An actor seldom gets the chance to experiment with something completely different from what they have done so far. However, for Swastika Mukherjee, the fun lies in the challenge, who says she has always wanted to play a character like Sreema—powerful, bold and strong as hell.
With Kaalipotka (streaming on Bangla Zee5) came the experience of a lifetime for her. The series tells the story of four women living in slums: Rani (Shruti Das), Rinku (Himika Bose), Minoti (Sreya Bhattacharya), and Sreema (Swastika) who must remain together, as society repeatedly tests their strength.
In a chat with Indulge, swastika talks about the preparation process, shooting experiences, and why it is important to tell stories of women living in the margins.
How did you prepare for this role?
After director Abhirup Ghosh told me about the character, the first thing that came to my mind was ‘I definitely cannot look the way I look’. As an audience, when I see someone portraying a character far away from their real self, I have to first believe in the portrayal. I need to believe in the character to fully enjoy the actor’s performance and truly feel what the character is going through.so, I spoke to my sister Ajopa Mukherjee, who is the stylist, and told her to research and give me something solid.
The other thing is, I had several conversations with our scriptwriter and director, and I said that I need to break away and do something different so that I do not sound polished. Because when I speak Bengali, my upbringing gets reflected. So I decided that I will speak in a way that resembles the social strata and economic class my character comes from. she lives in a basti and has a certain dialect. I recorded different dialect variations for my dialogues to convince my director with what I believed in.
I also walk differently in the show. Sreema is the head of the family despite having a husband. She is opinionated and depicts the “masculine” traits society usually associates with men. so the way I sit, talk, walk is not conventionally feminine. However, most of it came out during shooting as I played the character.
How was your experience on set, especially shooting with an all-women lead cast?
It was empowering, and the set was a very comfortable space. I did not have to be too conscious about myself while shooting. In fact, during a few fighting sequences, I realised my stretch marks were visible, but I did not care, and no one asked me to hide them. And that is very important because by normalising a real body, you get rid of your inhibitions as a woman. It is also very important to show this reality on screen, being an actor. We advocate for body positivity all the time and should not be hiding our real selves as actors.
We advocate for body positivity all the time and should not be hiding our real selves as actors.
The underlying experiences as a woman are the same across class. So, in what ways did you relate to your character as a woman?
The crises that these women are facing in the series are quite basic when it comes to being a woman in this world. Although I have a certain economic privilege, I am as scared to walk alone at night as someone from a different social class. the instinct of being a woman who is always on alert, is also the same.
Moreover, the motivation to work hard and earn money to afford better privileges for the family remains unchanged for working women, whether they live in slums or in a high-rise. Of course, the economic struggles and the fight for dignity largely differ. As a mother, the basic instinct is the same throughout the world, across women from different social strata.
Personally, what I think makes me like Sreema is that she is a fighter, does not take ‘no’ for an answer and does not give in to societal expectations.
And I smoked a lot of biri for my character. My father used to love smoking biri; he preferred them to cigarettes. Back then, I hated the smell. But when I picked up the biri to play Sreema, I was thinking how he would have felt good that I smoked so much biri.
How was the experience shooting action sequences?
My career had begun with commercial films, and there, it was just the hero who would fight off the villains while the heroine stood aside crying. I used to hope that the tables would turn someday and we could fight our own fight. Kaalipotka has full-fledged fight sequences, and I was immediately on board when Abhirup told me about them.
In one scene, I insisted on using a real fire extinguisher instead of a dummy because it had to look believable. The adrenaline carried me through the shoot, though my body felt it later. Overall, I really enjoyed the action.
We are not telling the stories of subaltern women
Web series is a new medium and it is exploring so many themes with progressive storylines. What kind of content do you think this medium needs more of?
There should definitely not be any content on extramarital affairs. It should be banned at this point because it has been overdone and has become boring. We can also have lesser detective narratives.
And, we mostly tell the stories of urban women who have a proper socio-economic background. We are not telling the stories of subaltern women. Kaalipotka will be mainstream masala content that will tell their story. You need to tell stories of different kinds of women belonging to various socio-economic-political backgrounds instead of the one urban class, draped in their handloom saris and educated.
The illiterate people are greater in number, so who will tell their stories? they are also part of the world like us, and we depend so much on them. We should not forget to represent their struggles on screen