Giving hate a Dam

Paoli Dam is getting her head around Bollywood.

Paoli Dam is getting her head around Bollywood. Or so says her wispy laughter cleverly drawn over blanks,her crisply-worded answers with little room for slips and smiles,and her conversational interventions free of any emotion stronger than mild amusement. “What’s happening in West Bengal is out there for all of us to see. Yes,I won’t say it doesn’t bother me at all,given Kolkata is where it all began for me. But who am I to comment on old,limping laws?” is all Dam is willing to say in response to the state censor board demanding the posters of her film,Hate Story,directed by Vikram Bhatt be painted over to cover her bare skin. Dam is no stranger to being in the eye of a storm for her uninhibited sexuality in films. However,she had garnered critical appreciation for her roles in Goutam Ghose’s Kaalbela — a film based on the Naxalite uprising in Bengal,Moner Manush,Mainak Bhaumik’s Bedroom in which she played a sassy photographer or her comic turn in Parambrata Chattopadhyay’s Jiyo Kaka! The distributors of Hate Story had appealed to the High Court seeking a stay order on the censor board’s ban on Dam’s bare-back posters,only to be snubbed a day before the film hit the theatres.

It’s not the same Paoli Dam who refused to swallow her irritation when a racy sex scene from Vimukthi Jayasundara ’s Chhatrak was leaked on YouTube. Then she was also quoted as calling the outraged Bengali film-goer nyaka — the closest translation in English of which would be pretentious. “The word ‘bold’ is used rather hastily in our industry. I don’t associate bold with clothes or the lack of them. In my next film Elar Char Adhyay,which is based on Tagore’s novel,Char Adhyay,I am playing a Bengali woman in the ‘30s. Someone who rebels against social fetters during a period referred to as the Bengali renaissance. I call that bold,” says Dam.

Given that no mention of Dam goes without intellectually contested debates over the depiction of sex in cinema or black and white arguments of morality,she says that she doesn’t think too much about the repercussions of her acting choices. “If people are trying to label me as a ‘bold’ actor or someone who does certain kind of films,I have my filmography to talk for itself. I am not out to build a career on skin show. I have declined films like Choli Ke Peeche in the past. But yes,if sex or nudity merge seamlessly into the film’s narrative and don’t stand out as a bizarre marketing gimmick,I have no inhibitions. I have said this several times in the past and I stand by it. Sex and nudity are both part of normal human existence,so why will it not be a part of films around the same people?” she questions.

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Criticism,is something that Dam is ruggedly coming to terms with. “When you do something which is not run-off-the-mill,people sit up and take notice. Some people appreciate it,some don’t. It at least initiates a dialogue. I know I live in a multi-cultural country where there are people from a variety of upbringing and thought processes. I know better than challenging all of them to prove a point,” she adds,with a dry laugh.

So is the Bengali uncle-next-door as much her target audience as the smitten yuppy and the aspiring filmmaker? “The audience is a difficult lot. When I do a commercial film like this,they’ll ask why couldn’t I just do art house Bengali films. When I don’t do something like this,I am snooty. It’s sort of challenging,but fun,” says Dam. “Hate Story is a mass film. Every film has its niche and I want to touch all of them. But yes,before slapping a tag on someone,I think one must consider several things — the budget on which a film is made,its premise,the actor’s history in films and intentions. That’s all I ask for.” Patience,Dam would say,is also an art to be mastered.

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