Nude took Kalyanee close to discovering her body

When there is resistance, art flourishes: Kalyanee Mulay
Actress Kalyanee Mulay is not new to experimenting and pushing herself to do different roles. An active theatre artiste, Kalyanee will soon be seen in the Marathi film Nude, which looks into the life of a model who poses for art students’ nude portraits. In a chat with us, Kalyanee speaks about how Nude took her close to discovering her body, censorship of films and why Vidya Balan’s feedback meant a lot to her.Excerpts:
Tell us about your role in Nude.
I play the role of a very courageous woman. It takes a lot of guts to be a nude model. My character in the film is striving to make a living and is raising a son whilst doing that. She is learning about art and is also a muse, but she doesn’t know that.
What was it that drew you towards it?
My exploration of body, space and time has been going on since the time I graduated from National School of Drama. Even in my solo performance Unseen, I was exploring the female body and what gaze does to it. Nude gave me a chance to delve into the life of a nude model and I found it engaging. It was interesting to understand the dual identity of a person from a professional and personal point of view.
Was there a different approach that you adopted for this film?
I tried to understand the psyche of the character. What her feelings would be or what her reactions to a situation would be. I learned a lot of things in the whole process of this film.
Were there any inhibitions while doing this role?
When a performer performs, he/ she re-lives certain moments of life – be it an intimate moment when one sheds inhibitions about one’s body, or a moment of threshold where one pushes the body to the extreme to check its endurance. But before all this, the person inside a performer has to come to terms with neutrality of the body. Nude took me closer to these understandings.
Nude went through its share of struggles, especially the IFFI controversy and what followed. As an artiste, do you consider these developments as threats to art and culture?
More than feeling threatened, I feel sad when I think about this. If this continues, I really doubt what art and culture we will be passing on to the next generation. But I also feel that resistance and creativity have had a long standing relationship and nothing should stop us from doing what we do. When there is resistance, art flourishes.
Do you think censorship on art forms is affecting freedom of expression?
Censorship is necessary, but it should be on artistic capacity only. One has to understand the need and implications of what he/she has created and someone has to be there to monitor that. But I feel we should be more open about the context of the story. Necessary questions should be asked before coming to a conclusion.
In an interview, you had said that the point of doing Unseen was to explore whether society is still like the younger Rabindranath Tagore whose letter to Pandita Ramabai during his 30s was somewhat an ode to patriarchy. Have you found an answer?
When Tagore authored that letter with reference to Pandita Ramabai’s speech, he was in a process of finding answers. There were a lot of churning thoughts about understanding the performance of gender roles and responsibilities in our society and their relevance to the entire human civilisation. First of all, are we even asking all these questions to ourselves today? We are still like the younger Tagore, but let’s be optimistic. We are undergoing change slowly and hopefully, will evolve like he did gradually.
Abroad, performance artistes like Marina Abramovic, Milo Moiré and more have redefined the meaning of live performances. Do you see something like that happening in India anytime soon?
Such performances happen in India but at select places and for select audiences. Whether it will happen on a larger scale or at public places is something I am doubtful about. Also, I feel there has to be a reason or motto behind any performance and unless you have that, there is no point in presenting anything.
Coming back to Nude, the film received a standing ovation from the CBFC review committee and Vidya Balan appreciated your performance. How does that feel?
Vidya Balan is someone who has never shied away from accepting challenging roles and delivering in them. So to receive appreciation from someone like her is really heartwarming. In fact, she even got my number from someone and sent me a message later appreciating my performance. For her to go out of her way and do that is something that makes me feel blessed.

The person inside a performer has to come to terms with neutrality of the body. Nude took me closer to these understandings : Kalyanee Mulay

Vidya Balan is someone who has never shied away from accepting challenging roles and delivering in them. So to receive appreciation from someone like her is really heartwarming : Kalyanee Mulay

Censorship is necessary, but it should be on artistic capacity only. One has to understand the need and implications of what he/ she has created and someone has to be there to monitor that : Kalyanee Mulay