Actress Par Excellence

After her screen test, Smita was given a child role in the film ‘Charandas Chor’. But her first big break was in ‘Nishant’ directed by Benegal. ‘’When she stepped into our set for Nishant, she was a young child. Despite no formal training in acting, she had the instinctual ability to comprehend and perform par excellence. Her screen prescience was the vital factor. She was so deeply involved in the character in toto that it ceased to be Acting; it was Being’’.

This was precisely what distinguished Smita from the troika of Naseruddin, Ompuri and Shabana. All of them had been formally trained at the rudiments and intricacies of acting; their efforts to make the characters come alive could always be sensed. But Smita’s performance seemed effortless-as if the urchin woman on the screen in ‘Chakra’ was a real life shot from a slum rather than cinema.

If ‘Nishant’ was her baptism ; with ‘Bhumika’ she had arrived. Her role in Bhumika received the national award-and to say that she was only two films old. She had said, ‘Acting to me is not what an actor can do, but what a human being, a person can do.’

After that there was no looking back. Her psychometric portrayal in ‘Arth’, the slum dweller in ‘Chakra’, the woman fighting for her individual existence in ‘Subah’, and that of a villager in ‘Manthan’ and ‘Mirch Masala’ are landmarks in parallel cinema.

In her very short career of 12 years, Smita Patil had acted in films made in more than half a dozen languages and with all the hot shots of the art cinema-Shyam Benegal, Jabbar Patel, Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihlani, Mirnal Sen, Satyajit Ray etal; and each performance seemed to outshine the rest.

Two more national awards came her way – for her acting in Chakra and then in ‘Umberatha’ (made in Hindi as Subah’). If one were to list all the meaningful ventures of this Padmashri recipient, what one would arrive at would be the virtual l film glossary vis-a-vis commendable acting.

Her absolutely down-to-earth portrayal to the life and times of the most normal circumstances in films like ‘Chakra’, ‘Manthan’, ‘Sadgati’, Tarang’ only to name a few of the 50-odd, made one experience the day-to-day happenings at close quarters. Yet, the appreciation for an aesthetic performance par excellence could never be far away.

Smita, along with Shabana Azmi, was one of the two pillars in feminine roles in the small cinema and films like ‘Arth’, ‘Mandi’, ‘Albert Pinto Ko —’ are landmarks in the track of art productions. Due to their healthy competition to excel beyond perfection, it was the audience who benefited the most.

Smita had paired with Raj Babbar more often than not on the screen also. Films like ‘Jawaab’, ‘Aaj Ki Awaaz’, ‘Andgaaray’ and ‘Dehleez’ and a few in the cans brought the man and wife together on the screen.

Now, that she is no more, Smita Patil comes to the audience in art cinema directed by Ketan Mehta for the last time in a film called ‘Mirch Masala’ portraying the colourful folklore of Gujarat, revolving around Smita playing an alluring yet dynamic village belle.