“I MUST ENJOY WHAT I AM DOING. I AM HAPPY WITH WHO I AM.” A REFRAIN THAT KEPT RECURRING THROUGHOUT THE INTERVIEW, A REFRAIN WHICH MORE THAN SUMS UP THE SPIRIT OF DEEPTI NAVAL, THE UNFORGETTABLE MISS CHAMKO OF SAI PARANJPYE’S CHASHME BADDOOR, THE DELIGHTFUL COMEDY OF THE 80S.

THE SIMPLICITY OF HER HOME STRIKES YOU IMMEDIATELY. JUST LIKE HER, HER TERRACE FLAT IS SIMPLE AND YET SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL. NO ARRESTING COLOURS TO GRAB YOUR ATTENTION. NO ORNATE FURNITURE. NOTHING FLASHY AND FILMI. HER PAINTING OF A PREGNANT LADY THAT YOU SAW YEARS AGO AT AN ART GALLERY STARES AT YOU ONCE AGAIN. THE NEATLY LABELLED DRAWERS NEAR THE KITCHEN SPEAK OF DEEPTI’S METICULOUSNESS.

THE AUDIENCE HAS SEEN DEEPTI AFTER A LONG TIME. THE ACTRESS IS BEING APPRECIATED FOR HER ROLE AS THE SUPPORTIVE MOTHER-IN-LAW OF KARISMA KAPOOR, THE DOTING MOTHER OF SANJAY KAPOOR AND THE SUBMISSIVE WIFE OF NANA PATEKAR IN SHAKTI. SHE WAS LAST SEEN IN JAGMOHAN MUNDRA’S BAWANDAR AS A SOCIAL WORKER WHO FIGHTS TOOTH AND NAIL SO THAT JUSTICE IS METED OUT TO A RAPE VICTIM.

WHERE WAS DEEPTI NAVAL ALL THIS WHILE? HER HIDE-AND-SEEK WITH THE CAMERA HAS PERPLEXED AUDIENCE AND FILMMAKERS ALIKE. NOW WE SEE HER. NOW WE DON’T. “I WAS IN AND OUT OF INDIA. THE LAST THING I DID IN TERMS OF ACTING WAS THE TV SERIAL THODASA AASMAN. THE FILM OFFERS I RECEIVED THEN WEREN’T THE KIND OF WORK THAT I WANTED TO DO. I DECIDED TO TAKE A BREAK, NOT FROM ACTING BUT FROM THE USUAL THINGS HAPPENING AROUND ME. ACTING IS NOT JUST MY BREAD AND BUTTER. I DO IT BECAUSE I LOVE IT.

“Also, I kept away from a while because I was curious to do other things. I wanted to travel, spend time in the mountains. I was also sharing my life with this wonderful person (late Vinod Pandit) and doing things which I’d always wanted to do. I guess things were designed in such a way that there was no major work happening. So, I and my fiancé Vinod took off and went to the remotest villages and just hung out for months. It was exciting!! So different from being here in a city like Bombay! I think it was destined that I got to spend so much time with him since... he wasn’t going to be around for much longer.”

Deepti’s other interests – photography, poetry, painting and trekking also kept her occupied.” People are curious to know where I have been. If I tell them I have just been vagabonding, they say, ‘No, she can’t have it so good.”

Strangely, Deepti is surprised at the wholehearted response to her role in Shakti. “I enjoyed working in Shakti but I didn’t expect people to like the role so much. People are happy to see that I am back to work. I did Shakti because I liked the idea of working with Boney Kapoor. I had done Hum Paanch with him earlier, so, it was like working with old friends again.

Like good old friend and ex-flame Nana Patekar for instance. How was it like getting together once again with the tempermental and known-to-be-difficult Nana? “Yes, Nana is difficult because he makes you work m-u-c-h harder than you intend to,” Deepti laughs, probably recalling all those difficult scenes with him. “He is not one of those indifferent co-stars. He takes it upon himself to see that if you are in the film, you also have to be damn good. He is kind of a taskmaster. He’s generally quite misunderstood because he gets very intensely involved with the whole film, which gets misinterpreted as interference.”

