Tannishtha Chatterjee bags her first Best actress award

Tannishtha Chatterjee who bagged the Best Actress award for Mahesh Hadawale's film at the New Jersey Film Festival is elated

The film which has Nawazuddin Siddiqui as her co-star has been doing the festival rounds. She had also bagged the same award for her film at the New York Film Festival in May. The film also won the audience choice award at the Busan Film Festival in South Korea.

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Tannishtha Chatterjee goes back to her roots

Theatre- turned- big screen actress is all set to act in a play after a gap of almost five years

Turns out Tannishtha Chatterjee who was last seen in Jalpari: The Desert Mermaid is one of the very few Bollywood actors who come from theatre background but choose not to leave it behind. The actress is currently working in a play that's set in New Delhi.

For someone who started graduated from National School of Drama and started her acting career with theatre, Tannishtha feels that the whole experience is very enriching.

She says `For me, it's very important as an actor to take out this time to do this play. Besides, Kirti Jain, the director of the play, was my teacher at NSD. So when she requested me to be part of the project, I made sure I'm able to take out some time to do this.`

Tannishtha is rehearsing these days in the Indian capital for the same. Set in the 18th century, the play is based on a Bengali author Ashapurna Devi's work and is about child-marriage. In it, a little girl gets married at the age of nine and the story follows her travails where one by one all her dreams and aspirations get squashed. The actress plays the central role of Subarnalata.

According to the actress who first got noticed in Brick Lane, playing a young girl (9) is the toughest thing about the whole experience. `It's a huge challenge to age on stage without the help of any makeup.

It's just the body language and speech pattern which one could modulate to bring about the change.` Interestingly, Tannishtha is stepping on the theatre stage in India after almost half a decade but internationally, she was last seen performing in 2010 at The Royal Opera House in London. 

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Movie Review: Jalpari - a little gem, with message on female foeticide

Cast: Parvin Dabas, Suhasini Mulay, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Harsh Mayar, Lehar Khan and Krishang Trivedi

Director: Nila Madhab Panda

Rating: ***

In spite of its flaws, of which there are many, "Jalpari: The Desert Mermaid" wins your heart with its simple fluid storytelling and characters who seem to have taken birth in the deserted village in Haryana, long before the camera was switched on. 

There is a fascinating play of light and shade in Deepak Venkateshan's screenplay. It manfully tries to incorporate several genres and perhaps ends up being neither here nor there.

But the heart, oh that wondrous creation, is constantly in the right place. Director Nila Madhab Panda takes two city-bred children Shreya (Lehar Khan) and Sam (Krishang Trivedi) with their father (Parvin Dabas) and grandmother(Suhasini Mulay) to their ancestral village, a dry godforsaken land of non-productivity suspiciously bereft of girl children.

From there, the film follows a scattered craggy path culminating in a finale which doesn't quite hold up, but nonetheless offers us a heartwarming insight into the harsh reality of life in many parts of rural India where a female child is still considered a liability. 

While applauding the attempt to yoke a children's adventure story into a sombre issue, we must also stop and wonder at the film's end-narration where we are told that if Dev (Parvin Dabas) had stayed back in his village, his little girl may not have been born. 

There are some strained attempts to pitch Dev's children's progressive upbringing against the backwater superstitious village. Shreya calls her father by his first name and is proudly declared "on a par with any boy". This isn't really the kind of gender equality that we should be espousing in our prejudiced society.

Girls need their identity. They don't need to behave like boys to be given gender equality. It's naive to expect the two genders to behave uniformly and thereby achieve equality for the girl child.
The child performers are good but no patch on Harsh Mayar and Hussan Saad in Panda's "I Am Kalam". Mayar in fact, has a role as a rough village boy, which he struggles to give an identity to. But somehow, the characters in the village remain shadowy, under-sketched. The only exception is Tannishtha Chatterjee, who as a rural migrant from West Bengal brings her trademark spunk into her character. 

The flaws do not eclipse the film's efforts to tell a story about the absence of equal opportunities for children of both sexes.

The indigenous music by Midival Punditz and Ashish Chauhan roots the narration to its milieu, while the cinematography by Savita Singh Puri transports the film to an international level.

Apurva Asrani edits the scattered material with room for the characters to breathe easily.

"Jalpari" is a little gem, with a message on female foeticide that is so critical, and a heart so large that the narration could easily have been submerged in the social statement.

Panda has carved a miniature gem on the past imperfect and the present tense of the girl child. "Jalpari" should immediately be granted tax exemption and made accessible to every Indian who loves his daughter and to every womb breaker who ever thought of snuffing an unborn life out.

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We love watching item numbers, but molest girls in short skirts

Actress Tannishtha Chatterjee, who has worked in both Indian and international cinema, feels people have double standards when it comes to women.

"Our society and the people living in it are full of double standards. On one hand, we enjoy watching item numbers, but on the other hand if a girl goes to a party in a short skirt, she gets molested," Tannishtha told.

Having worked in movies like "Road movie" and "Dekh Indian Circus", she will next be seen playing a bride imported from Bengal in Nila Madhab Panda's forthcoming film, "Jalpari: The Dessert Mermaid".

The movie deals with the issue of female foeticide. Tannishtha said: "When I read the script, I thought being a woman and an actress it is very important for me to support a film like this."

She has worked with child artist Lehar Khan who is the protagonist in the film and says children are natural actors.

"I love working with children. They are so natural. There are many stars in the west who think twice before casting a lead protagonist as a child. They are so genuine in their acting," said the actress, who is best known in the west for her performance in 2007 British film "Brick Lane".

According to Tannishtha, the USP of "Jalpari: The Dessert Mermaid" lies in the way a message is sent across to audience in a fun manner.

"Jalpari.." also features Parvin Dabas, Rahul Singh, Suhasini Mulay and V.M. Badola in supporting roles.

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Tannishtha speaks in Kutchi

Tannishtha Chatterjee had to undergo an intense workshop to get the Kutchi accent for Girish Malik's upcoming film

Instead of hiring a professional, Tannishtha preferred to hire a local teacher from the village where they were shooting. Let's hear how she speaks.

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Tannishtha Chatterjee is back to work

After doing the festival rounds in New York and London with her film which has Nawazuddin Siddiqui as co-star, Tannishtha Chatterjee is now busy with her other B-Town projects

She is dubbing for her upcoming film with Purab Kohli and begins shooting for another with Jaaved Jaaferi.

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