SHY GIRL SHINING

Actor Tillotama Shome says her ability to camouflage her personality helps her slip into character

- PRIYANKA BHADANI

In a diary entry made sometime in the late 1990s, Tillotama Shome wrote: “I want to act in a film with a director of international fame that will make people all over the world happy.” She had taken up theatre while studying literature at Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi, an experience she describes as “enriching and fulfilling”, and one that helped her come out of her shell. She had not yet started doing films.

“Can you imagine? It was completely naïve,” she says with a laugh about the diary entry. Six months later, her wish came true when she was offered a role in Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding (2001). “It was a film that made people happy,” she says, recalling how the team was on its way to attend the film festival in Toronto when 9/11 happened. She speaks about how, in a time of such tragedy, it was art that brought relief. “The film boosted public morale. I still get messages from people,” she says.

This March, however, has not been that favourable to art. Thanks to the lockdown, all shows and performances have been cancelled. While Shome’s digital show on Alt Balaji, Mentalhood, is being applauded, two of her films have been affected— Homi Adajania’s Angrezi Medium, which released just before the theatres closed and is now available on Disney+ Hotstar, and Rohena Gera’s Sir, which was to come out a week later but has now been postponed.