Shakti also had Deepti brushing shoulders with one of today’s top-notch actresses, Karisma Kapoor. What was Deepti’s experience of working with Karisma? Very nice! She is very hardworking and dedicated.” This was also the time when Karisma learnt about Naval’s solo sojourn to the Ladakh mountains on a photography stint. “Karisma was very intrigued by it and she kept asking, ‘But how did you go alone? She was full of questions. There were times when there was a very serious shot to be canned. I would be ready with my glycerin tears and she with hers and out of nowhere, she would suddenly spring a question, ‘But how did you do that?” Deepti laughs at the memory of it all.

Working in Shakti also gave Deepti the opportunity to meet the one and only Sridevi. “She was there for a while and I really enjoyed meeting her on a personal level. She’s such a….woman of few words.” Talking to her makes you feel you are talking to a sensible, no-nonsense person. I have been a great admirer of her as an actress.”

The rave reviews for Shakti have elicited a lot of new offers for Deepti. She nods, “Yes! Yes! But, I haven’t been offered anything that I can jump at so far.”
Still, Deepti’s fans have something special to look forward to in the coming months. Director Somnath Sen’s Leela and VK Prakash’s Freaky Chakra. The two English films will unveil Deepti in novel roles. “Both Chaitali (Leela) and Miss Thomas (Freaky Chakra) are roles which I thoroughly enjoyed playing. I am playing two very interesting characters after a long gap and I think my absence from work was worth the wait."

Deepti is justifiably excited about Freaky Chakra because she gets to essay a fascinating Miss Thomas, an eccentric woman. Temperamental Miss Thomas is a lonely spinster. But, every night, she receives a phone call from a mysterious man. Life goes on till a young boy enters Miss Thomas’ flat, leading to a beautiful relationship between the two. “The whole film is centered around my character, Miss Thomas. In fact, the director describes it as a rectangular love story!”

Deepti’s other “interesting” film Leela places her in LA, as a NRI mother of a 19-year old second generation young boy, totally inundated by American culture. Deepti plays a university professor called Chaitali, taken aback by her son’s obsession for her colleague Leela (Dimple Kapadia). About Chaitali, Deepti reveals, “She’s had a broken marriage and is a single parent. Chaitali (secretly) has an American boyfriend. Chaitali tries to keep her life together but with the complexities in her life she obviously stumbles.”

Both these interesting films – Leela and Freaky Chakra – are projects about which the actress got intimation through email. She lets on, “It affirms my belief that in order to do good work, I don’t have to sit here in Bombay chewing my nails. I can be anywhere else and I can still get a good role. And, once I have a good role, I’ll drop everything and come to do the film because I just love acting. But, I hate sitting around for a good role because life is precious. YOU GOT TO GO OUT there and LIVE!”


With three English films in her kitty and a TV serial to boot, it’s amazing that Deepti doesn’t have any Hindi films. Does she harbour a grudge against mainstream Hindi films? “No, nothing like that. I would love to work provided I am offered interesting roles. I hope I can stick by what I believe and I don’t have to work just to earn my rozi roti.” Discerning as she is about the projects she green signals, has Deepti ever agreed to be a part of a project because she wanted to make a fast buck? Accepting that at one point (and “the only time”) she has, because of a personally turbulent time, she says, “I refrain from doing that today. Who doesn’t want to earn more money? There is always some need waiting to be fed. But, I don’t let that override me because I don’t want to do work which I will not enjoy.”

In a career spanning a little over two decades, Deepti has done 50 odd films, including one each in Marathi (Panchvati) and Punjabi (Marhi Ka Diva). Having started with a cameo in Junoon in ‘80, she gained immense popularity as Miss Chamko in Chashme Baddoor (1981). She corrects you, “I don’t consider Junoon to be my first film. I consider Ek Baar Phir (Vinod Pande, 1980) to be my first film. I think Junoon was a (mere) screen test.”

