As National Award-winning actress Divya Dutta’s career clocks three decades, this Kiran Sharma of Sharmajee Ki Beti has all the reasons to be happy

Nonika Singh

Like the Kiran Sharma of Sharmajee Ki Beti, Divya Dutta is a wonderful blend of innocence and gravitas, and packs the same ‘strength, vulnerability and zest for life’. “Right role in the right film and right reception,” the National Award winning actress is basking in the glory of her latest outing.

Hands full

Reciting the lines of Behzad Lakhnavi, ‘Ai jazba-e-dil gar main chaahoon har cheez muqaabil aa jaaye, manzil ke liye do gaam chaloon aur saamne manzil aa jaaye’, Divya climbs one step after another on the ladder of success. With a clutch of projects in her hand, including remake of Basu Chatterjee’s acclaimed 1986 legal drama Ek Ruka Hua Faisla, the future looks even brighter for this exuberant and talented actor. But she won’t plan for don’t they say…If you want God to laugh, tell him your plans. Right now, Divya has reason to celebrate.

Strangers are calling her by screen name Kiran and she recalls how she got similar adulation when she played a loving sister in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. As she clocks three decades in the industry, a jog down the memory lane is expected. Those were not the days when joining the film industry was a natural choice. So much so, that she and her mother on a ‘secret mission’ even hid the fact from her maternal uncle Deepak Bahry, incidentally a noted director-producer in Bollywood. But the young girl was determined to live her dreams. In her journey, the turning points have been very many; Veer Zaara, National Award for Irada and even commercially unsuccessful Delhi-6. In fact, it was on the sets of Delhi-6 that she learnt the most significant lesson in acting from acclaimed director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. Since, she was not quite happy with how her character of spitfire Jalebi was shaping up, he quietly told her; ‘just forget Divya in you let the Jalebi come out’.

That pearl of advice has stood her in good stead. Soon she will be seen in Vicky Kaushal-starrer Chhava, based on the life of Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, the son of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. She says, “It’s great to wear those costumes and feel that era. But I don’t need to reimagine myself in that period. I have already been put there.”

If she can’t stop counting the highs of being an actor, the lows too came. Part of multi-starrers, this best actor of her college in Ludhiana and Panjab University realised she was not getting anywhere and decided to take a train back home to Ludhiana. Call it serendipity, instead she was aboard Train to Pakistan, a film based on Khushwant Singh’s novel in which she etched this child woman part with aplomb. Since, she has gone on to essay a variety of roles with directors as big as Yash Chopra and Shyam Benegal.

Of course, escaping stereotyping isn’t easy. She recalls how she was deluged with sisterly parts after Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Only she decided to play a bombshell in Sriram Raghvan’s Badlapur and imbibed precious lessons on being realistic. Nitin Kakar in whose Ram Singh Charlie, she requested for the lead part, learning and un-learning reached another level. Indeed, there has been a paradigm shift in the industry since she made her debut with Ishq Mein Jeena Ishq Mein Marna in 1994. She observes, “The onset of OTT has led to more layered context and content. Audiences are demanding newer things, and actors want characters with complexities.” She too will be playing another set of new characters and is excited about second season of successful musical Bandish Bandits in which she makes a surprise entry. Whether it’s her vintage quality or her deep fascination for black and white cinema manifesting, an anthology will feature her in a black and white segment.