Here Be Trouble: Vidya Balan to Play Stormy Writer Kamala Das
- Vidya Balan (Pic: Sampurn Pix)
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Vidya Balan didn't have the best of times when she made her debut in Malayalam cinema but now the Bollywood actress is returning to her native tongue with a portrayal of the controversial Indian-English writer Kamala Surayya nee Das.
The subject is right up Vidya's street: Kamala Das was the stormy petrel of Indian literature who shocked conventional minds with her bold writing. That's just the kind of role Vidya loves playing.
The movie is going to be bilingual: Malayalam and English. As a fluent speaker of both languages, and given her penchant for picking up challenging roles, Vidya Balan is an appropriate choice to play Kamala Das.
The movie will be directed bynational award-winning Malayalam director Kamal.
Kamala Das was a spectacularly unconventional writer, who wrote in English as Kamala Das and as Madhavikutty in Malayalam. She changed her name to Kamala Surayya after embracing Islam a few years before her death in 2009.
The most sensational of her work is her memoir Ente Katha (my story), which was initially touted as her real-life story, but she herself said it was an imaginary book.
Kamal said the movie will not be only a realistic portrayal of the writer. It will inntroduce fictional aspects into the narrative.
"Madhavikutty was a legendary writer and personality who questioned the hypocrisies of society. My movie will not be a completely realistic one. It will have real situations that happened in the life of the writer as well as fictional ones," Kamal said.
Kamal said he broached the subject with Vidya Balan two years ago and she was happy to accept it. "It was just an informal chat but she was excited," Kamal said.
Malayalam actor Prithviraj, who won his second state film award for Kamal-directed Celluloid' will play a fictional but pivotal role in the movie.
The rest of the casting is yet to be finalised.
Kamal is penning the script himself. "The English version is complete while some more work is pending on the Malayalam one. I hope we can start shooting by October," he said.
The director is expecting the movie to be controversial when it is ready. Both the subject and the lead star are not strangers to controversy: Kamala Das with her devil-may-care approach to writing, and Vidya Balan with her utter disregard for Bollywood stereotypes.
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