Shahana Goswami: Act of Authenticity

WHEN SHE WAS 19, she played a 16-year-old in her debut film, directed by Naseeruddin Shah. When she was 23, she played a 31-year-old hardworking, harried working mom in Abhishek Kapoor’s Rock On!! Ageing in reverse, at 38, she is now playing a 20-something in two international projects, SBS Australia’s immigrant series, Four Years Later, written and fronted by Indians, and Santosh, England’s entry for the Best Foreign Film at this year’s Academy Awards.

In a career that has spanned 18 years, Shahana Goswami has played Muneera, a young riot-stricken Muslim woman in Nandita Das’ directorial debut Firaaq (2008); Amina, Saleem Sinai’s luminous mother in Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children (2012); and the very fashionable and very unfaithful Meenakshi Mehra in A Suitable Boy (2020). She has been directed by some of the finest filmmakers in India and elsewhere and yet kept her distance from the Bollywood PR machinery in a celebrity-obsessed universe.

Doing everything by her own book, Goswami has quietly blazed her own trail, becoming the go-to actor for filmmakers looking for authenticity and proficiency. In Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, she plays a young widow who gets her late husband’s job as a constable in the fictional Chirag Pradesh, a stand in for any mainline North Indian state in India. As she starts working, her uniform gives her a sense of autonomy and authority, but also power. It is this power that makes her slap a woman who is protest­ing for the rights of her community and makes her assault an innocent man viciously.

It is also the uniform that makes her question her place in society, as a woman, a woman without a husband, as a Hindu, as an upper caste. None of this is done with hammer blows. Suri’s direction is deft, economical, and says a lot without spelling it out. Goswami’s eyes do most of the talking, widening in horror as something a young girl says suddenly makes sense to her; clouding in sorrow and narrowing in fear when she senses trouble. There is a silent rebel­lion in her. In a particularly arresting scene in a dhaba, when faced with a man staring at her with obscene attention, she quickly stuffs her face with chhola kulcha and then regurgitates it on her plate, making both herself and her offender sick to the stomach.

Her neophyte constable is in stark contrast to Sunita Rajwar’s senior, a woman so corrupted by the system that she believes she is entitled to her amorality. Santosh’s world still retains a sense of right and wrong, of the idea of freedom, of the value of individuality, as she rejects the seduction of banal evil for a life of uncertain liberty. Goswami likes the social commentary of Santosh, finding observational reality to be more compelling. “We learn best when we are not told,” she says.

In her new Australian show, Four Years Later, one of the first to showcase the Indian immigrant experience, she plays Sri, a young woman from Jaipur who goes to Sydney to meet her husband, Yash, after a gap of four years. Fun-loving, mischie­vous and curious, she adjusts better to the possibilities of a new world than her hus­band in the show, written by Indian-born, Australian-raised Mithila Gupta. “Sri was the easiest to play. I liked her enthusiasm and energy. I was comfortable with her and curious about her,” says Goswami.

She had to look younger for both Santosh and Four Years Later, so she lost some weight, finding a good Ayurvedic di­etician. She has also been working out at SOHFIT by Sohrab Khushrushahi, which she loves. For Santosh, she also spent time with policewomen in Uttar Pradesh, just getting used to the everydayness of their lives. “We also did a ten-day workshop on the script, understanding the emotional intent and character motivation. As far as the language is concerned, I grew up in the North, so I understand the Hindi that needs to be spoken but worked with a dialogue teacher from that area. The rest of it was just the emotion which is just in the moment. Despite all this I had a breakdown the night before the shoot. When you don’t have a method, then there is fear.”

WHAT MAKES GOSWAMI such an outlier in Mumbai’s gritty film industry? Daughter of well-known economist Omkar Goswami and freelance editor and translator Anomita Goswami, she was a sports star at Delhi’s Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, but always headed for the world of entertain­ment. “That’s why I came to Mumbai to study at Sophia Polytechnic with the aim of moving back to Delhi to get into the National School of Drama eventually,” she says, “It was a way to get closer to the dream,” she says.

Yet she has always felt insecure about her work, thinking she hasn’t had to struggle for roles. “I’ve always felt I’m not good enough, that I’ve not worked hard enough, that things have come effort­lessly to me. It’s a clear case of imposter syndrome. Even with Santosh, I felt, why has it come to me? But I’m getting better at overcoming it,” she says.

