"Such topics need to be normalized,” states Saba Azad during our interview, highlighting how our society shies away from sex education and discussions on reproductive health. Now, the actor is bringing the subject right to our laptop screens with Who’s Your Gynac? In the Amazon miniTV series by TVF, she plays a gynaecologist who is scouting for patients for her new clinic. In a chat with mid-day, the actor discusses how the show explores an urgent theme, and why she has been away from mainstream cinema.

Edited excerpts from the interview.

I was 19 or 20 when I first felt the need to visit a gynaecologist. I was awkward at first because it is not comfortable taking your pants off in front of the doctor. Almost 30 seconds into it, it was so technical that it didn’t feel much.

I didn’t have any inhibitions. This is a long time coming. People should talk about sex, reproductive health and have sex education. At the rate that we procreate, we must definitely be talking about these topics.

I don’t think sex education has been made compulsory throughout the country. It needs to be because it is ultimately about health and making adults aware about their bodies. No one talks about reproduction, and people are walking into life with half-baked information. Kids have a lot of questions about their bodies, they must be addressed. Open dialogue with parents or in school would be the best practice.

It was during sex education in school. My parents never had this conversation with me. Conversation on sex should be normalized.

In our culture, we have attached shame to anything regarding reproduction, which is weird because we procreate the most. There is a sense of shame attached to sexuality and sex, and it has been passed on from generation to generation. So, kids find it awkward to talk to their parents about it and vice versa.

I am yet to call him. This is a fantastic development. We were all secretly manifesting it.

Awards mean something because it’s celebrating someone’s hard work. That said, it also depends on the body that is giving out the awards. There are a lot of award functions, which are held for the purpose of making money, and they do little to facilitate talent or go through a voting process. But something as prestigious as the Emmys is wonderful and respectful.

I forayed into films with Dil Kabaddi [2008] and Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge [2011]. After that, I was being offered only college [capers] and rom-coms. I am a child of theatre and wanted something substantial. I was bored of the [offers] coming my way. Thankfully, I am a musician-singer and a theatre actor. My hands were in several pies, so I didn’t feel the lack [of work]. I pulled back from mainstream [cinema]. But as soon as the lockdown happened, a lot of people came in the eye-line of casting directors. Now, I am finally getting meaty roles where I can sink my teeth.

I am in a transitional phase. I have always been a live performer. However, over the last five years, I have begun to enjoy being in front of the camera as much as I do on stage.

Actor-singer Saba Azad set many hearts aflutter, including beau, actor Hrithik Roshan’s as the “lady in red”, at the recently held grand opening of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre. But that’s not all; the actor is also receiving applause for her role as Pipsy in the web series Rocket Boys, whose second season was released recently.

Azad, who is also a theatre artiste, looks back at her journey since she made her Bollywood debut in 2008 with Dil Kabaddi. She stepped into the world of web later, with the series Ladies Room (2016). She says that back then, OTT was considered similar to television. “We thought it might be tacky like TV. No one knew about OTT when I started. There were no digital platforms. Things were still very uncertain. We had no idea what we were doing,” she recalls.

However, the 37-year-old maintains she kept getting similar roles as Anil Senior’s directorial for a while. “After Dil Kabaddi, I got Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge (2011). I somehow got clubbed with the college romance genre. The offers that came my way were always the same. So, I took out some time to work on music. I was singing for three bands at a time and doing playback, too. With the web world coming into place, there were more interesting concepts. So, I never stopped acting,” adds Azad.

The actor is also happy with the way her character in Rocket Boys, Parvana Irani, aka Pipsy (Dr Homi Bhabha’s love interest), has shaped up. The series has Jim Sarbh, Regina Cassandra and Ishwak Singh in prominent roles. When asked if she felt emotional about Pipsy’s wedding scene, Azad says, “It was heartbreaking. She (Pipsy) knew that if she stepped into a new life with him (Dr Bhabha), he would prioritise work. But she wanted more [from the marriage]. So she made her choice. She wasn’t the bechari who would wait for her man. However, the love between them never died.”

Azad also tells us about her favourite scenes from the series. “Pipsy’s introduction scene and the scene in the library, where she asks Dr Bhabha if he wants to continue being an idiot or wants to do something with his life,” says the actor. 

On the work front, Azad has three films releasing later in the year and she’s also working on two web series. Meanwhile, the singer has also ventured into filmmaking: “I’m working towards becoming a director and hoping it will happen in the next five years.”