I continue this journey of bringing the best from the realms of music, cinema, encapsulating a world of culture, with this reprise of A LETTERED SOUL.
Let this journey begin with a melody of words and the constancy of thoughts.
Uttara Baokar is one of those people whose very presence breeds familiarity, warmth and knowledge of filmmaking craft preserved in a register of discipline and effortlessness. She belongs to an epochal class of performing arts stalwarts who abided by the sheer simplicity of the everyday, never hovering around for the fame or attention associated with cinematic portals. For them, opportunity bred integrity, a knowing ardour for how others live and draw from each life experience.
You look at her formidable body of work and there's no pretence or grand sweep. Naturalism, the way we are within situations imbued in her elegant personality, Ms. Baokar is not one to be forgotten but instead is an individual torchbearer of what Indian artistic form stands for cinephiles when practiced with due diligence, mirroring social realities. She is a purist's delight.
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Our lives reach towards that final gloaming; all our lives are spent in embodying meaning through our actions. Our legacies speak for us within this lifetime.
For me, Uttara Tai's passing away is a profound loss. But I will never speak of her in the past tense because her craft transcends her mortal coil. Over the years, I have seen many of her performances. More than awe and admiration, a sense of humility dawns with each part.
Every time I watch her on-screen I recall how as a child, traces of her as the mother-in-law to Renuka Shahane in 'Kora Kaagaz' (on Star Plus) never left my mind, just as much as the melodious title track sung by Sadhana Sargam. Or how even in her very brief presence as Madhuri Dixit's mother in the utterly unforgettable 'Aaja Nachle', she packs in so much of her concerns for her free-spirited daughter whom society and a small-town feel free to rein in. There are never small parts with Uttara Tai. Only myriad shades of humanity.
In recognition of the woman I so deeply admire, here are the parts that she fills and illuminates with life on screen and stage.
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DOR
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Uttara Tai's singular presence is the most memorable in this dramatic study of two women drawn towards each other by tragic circumstances. Friendship is part of the journey but empowerment that flickers and yearns and is then earned becomes this iconic screenplay's hallmark.
Over countless viewings through the years, memorizing almost each scene and dialogue, Uttaraji as the eternally widowed grandmother is instrumental in travelling from a point of detachment to exercising true empathy. She gives her recently widowed granddaughter-in-law(Ayesha Takia) the freedom to express her disappointment over her social position and herself evinces the psychological insights that divide women from each other further in a world of patriarchy. She takes her own initial apathy into account.
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