Namita Lal on her homosexual role in Lihaaf

MUMBAI: Namita Lal is open to intimacy on screen: As long as it’s an integral part of the story and not forcefully put to make it exciting, I’m ok with it 

Namita Lal as Rabbo in Lihaaf impressed cinephiles. The OTT project based on Ismat Chugtai story having the same name was released last year. Talking about her role and the project, the actor also shares a bit about the story, the real life inspiration behind it and a lot more lesser-known facts.

“Lihaaf is a first-person account of a same-sex relationship between Ismat Chugtai’s aunt, Begum Jaan from Aligarh, and her masseuse, Rabbo, as her uncle was more interested in men. The story was written in 1940 and for the same, she was prosecuted in Lahore High Court but she refused to apologize and was later acquitted. Later in life she was awarded a Padma Shri. There was a lot of interest among filmmakers to make this story into a film but our director, Rahat Kazmi managed to get copyrights from Ismat’s family, and he did justice to it. Lihaaf is very close to my heart because I did it first on stage in Singapore, where same-sex relationships are illegal. When we shot this film in India, even India had the same issue, which got sorted later. Around the release of the film, Article 377 was decriminalised in India,” she says.

Playing a lesbian character Rabbo was not an easy task. But her stage experience of playing the role helped.
 
“Very little is known about Rabbo herself. There's more about the author and Begum Jaan. She just happened to be a masseuse who got interested in looking after Begum Jaan and almost assumed the role of her spouse. That's how powerful she became in her life. I played it on stage so I had a very deep insight into Rabbo’s personality. We wrote a backstory for her. While working on the film, I didn't have much time to do a workshop with Sonal Sehgal (Begum Jaan), Rahat Kazmi and Tannishtha Chatterjee (Ismat Chugtai). But because Rabbo was so engraved in my personality and my being, I could do it in front of the camera, with a lot of ease.  It's a difficult character to play. There are no real intimate scenes but there are a lot of suggestions of Intimacy. The team was extremely helpful and we shot it aesthetically,” she adds.
 
Namita has friends, who are homosexual and knowing them helped her perform better in the way that she understands them. “I’ve also worked in the US, London, Singapore, Thailand, among others, and also have a close connection with transgenders, so I understand them well. In Thailand, there are a lot of people in my team who are transgenders and gay, and I always had an open mind towards all sexual preferences and gender types. For Rabbo in Lihaaf, there are no reference points, because it was a very different era, 1920s India. The story has been written from the perspective of a 13-14-year-old girl who was witness to things happening under the quilt. So I didn't need to have a lot of references but I have seen a lot of films in that category. Sonal was really helpful, she made me comfortable,” she shares.
 
Sharing her process of accepting a role, Namita says that she enjoys playing bold characters as she is not a shy person by nature. The reason why she did not have any problem portraying a same-sex couple. “As long as the context is set, it’s an integral part of the story and not forcefully put to make it exciting. I'm absolutely open to such roles. Strong women characters with a strong sense of self, strong sense of sensuality, belief and power in oneself attracts me. I have a strong belief in those kinds of women. In many sections of society, a woman is very powerful and if that is what is conveyed on screen with sensitivity and aesthetics, I'm game,” she says.