THE 40-PLUS CHAMPIONS

Shefali Shah and Vidya Balan, who are in the prime of their careers, talk about their roles in the thriller, Jalsa

- POOJA BIRAIA JAISWAL

Around three decades ago, Vidya Balan and Shefali Shah kickstarted their journeys as television actors. It was the early 1990s when cassette players and recorders ruled the roost. Doordarshan, back then, had popular television serials that would bring families together at prime time.

Balan and Shah tasted their first years of glory through popular television shows that got them noticed and eventually gave them the entry ticket to Bollywood. While Balan began her career with Ekta Kapoor’s television show Hum Paanch (1996) as Radhika Mathur before joining Bollywood, Shah started her journey around the same time with Campus (1993), which revolved around college life of the 1990s and enjoyed quite a fan following. Over the years, both women—self-made professionals, married, and in their 40s—have successfully delivered powerful and moving roles across genres with stories that have touched upon gender, power, masculinity, ambition, and more. Yet, they never met, professionally; except for some chance meet-ups at events. And that is why in the latest Instagram reels doing the rounds the bonhomie between the two women—dressed in flowing saris and hair buns—as they go about promoting their first-ever film together, Jalsa, a drama-thriller, is especially striking. Incidentally, the two have very few scenes together, even though they play parallel leads in the Suresh Triveni directed film, which revolves around the death of a young girl and a news channel investigating it. Balan essays the role of an investigative journalist, Maya Menon, while Shah is a mother to a teenager who works in Menon’s house. But, what if the two roles could be swapped?