She has continued as she began in her career. Filmmaker Reema Kagti still remembers working with her on both their first film Honeymoon Travels Private Ltd (2007) . ‘‘She is an absolute natural and stood her ground doing scenes with seasoned actors Shabana [Azmi] and Boman [Irani]. I think she is able to really get under the skin of her characters,” Kagti says.

Yet Goswami cannot identify any pro­cess to her craft, having not trained as an actor. “It is totally spontaneous,” she says, adding she never looks at the director’s monitor, unless specifically asked to do so. “I never look at the monitor. It’s a waste of time. It is likely to make me unnecessarily self-conscious,” she says. The world seems aligned in getting her great parts. She says it is just that she has grown as a human being by “saying no to certain things”. She is still surprised at how certain roles find her, despite not having a manager and being fairly invisible. “There is no first, second or third here,” she says, recalling the advice given to her by Shabana Azmi. “She is a dear friend, and she said it is very important to be aware of your USP and focus on your strengths and aspirations. And wait. Don’t fit yourself into other people’s narratives.’’

She tried briefly in about 2009, to make more rational and strategic moves, to have a manager, have a hair and make-up person, work out, dress well. She did three films with big stars (Break ke Baad (2010), Game (2011) and Ra.One (2011). “It felt unnatural, and it didn’t work. Today, all those things don’t overwhelm me, the dressing up for events, being in big commercial films. I know I’ll be good at it,’’ she says. “I don’t mind playing a tiny part in a big movie now. I like ensembles, each character has its own arc. But earlier, well written smaller parts were limited,” she adds. The lesson from the period of stepping out of her comfort zone: tune into your inner calling and find a more instinctive place to work from.

It is this integrity that has given her many friends in the industry. Nandita Das, who directed her in Firaaq and Zwigato, says she adores her as a person and as an actor. “I would have cast her in Manto as well but her hair was too short,’’ she says. “What a confident, lay­ered, and strong performance she gave in Firaaq . And in Zwigato, her energy was so contagious that she brought a lot of ease and cheer to the set. Her openness as a per­son really helps her and her thoughtful­ness and sensitivity as a person help her morph into so many characters so well.”

Goswami took a break to be in Paris for five years, living in the trendy 11th Arrondissement, while doing two short films and continuing to work in Mumbai. “It was a much-needed retreat for me. It expanded my mind, allowed me to expose myself to other cultures, engage with the world, assimilate, absorb. It was stimulating, learning a new language. There were so many beautiful places all around. And even though work was slower, there was a lot of existential reshuffling for which I needed solitude.”

But the year and half before she returned from Paris was tough. “There were many close calls, roles that I could have got but didn’t. I think it was the universe’s way of telling me, ‘You wanted to struggle, so do so.’ My hopes were crash­ing back to back. I had sense that things may be ending for me.”

By the time she returned in 2019, there was a surfeit of work in stream­ing, beginning with Prime Video’s The Last Hour, which was shot in Sikkim, followed by posh parts in A Suitable Boy, Bombay Begums (as a banker), both on Netflix, Prime Video’s Hush Hush (as a designer), then the spirited Pratima in Das’s Zwigato, and the billionaire’s mistress Lisa in Anu Menon’s Neeyat. But again, before Santosh she did not do any movies or series for over a year. “I felt I wanted to do something challenging, exciting, something to fill every mol­ecule of my being. I kept saying no to everything,” she says. So she concen­trated on a collaboration with Westside, which was particularly satisfying.

Her director in the forthcoming film, Despatch, Kanu Behl says: “Shahana defi­nitely has to be the most hardworking and yet incredibly spontaneous actor I’ve worked with. Her immersion in her craft and the desire to plumb untold depths to play a part is something I marvelled at every day we prepped and filmed.”

Will she direct, like her friend, Nandita Das? “I don’t know when and how, but I will,” she says, adding, “It’s an exciting time for everyone.” “There has been an expansion in the access and demand for the number and variety of shows. Everyone is gainfully employed. There are shows that have mass appeal and yet are real and raw. The long format also means one central character is not key. Different characters get to share the burden.”

character motivationcinemaFour Years LaterSantoshShahana Goswami