New Delhi: Actor Tillotama Shome believes her film Is Love Enough? Sir, is a delicate love story between two people belonging to different classes. She said that the film gave her a chance to look at the world with a more equal heart and eyes. Tillottoma Shome also said that she has grown in experience while working in the film.
The film was all set to be released in India in March when the coronavirus pandemic changed the world. However, director Rohena Gera premiered her film at the Cannes Critics Week in 2018. She was determined to release the movie on Indian screens. It finally hit the screens November 13.
Is Love Enough? Sir has so far been released in 25 countries. It has garnered a lot of praise for its layered examination of class through a love story. The love story is between a widowed house help and her recently single employer.
Tillotoma is considered one of the finest actors in India. Her filmography includes movies such as Monsoon Wedding, Qissa and Shanghai. She frankly admitted that she was initially afraid about how the story would pan out on the screen.
“When you look online for a friendship between a man and his domestic help, the only hits that come are of pornography. The only way you imagine this relationship in our culture is in an extremely exploitative way like pornography,” the actor said.
There was also a fear about not being able to do justice to Gera’s vision. Both Tillotoma and actor Vivek Gomber were cautious that the scenes between their characters, ‘Ratna’ and ‘Ashwin’, don’t feel voyeuristic.
“For us to recognise our own prejudice, we have to look within. The reason I did this film was because I felt guilty. Doing this film was my way of saying sorry. It was my way of looking at the world and people around me and in my life through a heart and eyes,” Tillotoma stated.
The actor said she and Gomber were extra careful about retaining the ‘delicateness and dignity’” in the script while translating it to screen.
“It’s just the way you look at each other. It can either feel like something wrong or feel like something human because you can fall in love with anyone. Whether the society accepts it or not is a completely different thing,” asserted Tillotoma.
What really helped Tillotoma was Gera’s line that no matter the situation, her character never loses her sense of self.
“Somebody who is classist will say ‘Oh, she is a maid and yet she is so dignified’. That sentence makes no sense. Dignity is not the cultural capital of the rich or has anything to do with what your job is. It is a human trait, which very few people have. Those who have it are extremely attractive and powerful,” Tillotoma said.
Tillotoma said Ratna’s economic background doesn’t matter to Ashwin because he doesn’t subscribe to this worldview. “She is someone who inspires him. He is not surprised by her dignity,” the actor said.
The actor said Gera’s decision to make Sir was inspired by her own issues with the class politics in the Indian society.
“She was disturbed by this inequality, which is unfair and unaddressed in our society. We have people who work in our homes, make our bed, cook our food. Yet we can’t imagine them sitting on the same table and eating with us,” Tillotoma pointed out.
“This kind of extreme inequality is not going to go anywhere. We have to admit that we are flawed human beings who live an extremely problematic society,” she added.
After Sir, Tillotoma is working on Rima Das’ movie as well as reuniting with her Qissa director Anup Singh.