Riya Sharma (BOMBAY TIMES; April 24, 2019)

After more than two decades, actor-director Nandita Das went back to her alma mater, Department of Social Work (DSW), in Delhi University, last weekend. Which is why when she began addressing the gathering, she said, “You have to bear with me, aaj mera dil bhara bhara sa hai.” The alumna, invited as the chief guest for the department’s Annual Day, fondly remembered her college days and also spoke about the issues that “nobody is talking about in these elections”.

‘NO DEGREE CAN MAKE YOU A GOOD OR BAD SOCIAL WORKER’
Talking about her theatre days, Nandita said, “I used to do street theatre with a group called Jan Natya Manch with Safdar Hashmi, so I had my socio-political training there, and then this is the institution (DSW), jisko kehte hain ki meri neev dali. Though I often say that no degree can make you a good or bad social worker, but what it does is that it exposes you to so many realities that we otherwise can never be exposed to.”

‘WHO IS TALKING ABOUT REAL ISSUES IN THESE ELECTIONS?’
The alumna also encouraged the students to do their bit to live in a world they care for. “My real life was before I got into the public space,” she said, “In fact, when my life came into the public space, and people would ask me to speak at public forums, I would speak about social causes because that’s what I cared about. In the beginning, I used to be really upset ki main jab sahi mein 12 ghante kaam karti thi tab toh koi nahi bulata tha, ab ek-do film kar li, toh everybody is calling me. So, the world is fairly superficial. We are at the crossroads of an election, rather, a very critical election, and which party comes to power is secondary. What are the issues we care for? In our annual college report, I noticed there was so much emphasis on social justice, on human rights, on including issues of the Northeast, things that nobody is really talking about. We don’t even know the pulse of this country, because rural pages are are vanishing from our papers, they are vanishing from our films. Till something is not sensational, it is not even being represented.”

Nandita added that when she took Rural Development as her specialisation subject, many questioned her choice. “I was told by many students that why are you taking this, you have got good marks, you can take something more glamorous. Choice is part of our freedom, but what we choose, especially young students, what you choose today is going to impact your entire life. It is what you expose yourself to, how much you are engaged, how much you care and how deeply you care about yourself and the world you live in, that is going to decide your trajectory. Today, while I am being introduced as an actor-director, none of this is what I wanted to do. It wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t an ambition. Different doors opened up. For me, art continues to be a means to an end, and that end is to engage, share and communicate and that is why I am here,” she concluded.