In Dhak Dhak, a recent Bollywood film, a group of women on a road trip set out to bike on the highest mountain pass in the world, the Khardung La. Actor Ratna Pathak Shah, at 66, was one of them.
In her play Old World, an adaptation of the Russian work (originally published in 1977) by Aleksei Arbuzov, she plays a free-spirited Parsi woman Zenobia Sumariwala, at a medical resort in Ranikhet. She is full of contradictions and
In Dhak Dhak, a recent Bollywood film, a group of women on a road trip set out to bike on the highest mountain pass in the world, the Khardung La. Actor Ratna Pathak Shah, at 66, was one of them.
In her play Old World, an adaptation of the Russian work (originally published in 1977) by Aleksei Arbuzov, she plays a free-spirited Parsi woman Zenobia Sumariwala, at a medical resort in Ranikhet. She is full of contradictions and idiosyncrasies and speaks her mind. She meets a doctor, Rashid Qureshi from Lucknow (Naseeruddin Shah), and they form an unlikely bond. The two take walks in the adjoining forest, sing, dance, and talk about their vulnerabilities. It’s a charming portrayal of old age and turns its nose up at the stereotypes that come with it.
Pathak Shah calls herself a supporter of old age, but ageing as an actor and as a woman in the public eye has its share of complexities. In the film industry, women in their forties feel this the most, Pathak Shah said. “They become very difficult to bracket,” she said, adding that it gets tougher for women to find work as heroines as they age.
“I finally learned how to act when I was in my forties. I was a fairly mediocre actor before that, I think. I got enough opportunities to keep making mistakes and trying out things. And therefore, by the time 2000 came around, I felt more confident of myself as an actor,” she said. She believes this is true of most actors, ‘particularly those who haven’t been exceptional in their youth’. “They mellow and become more interesting to watch,” she adds.
Quite unlike her mother actor Dina Pathak’s time, her own experience with getting work, both in the film and OTT space has been better. Her mother, she recalls, thought of herself as much older at the same age. “She was always the hero’s mother. I can’t be a hero’s mother. They are supposed to be playing 25 endlessly, a 50-year-old who is likely to be their mother doesn’t look like me anymore. She looks like Raveena Tandon,” she said.
Pathak Shah has found more work with age and played some memorable characters, eschewing the role of the hero’s mother — in Lipstick Under My Burkha, which earned a Filmfare award nomination, she played a matriarch with an obsession for erotica novels; in Charlie Chopra & The Mystery of Solang Valley, the recent OTT series, she played a psychologist with a dark past, and a penchant for the supernatural.
“If I had played a 60-year-old woman at 35, I would have had to work much harder and I would have made many more mistakes then,” she says.
Earlier this year, Sharmila Tagore spoke about the lack of good parts for older women in films. Both specifically referred to Waheeda Rehman, with Tagore going as far as saying that films are written for male actors like Amitabh Bachchan, but not for Rehman.
Hollywood has fared better with older female actors: Jennifer Coolidge in White Lotus, Meryl Streep in Only Murders in the Building, and Angela Bassett in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, are some examples. Back home too, the likes of Seema Pahwa, Sheeba Chaddha, Neena Gupta, and Geetanjali Kulkarni have also featured in meaty roles — Gullak, Mast Mein Rehne Ka, Trial by Fire, are some recent examples.
“I went very grey very quickly. I had to do something. I did not want to be pushed into mother roles at that point. And the mother roles then were horrible. Professionally and even personally, I couldn’t imagine being a 30-year-old with that much grey. I grew up in a society where white hair was frowned upon. I had fully bought into that,” she said.
Things have come a long way, and women, she believes, are not willing to accept the traditional roles they were assigned. She notices more comfort with the process of ageing and the respect that comes with it.
In her group of female friends, jokes about aches and pains are routine. But, most of these women are happy growing old. “I remember my mum’s friends used to be a little more unhappy about the process. They felt the loss of agency and power much more strongly. I am hearing less of that around me,” she said.
Then again, there is a duality, of what she terms the ‘youth brigade’, where people are trying to look and feel younger than they are. “There seems to be a desire to fit into a typical framework. There are now many more opportunities to do things to your body, face, and hair, to stay youthful."
In the play Old World, directed by Arghya Lahiri, and produced by their company, Motley Theatre, Shah and Pathak Shah talk about ageing with rare subtlety and poise. They speak of their past lives, of lost love and trauma, of rewards and learnings. There’s grief and loneliness, even loss of agency, but they refrain from playing it to evoke the kind of sympathy cliched older characters tend to demand. They find joy in small things; dinner at a restaurant, a waltz outdoors, and time spent in silence. The characters and the actors behind them wear the markers of age, physical and emotional, with panache.
Pathak Shah wishes she had spent more time learning physically demanding skills when she had more energy and no fear of breaking bones. “On the other hand, emotional fears drop out. I feel much steadier now and I can distance myself from things that bother me more easily. I can think more rationally without being emotionally involved with everything around me. I like this sense of settling. I just hope I don’t settle too much and become a bore,” she said.
In Old World, her character Zenobia, when talking about friendships, says, “I love meeting new friends. Old friends just go on about things you already know. New friends will say something new.” It’s a sentiment Pathak Shah has come to believe.
“I am really curious to know how they [young people] are coping with the world around them. It is a more complex and therefore much more interesting world than the one I grew up in. Professionally that’s certainly the case.”
“The risk that older people run is that we are so busy telling other people our experiences. And we have a lot to say about everything we have seen and done. Many times, when you are listening to younger people you get the sense that you have been there before. There is a little impatience that I find in myself. But I am able to curb that,” she said.
An ageing woman’s body and skin must not be seen, acting one’s age may well be a virtue, but youthful physical features are always aspirational, no matter what age.
“Grace is often a term used for older people who don’t behave abominably. It’s a pity that we need these categories. But this is not a bad one to fall into. Better than being an old grouch,” she said.
“If you are an interesting and interested person, your age doesn’t define you. Your spirit does.”
Old World is playing at Experimental Theatre, NCPA from December 13 to 17.
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