Her last two films — Saawariya and Laaga Chunari Mein Daag — didn’t exactly set the box-office afire.And Rani attributes this failure to the repeated attempts at portraying an image of her that is perhaps diametrically opposite to her chirpy self. On a rain-washed Saturday evening in Kolkata, Rani explains, “It’s easier to target me since two or three of my films haven’t done well. There’s a way of putting questions across. Both celebs and the media need each other. If the media is arrogant, it can’t expect me to take things lying down all the time. But neither am I always accessible to the press, nor do I issue clarifications for every wrong story being fed by some fictitious ‘sources’ in the media.”
That means there is no point asking her about her alleged relationship with Aditya Chopra. And in any case, she has recently gone on record to say that she is yet to find a guy she can date! But she is more than willing to talk about love. “I need to honestly like the person to be able to romance him on screen. It’s the easiest to fall in love with Shah Rukh on screen. Off screen, I’m yet to come across anyone like my character in Thoda Pyaar... Thoda Magic (which incidentally, isn’t a rip-off film), who isn’t allowed to love. Most couples are always fighting over who loves the other more. Problems crop up when people want more love than what they can give,” she says. Well, that’s an interesting observation.
But has she felt that emotion? “Yes. Love is the magic one feels in the heart. Bhalobasha emon ekta
onubhuti jeta shobde prokash kora jai na,” she says in Bangla. While Rani might admit to her inability to express that feeling, she is much more at ease expressing, or rather choosing, between National Awards and commercial success. “I value commercial success more than National Awards. A hit means the film has been appreciated by a large number of people. An award is more of a personal high,” says the actor who is all set to play a cricketer in her next film.
As for doing a post-mortem of her roles, Rani isn’t that keen. “That’s a useless and baseless exercise. No one knows why a film clicks. While reviews can’t change the fate or the lifespan of movies, I’ve always acted on constructive criticism about my flaws regarding bad clothes and make-up. People can understand when reviews are all about destructive criticism. Young journalists in Mumbai often get irresponsible. Just for two or three persons, we actors often tend to lose faith in the rest.” Just for the record, Rani doesn’t have time to write blogs to let her fans get to the truth.
Time up, and as she prepares to head for the airport, we wonder whether she feels that her aunt Debasree Roy should also shift base to Mumbai like many of her contemporaries, including Indrani Halder and Roopa Ganguly? A tad serious, Rani says, “Mashi is her own boss. She has taken the best of decisions in her life and I’m too close for comfort to advise her on that.”
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