Divya Dutta interview: On ‘Chiraiya’ and her belief in unlearning as an actor

The actor, along with director Shashant Shah, speak about their upcoming series ‘Chiraiya’, Divya’s process of working on the dialect, Sushant’s approach to telling a story about women, and more

It is right after lunch on a sunny afternoon in Mumbai that we meet actor Divya Dutta and director Shashant Shah. Before we begin talking on their upcoming JioHotstar series, Chiraiya, I happen to overhear a candid moment between the two where they are discussing about the pleasures of sitting comfortably with their legs pulled up on the chairs. “Can I sit like this?”, Divya asks her team as she puts one leg over another. “It’s more comfortable than just keeping your legs hanging below,” she reasons. However, it’s her vibrant, yellow sari that comes in the way of her posture.

Divya situates in that feeling of ease and comfort with her character of a traditional woman of values in Chiraiya, where she plays Kamlesh, a sweet wife and a caring daughter-in-law with motherly instincts for her husband’s baby-faced, younger brother. Kamlesh’s perception about her seemingly innocent brother-in-law breaks when his newly wedded wife, Pooja, confides in her about his forced and non-consensual sexual advancements on their first night.

“Kamlesh realises that her family is not as perfect as she thinks. That’s when you realise that the sense of ‘normal’ could be different for different people,” says Divya, adding that playing the character was difficult. “If it isn’t difficult, its not enjoyable as an actor. The role took its toll on me many times. But I wouldn’t have had it differently as the story needs to be told. I had to play her sincerely, to let her feel what she feels and not let Divya come in between at all,” she says.

Divya Dutta in a still from ‘Chiraiya’ | Photo Credit: JioHotstar

Divya slips into Kamlesh effortlessly, as she puts on a seamless North Indian, earthy accent for the character. The variations in her dialogue delivery are not just limited to pronouncing certain words with the obvious inflections. Rather, the peculiar dialect of the region becomes her language organically. As it happens, Divya first learnt the manner of speaking when she was shooting for the 2017 crime-drama, Babumoshai Bandookbaaz, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui. She requested her driver in Lucknow to speak to her in the local dialect. Soon, Divya started catching on to his words and rhythm during the freewheeling conversations.

“Interestingly, when I came back to shoot in Lucknow for Chiraiya, the same driver was again taking me around. I was overjoyed and told him to teach me again,” Divya laughs, saying that she judges people for not getting the dialect right. “That’s why when I am working on something, I have to be careful too. It is important to become part of the grass-roots, be with the people and speak the language the way it is rather than enact. The dialect should become a part of you. But then, it also takes some time to go away as when I came back from shoot, I was still speaking in the same way for some days.”