How Padmavati Rao embraces life through theatre and activism

Multifaceted in the true sense, Padmavati Rao approaches every character with humility and surrender to lend honesty to her craft

I’m starting with a disclaimer. It is impossible to map all the things that Padmavati Rao has done and continues to do. She has worked as an actor, writer, playwright, translator, puppeteer, story-teller, assistant director, dubbing director, dialogue writer, poet, artist, eco-activist, school teacher, theatre facilitator, farmer and even made a refrigerator (yes, you read that right) that can run without electricity.

Padmavati’s work has — literally and metaphorically, spanned different locations in time, space and intent. Yet, speaking to her, you feel the gentleness of her strength, see a stubborn love for life (despite the pain that life can bring) and sense her childlike glee about her next creative foray. When Padmavati Rao made her big screen debut in Girish Karnad’s Kannada film Ondanondu Kaladalli, she was a 15-year-old school girl called Akshatha Rao from erstwhile Bombay. At 17, she became a popular actor after essaying the role of Geetha in a Kannada film of the same name. Exasperated by the fame the film brought her, she cut her hair to encash the small joys of walking on MG Road in Bangalore, “without being interrupted by fans.” To date, she is referred to as “Geetha film heroine.” It makes her happy that “Geetha — the feisty girl in love with life, is remembered for what she was.”

Even before that unexpected call from cinema and adulation, Padmavati was actively pursuing Marathi, Hindi and Gujarati theatre in Bombay, learning the tropes of acting and theatre-making with the likes of 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 traversing across Bombay by bus, train and walk taking French classes before college, going for rehearsals and shows after college and getting home late in the night. She fully credits her parents for the foundation she and her sister Arundhati Nag got, not just in theatre practice, but also in life. “We were encouraged to spread our wings and fly,” says Padmavati. There were ground rules though. They had to inform their parents about who they would be with, where, roughly when they would get back and a phone contact (only landlines of course) had to be shared for emergencies. Any mistakes or wrong choices only brought them closer to their parents. “And we made plenty of mistakes,” says Padmavati. The challenges and joys of working in those times taught her a lot. When an indefinite power cut loomed before the performance of Khelaiyya, a hugely popular Gujarati musical directed by Mahendra Joshi, the audience refused to take a refund and insisted that the play be performed, even if in candlelight. And so it was. “Candles were bought out from the area around Prithvi Theatre and the audience watched the whole play in candlelight, singing and clapping along!” Padmavati recalls. Travelling with plays at that time, she learnt about “the world and worldliness,” about the synergy between audience and actors that dynamically makes a play come alive and become a shared experience.

Watching her play a grieving mother in Apne Ghar Jaise during the Remembering Veenapani Festival at Adishakti Theatre, Auroville, earlier this year, I saw how Padmavati held the audience in the grip of her character’s doubts, sorrows, questions and prejudices though she was the only one on stage for most part. She masterfully took the play to a note that left most in the audience close to tears.

Her process as an actor involves approaching every character with complete humility and surrender, she says. She lets the director, “who has been with the character for much longer,” shape her performance completely. Padmavati believes that playing characters unlike oneself opens tremendous growth avenues for the actor within, while also teaching empathy. She advocates the power of “emptying out” before donning a role and stresses the importance of doing one’s homework as an actor. She is said to have learnt to knit, skilfully and fast, to better play her role in the Hindi film ‘Te3n,’ alongside Amitabh Bachchan.

Speaking about her recent work as Deva in Prime Video’s Tamizh series, Sweet Kaaram Coffee, Padmavati expresses delight about getting to work with veteran actor Lakshmi, “who was a star, when I was in my teens.” Padmavati’s work as an actor on stage, the big screen and small screen take away nothing from her passion to work with and for the earth through Sarsayee Foundation — a not-for-profit entity that she founded to train young people in engaging deeply and compassionately with ecology and the arts. We need to “find the forest within and nurture the forest without,” says Padmavati, who believes that the world can change only when we collectively transform from “human doings to human beings.”