Manisha is back in the game

An hour and a half after 11 — the scheduled time of a press conference — in the Harmony Hall of Mascot Hotel, Thiruvananthapuram, appeared the woman who wore that radiant smile in ‘Kuch Na Kaho,’ a song that became dear to India, both for its music, and for its beautiful heroine, in the period film 1942, A Love Story. Twenty-one years later, Manisha Koirala still has the same smile, apologises for the delay, and patiently answers questions.

And you are left wondering why Wikipedia says she is frequented in the media as ‘controversy’s child’. Manisha, in fact, takes her time to answer the questions, carefully choosing her words, declaring she doesn’t want to put her foot in her mouth. She talks about her cancer that had come and more importantly, gone. She talks of ‘award wapsi’ and of course, on her comeback to Malayalam cinema, five years after Electra.

“It is lovely to be back in Malayalam cinema, I have enjoyed working with such talented people as Lenin Sir and Madhu Ambat,” she says, at a press conference, called to brief the media about the film Edavapathi by Lenin Rajendran. “It is a pleasure to take part in this kind of cinema, in an artistic setup that the audience of Kerala accepts,” Manisha adds.

She passes the mike on to the director, and Lenin describes the environment of the film, the one he shot in Bylakuppe, in Karnataka, which has several Tibetan settlements — “The youth there dream of going back to Tibet. They are constantly going through a conflict, wondering what path they should take to reach their dream destination — the one of peace, or the one of terror.”

The character has no connection with her life, she says. She has come back to life, after a two-year battle with cancer and wants to tell the world, that cancer is not a death sentence. “The moment you hear the word cancer, people think it is death. It is deadly and painful but life doesn’t end there. There are people like me who have survived it, who want to put it quietly at the back and move on. In our movies too, we don’t give correct information about cancer. We should do that, medical info and everything,” she muses.

Manisha gets invited to various NGOs and organisations to talk about her experience. “Even last month, I was in Delhi for an awareness camp. I’d like to motivate people, give the good side of the story. We should honour our health. Life is a gift.”

Manisha also goes for talks about women empowerment. – and she quips, “Being a woman, it is difficult to be in a man’s society. It starts in family, it is there when you go to work, and you have to safeguard yourself from bad eyes. I believe that education and spirituality are the only answers to face the chaos in today’s world.”

And would this chaos include the intolerance that her colleague Shah Rukh Khan had said India faces today? “You cannot put everyone in the same bracket, by saying India is intolerant. Everyone is not intolerant, but there are certain sections that are. I believe in the preservation of our culture, it is a lovely thing to be traditional. I also believe in freedom of expression. Every living being is here to express and live according to what gives them joy. I shouldn’t force you to do something,” Manisha states calmly.

After intolerance, the obvious question is about returning awards in protest, as many intellectuals had been doing. Manisha’s immediate response is to ponder quietly. She has been away for a long time, and replies that she wouldn’t want to say something half-baked.

She also expresses surprise when cinematographer Madhu Ambat says he wants to show with his camera, the internal reality; how a character may be crying inside even as she laughs outside. “That is brilliant, profound,” Manisha laughs and signs off.

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