud of my height. And several of my fans tell me that my height is my biggest asset.”
With director Naresh Malhotra’s film Achanak Tabu’s elder sister Farha is making a comeback in films and Tabu is very happy about it. “I have heard that she has a good role in the film and has performed very well. I hope the film benefits her greatly. Farha is a very good actress. Have you seen Yateem? She had performed so well in the film. After seeing that film I became one of her biggest fans. She is not just talented but also so beautiful. Her problem was that she never took herself seriously. I hope she does now,” she maintains.
Tabu has some good films coming up. There’s Govind Nihalani’s Takshak in which she has a “very strong role of a woman who stands up for her rights”. Then there is Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Hain Sath Sath and Gulzar’s Hu Tu Tu. Tabu just adores Gulzar. “I will be in every one of his films. Aakhir unhone mujhe apni beti banaya hai,” she says proudly. There’s also Priyadarshan’s Raftaar, Sajid Nadiadwala’s Chandralekha and Mehul Kumar’s Kohraam. This year and the years that follow promise to be exciting. And sometime in the future Tabu wants to take up direction. "But before that I still have miles to go an actress," she concludes.