If people did feel that this debutant in Junoon had good screen presence, how come director Shyam Benegal, never repeated Deepti? Hers was a face which could easily have fitted into his subsequent films. The actress quips immediately, “Because he thought I was bad in Junoon. He thought I was a non-actress. I remember I was so petrified when I gave my first shot in Junoon. I think I was very shy (then), an introvert. I hadn’t opened out. He was right, I was not a performer, I was not an actress at that time. I guess that’s why he did not feel encouraged to repeat me. It took me two or three films to get over that. In fact, with Ek Baar Phir I was comfortable in front of the camera.” She laughs reminiscing, “But, when he saw Mirch Masala (Ketan Mehta, 1985) he told me ‘You’ve done a good job.”

Deepti also feels that though her debut film did nothing concrete in furthering her career, she benefited immensely by observing other actors in it. Whatever I learnt about acting during Junoon was by watching all these trained actors --- Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Jennifer and Shashi Kapoor. I watched Naseer like a hawk, followed him when he was around. I learnt so much simply by observing him. That was my first acting lesson ever.”

Critics and audience alike felt that Deepti was in the same mould as Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil. But, unlike these much acclaimed, award-winning actresses, Deepti lacked the killer instinct required to make it big. Possibly, the eclectic Naval would have taken a different road, if she were a little more pushy about her career. “I think I had the killer instinct but it was MISPLACED. I had the drive but it was never all into (just) acting.” Isn’t that statement a contradicting one for someone “who loves acting” and “always wanted to be an actress since the age of six?” “Yeah, but looking at the kind of films that were made when I came in, what were the films I could have done?”
You push your query about her not being pushy since it’s left unanswered. She says firmly, “I don’t care to do that. If I had done that I would not be the person I am. I am very comfortable with who I am. I am completely at ease with myself, (being) non-pushy, enjoying what comes my way. I am not sitting here regretting what I didn’t do or what I didn’t get because I enjoyed the films that I did.”

You remind her of one film, Gulzar’s Angoor, where she worked with an actor par excellence, the late Sanjeev Kumar. Pleasant nostalgia once again. “Angoor! Yeah!” she smiles in acknowledgement. “You know, I didn’t realize what a fun film I was part of when I did Angoor! It’s only later that I realized, ‘My! What an important film that was for all times!’ I simply enjoyed the part in which I worked with Hari Bhai (Sanjeev Kumar). I used to be so awed by what he was doing, it just kept getting in my way. He was a fantastic actor. I used to get carried away by his lines and start laughing at the wrong time.”

Deepti also fondly remembers her association with her co-star of six films, Farooque Shaikh. “I had an amazing time working with him. He cracked jokes and came up with these one liners all the time,” she says most amused. “He’s an amazing guy. With him around, work used to be like a picnic. I wish I had done more work with him.”

Deepti is a good friend of actress Manisha Koirala with whom she has worked in Saudagar and Guddu, and Dushmani. What does she feel about the untoward Ek Chhotisi Love Story controversy? “It’s an unfortunate thing to happen to any actress. Manisha is one of the actresses we are proud of. For her to be treated in this shabby way is very humiliating. I don’t understand how responsible and sensible journalists are turning around and questioning her, ‘Didn’t she know what kind of a film she was part of?’ That’s not a valid question. You can choose to play a prostitute but that doesn’t give a filmmaker the liberty to shoot whatever he feels. If that was the case, then a Chandni Bar, an Umrao Jaan or a Pakeezah would not have been made in the sensitive way they have been made. Manisha did the film for free! She did it for a friend. I think it’s a shameful thing for Shashilal Nair to have done this to a friend called Manisha Koirala.”

Didn’t Deepti at one point also do some uncomfortable scenes in Vinod Pande’s Ek Baar Phir?, “But, at least, I knew how far I could go. I was not comfortable but I was fighting my inner battle as an actress. I was also telling myself, ‘Hey listen, you’re not Deepti, you’re this woman in the film. This is what this woman is going through. So, you have to be true to this woman. You can’t let the character down.’ I was constantly auto-suggesting and consciously brainwashing myself to become this actress that I had dreamt of becoming. It was a struggle to not let Deepti Naval come between me and my role. If I did, I was going to lose out as an actress. Each actress has her criteria. I can do this much and no more. I could do a bold scene in Freaky Chakra because I have been fighting my inhibitions as an actress and I think, somewhere, I have grown as an actress. Today, I think I am far more mature, professional and convincing as an actress.” She can say that again!

Faheem Ruhani