Meghna Malik is disappointed by television writers who mostly fail to draft strong women characters. She is now back to theatre after nine years and will come here with the play Alibaba Aur Chalis Ke Chor. She chats with Karan Bhardwaj
Her strength is her voice that resonates her mind. Meghna Malik, who played Ammaji in Colors’ Naa Aana Iss Desh laado, shares some traits with her iconic character. She is headstrong and vouches for power for women. “I want to play an empowered woman on television, not the one who’s sulking, crying and dying everyday within four walls. I would love to represent today’s age like Kiran Bedi or Sushma Swaraj. But unfortunately, such roles are not being written. We continue to show women crying in kitchen. Television typecasts women. They are still strutting around in judas, bindis, all those embellishments while taking the brunt of the family,” she says. However, she laments she is out of choice since such characters are not being written. “I cannot sit at work. You have to pick something which is being offered,” she says.
Malik is touring India with her latest theatre production Alibaba Aur Chalis Ke Chor that also marks her return to theatre after nine years. The play deals with midlife crisis and how couples become suspicious of each other. The story is of three couples, in their 40s, who are chilling at their house party. Suddenly power supply is cut for a while and they hear sounds of a kiss and a slap. “After power resumes, everybody starts suspecting each other. They have drawn their own conclusions without finding the root of the issue. So there are many comical situations in this confusion. Through this, there’s an attempt to reflect how people form opinions and become judgmental. It also mirrors those complexities that people create and entangle themselves in,” she says.
Malik plays a lively woman with an open-heart. “She is not conservative in her ideas. She has certain areas where she feels her husband doesn’t understand her so she shares that space with her close friend,” she says. On her return to theatre, she was little hesitant but then “theatre was my first love”. “After laado, I decided to take up a show which would not take all of my time so that I could engage in other activities,” she says. Alibaba Aur Chalis Ke Chor has been performed in Goa, Gujarat, Mumbai and will be travelling to Chandigarh, ludhiana, Kolkata and Delhi. “The response has been flattering. People are enjoying every bit of it. When they laugh, they sort of laugh at themselves because the script is very relatable,” she says.
Malik, who has lived both in Delhi and Mumbai feels that the national capital is the haunting city. “Mumbai is way safer. But the fear factor occupies more mental space in Delhi. You cannot rely on cabs and are always dependent on a male attendant,” she says.