Can’t relate with most mainstream cinema: Konkana Sensharma

Ever since her debut, actor and director Konkona Sensharma has been known to take up unconventional scripts. The actress who was last seen in front of the camera as a burkha-clad mother of three in Lipstick Under My Burkha, will return to the screen her short film A Monsoon Date. The film is a story of a woman, on her way to meet her boyfriend and narrates the individuals’ struggle of facing their own reality.

Konkona, who also directed Death In The Gunj chooses to stay away from the number game. She reveals that her quest as an actor is in finding reliability in a character.

“In any case, I have not been really able to relate to the bulk of mainstream Hindi cinema. I really appreciate and find it relatable being an outsider, the underdog, the under-achiever. I actually find that a much more relatable space,” she asserts.

Known to hold on to her beliefs, Konkana clearly states that she is far away from the popular choices and that she doesn’t necessarily feel values and merits can come from numbers.

“If you get numbers then that’s a wonderful stroke of luck and sometimes that has happened to me. I really appreciate it, not just disregard it. But I would love to work for myself, what I find interesting,” she says.

However, as an actor who has been portraying strong characters, the Mr. and Mrs. Iyer actress finds this stereotyping  very limiting.

“I am not interested in playing only strong woman roles. I don’t think that only women have to be strong. It is rare that we see women misbehaving on screen or taking wrong decisions. Especially, if she is a mother then it’s unheard of. It’s not that I am looking for strong parts, this is a perception of me and has nothing to do with me personally,” declares the National Award winner.

Directed by Tanuja Chandra and written by Gazal Dhaliwal, Konkana says that she just simply fell in love which made her sign on the dotted line.

“Most films are about love and by and large only specific type of people are allowed to fall in love. These people are usually young, fair, thin and straight. Also, so far, we only watch heterosexual love stories revolving around only young people falling in love. We don’t have obese people on screen falling in love. Here, I am trying to make a serious point about who is allowed to fall in love, which alone can take that space of cultural imagination,” she says.

While one might feel that things have changed for the women in the industry, Konkona feels that we have settled for less and still have a long way to go.

“There has been a slight improvement maybe, but who is making money, who are the financial decision-makers, who are the distributors, are the CEO’s mainly men or women?,” she asks, adding, “Yes there has been a slight visibility but nothing much has changed. I am just stating the fact. It’s still very unjust and this can’t be the attitude. A lot of power and money is still in the hands of men.”

As to why things are still running in the same circle, the Page 3 actress throws light on the fact that patriarchy still exists and continues to flourish in our society.

“For that, we need to teach feminism and history of gender discrimination in schools. Women still change their names after marriage, why do we still do that? I don’t see men changing their names. Are we doing this because it makes us feel comfortable? This is just one example we must examine in our lives and see how to bring the change,” says the 39-year-old.

Talking about the MeToo moment that took the industry by storm, she says, “I think the biggest culprits have not been booked and their names have not come out. What can I say,” she concludes.