Mistress and the maid

Two of India’s finest actresses discuss the place of power in human relationships. Throw in class struggle, and it’s a potent mix. Vidya Balan and Shefali Shah on becoming Maya and Ruksana

It's early Thursday evening when we log into a video call to meet actors Vidya Balan and Shefali Shah. The two break into warm hellos. “Looking so lovely!” Shah tells Balan, who is dressed in a blue denim ensemble offset by an oxidised neckpiece. Balan returns the compliment, and Shah, who is in a white kurta, sighs, “Arrey, I am done with designer clothes. I was ready to turn up [for this interview] in my kurta, and they [her team] made me wear all this jewellery.” 

Neither needs jewellery or designer wear. Balan, 43, and Shah, 48, are so comfortable in their skin, the confidence shines through. They are both riding on success, and have for a while. Balan was last seen in Amit Masurkar’s Sherni, a satire on bureaucracy and a cry to save the environment. Shah, who won the hearts of critics and the audience for her performance as a cop in Delhi Crime, a series that won Best Drama Series at the 48th International Emmy Awards, is considered to be on top of her craft. 

Balan, Shah and Rohini Hattangadi in a behind-the-scenes shot from the set. Hattangadi’s character Rukmini is Balan’s mother in the movie 

The audience was spoilt when the two shared screen space in last week’s web release Jalsa. Directed by Suresh Triveni, it sees Balan play successful journalist Maya Menon, whose life goes into a downward spin after she’s caught in a hit-and-run case involving a teenage girl. Shah is Ruksana, Maya’s trusted cook, who holds fort at home with her mother played effortlessly by Rohini Hattangadi.

The film asks, what is right and wrong, and touches subtly, but powerfully on class differences and social conscience. 

Edited excerpts from the interview.

Vidya, how did it feel playing a journalist, a much maligned profession these days? You are playing ‘us’.
Balan: Other than the fact that Maya is a journalist, I think you and she are very different (laughs). Maya is different from any woman I have played before—different because she comes across as morally ambiguous to me. That’s not something I am used to, professionally or in person, so I am glad I got to explore that side in Jalsa. She is a journalist who stands for the truth and brings the truth to people, but her own truth is suddenly questionable halfway through the film. That really ups the stakes. She could have been in any profession, but the fact that she is the kind of journalist that she is, makes it [the dilemma] even more potent.

Yes. It did made me ask myself what I would have done if I were on the wheel.
Balan: Right. Honestly, I don’t think any of us know what we would do if we are in a situation where our truth is questioned.

Shah thinks that in a confrontation scene that plays out in the kitchen, Balan’s stellar act helped her up her game 

Shefali, you play a domestic help in this one. All of us share a relationship with our helps, sometimes an odd one. What did it take to get into the mind of a character who is socially and economically distanced from you? 
Shah: You know, if I said I took references for this role, or studied about it, I would sound like a fool. My own house help is a big part of my life and family. So, it’s not something to study, we just know it. 
Ruksana comes from a different class, and that’s what matters where these two women and their relationship [are concerned]. But she is also a mother, and is fiercely protective of her children, just like Maya. Finally, you are creating a completely different individual. Her qualities may not be in anyone else [for me to reference]. I was true to the director’s vision.

How did you both manage to portray  the power dynamics?
Shah: For the scenes between Vidya and myself, I have to give credit to Triveni. The blueprint we had was very strong, and he was insightful and curious. He went into the depths of human emotion. He had a bank of instances, which he used in his story. The scene between Vidya and me [argument over the kitchen gas left on] is strong; she made me richer as an actor. My scene with Rohini [Hattangadi] represents the relationship that say, our mothers share with our house helps. Her conversation is condescending. When Ruksana wants to quit, she says, “Baba ka kya hoga?”, “hum logon ne itna kiya hai”, “aaj maine chai khud banayi”. It’s that which flips the switch in Ruksana’s head.
Balan: You know that bit when she [Hattangadi] says, “Arrey, bahut badi ho gayi hai”.
Shah: These small things... We have all heard them so many times. Subconsciously, even I have done it. I consider myself sensitive, and I don’t want to do it, but sometimes your problems seem larger than everyone else’s. 
Balan: Finally, it’s about power. It’s the employer versus employee. There is a sense of entitlement that the employer comes with, and the expectation... The employer’s problems are always bigger than the employee’s. That’s how power plays out. Both Maya and Ruksana are interesting, because they hide their feelings. Maya doesn’t want to face Ruksana; she wants her to vanish. She hates seeing her son with her. It’s every working mother’s problem with the maid, because she spends more time with your children. You don’t come to my house, and tell me what to do: that’s what Maya feels.
Shah: Maya can’t understand Ruksana’s control over and power in a house that’s not hers. 
 
There is also the question of sisterhood. Does class spoil that equation.
Balan: For me, it’s not class, it’s the employer-employee relationship. This could be playing out in any professional situation. When you feel that your boss is taking you for granted, you strike back.

And how does crime complicate the class equation? 
Shah: I don’t want to be in Ruksana’s place at all. I won’t be able to know what to do [if I was]. If I was in Maya’s shoes, I still don’t know what to do. Would I take onus, or run away?
Balan: I thought I, as in Vidya, would never react the way Maya does. I would never run away [from responsibility]. But the pandemic had me realise that I am not sure how I would behave in a circumstance
I am encountering for the first time, how would I act if I committed a crime. That’s what humanises Maya—she seems independent, the sort of woman who does the right thing. 
But when fear grips you, you just don’t know.
What would you both want audiences to take away from this movie?
Balan: I want them to watch it. Why spoon feed people? We don’t want to tell them what to think or feel. Just experience it.

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