Padmavati Rao in Ranga Shankara. | Photo Credit: Bhagya Prakash K
I’ll start with a disclaimer. It’s impossible to list all the things Padmavati Rao has done and is doing. She has worked as an actor, writer, playwright, translator, puppeteer, storyteller, assistant director, dubbing director, dialogue writer, poet, artist, environmental activist, school teacher, theatre facilitator, farmer and has even created a refrigerator (yes, you read that right) that can run without electricity.
Padmavati’s work – literally and figuratively, is spread across different places in time, space and purpose. Yet, talking to her, you feel the tenderness of her strength, see a stubborn love for life (despite the pain life brings) and sense her childlike joy about her next creative endeavor. When Padmavati Rao made her big screen debut in Girish Karnad’s Kannada film Ondanondu KaladalliShe was a 15-year-old schoolgirl from then Bombay named Akshata Rao. At 17, she became a popular actress after playing the role of Geetha in a Kannada film of the same name. Buoyed by the fame she got from the film, she cut her hair short to relish the little joys of walking on MG Road in Bangalore “without being interrupted by fans.” To this day, she is known as “the heroine of the film Geetha”. It makes her happy that “Geetha – a spirited girl who loved life, is remembered for that.”
Padmavati with Naseeruddin Shah Miniature painters of Junagadh
| Photo Credit: Courtesy: Prime Video
Even before that unexpected call from cinema and acclaim, Padmavati was actively involved in Marathi, Hindi and Gujarati theatre in Bombay, learning the nuances of acting and theatre-making with artists like Balraj Sahni, A.K. Hangal and Shaukat Azmi (Shabana Azmi’s mother) at the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA). Her average day as a college student involved travelling around Bombay by bus, train and on foot, taking French classes before college, going to rehearsals and shows after college and returning home late at night. She gives full credit to her parents for the foundation she and her sister Arundhati Nag got, not just in theatre practice, but in life as well. “We were encouraged to spread our wings and fly,” says Padmavati. There were some basic rules, though. They had to tell their parents who they would be with, where they would be, approximately when they would be back and share a phone contact (landline only) for emergencies. Any mistake or wrong choice brought them closer to their parents. “And we made a lot of mistakes,” says Padmavati. The challenges and joys of working at that time taught her a lot. When there was an indefinite power cut before the protest playerA hugely popular Gujarati musical play directed by Mahendra Joshi, the audience refused to take back their money and insisted that the play be performed in candlelight. And so it was. Padmavati recalls, “Candles were bought from the area around Prithvi Theatre and the audience watched the entire play in candlelight, singing along and clapping!” Travelling with plays at that time, she learnt about “the world and worldliness”, about the rapport between audience and actors that dynamically brings a play alive and becomes a shared experience.
Padmavati during rehearsal of the play like your home
| Photo credit: Virginia Rodriguez.
Watching her play the role of a grieving mother like your home During the Veenapani Festival at Auroville’s Adishakti theatre earlier this year, I saw how Padmavati kept the audience gripped by her character’s doubts, sorrows, questions and prejudices even though she was alone on stage for most of the time. She performed the play so skillfully that most of the audience members were moved to tears.
She says her process as an actor involves approaching each character with utmost humility and dedication. She lets the director, who has been with the character “for a very long time”, completely shape her performance. Padmavati believes that playing characters different from oneself opens up tremendous growth for the actor within, while also teaching empathy. She advocates the power of “emptying yourself” before taking on a role and stresses the importance of doing your homework as an actor. She is said to have learnt to weave skillfully and swiftly, to better suit her role in the Hindi film ‘Teen’ opposite Amitabh Bachchan.
Padmavati Rao Sweet Karam Coffee
| Photo Credit: Courtesy: Prime Video
Talking about his recent work as Deva in Prime Video’s Tamil series, Sweet Caramel CoffeePadmavati expressed her joy at working with veteran actress Lakshmi, “She was a star when I was a teenager.” Padmavati’s work as an actress on stage, big screen and small screen does not diminish her passion to work for the earth through the Sarsai Foundation – a non-profit she founded to train young people to engage deeply and compassionately with ecology and the arts. We need to “find the forest within ourselves and nurture the forest outside”, says Padmavati, who believes that the world can change only when we collectively shift from “human actions to human beings”.
