Serendipity often irrevocably alters preordained lives. Mona Ambegaonkar, of the fiercely intelligent eyes and a face like a living memory, for instance was going to study science and could not have imagined that one day she would become chief assistant director of Shekhar Kapoor’s Mr India. Or a model, writer, producer and director of documentaries, an actor working with renowned groups like Ekjut, Ansh, Fottsbarn Theatre Company in France and  the Ton Und Kirshen Theatre Company in Germany. Or that she would be seen in countless TV serials  and films like Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa, Mrityudand, White Noise, Bindhast, Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani.

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And it all began with an accidental meeting with Jalal Agha when she visited the sets of his Doordarshan sit-com Mr Ya Mrs.  Recalls Mona fondly, “He beamed at me across the room. I beamed back and then went over to him and asked for a job. He offered me the position of his seventh or eighth assistant  and the set was so exciting with inexplicable things going on, people play-acting, scampering up a 40 feet high scaffolding that whatever apprehension I had, dissolved quickly. In a few weeks, I become the chief-assistant. Then I took over the editing too. The ride  got fantastically fascinating.” Agha was a nurturing boss, a great teacher and a father figure. Says Mona, “My sense of rhythm and understanding of visual music is his gift to me and he always pushed me towards responsibility and never let me worry about failing in my work or life.”

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After Agha moved on to other things, Mona learnt that Shekhar Kapur needed an assistant. She smiles, “And so I landed up at his place at 7:am, one rainy morning. I sort of moved in to the office he ran from his home and took over.”

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From putting together the, “scattered papers of the script to handling the optical sound,” she did everything because,”I had such a thirst for learning.” A few years later, at Kapoor’s behest Gautam Rajyadhyakshya shot a few pictures of Mona  and she bagged a three-year modelling contract with Rexona.  The roller coaster ride into the world of make believe began then and is still on.  But the most challenging  role has been to play a single mom to her almost seven year old daughter.  She recalls, ‘After her  birth, I was homeless for a while and it took me about seven months to buy a house and get started at acting again. I was nursing her when I began to shoot for Amber-Dhara, a serial on Sony TV. Two of my plays were also on then and I left her at my cousin’s house in Nasik and used to commute between Nasik, Mumbai,  Panchgani, Kolkata and  Pune where I taught at the FTII for a brief stint. I remember that time through a haze of incredible tiredness.”

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There are no 12 hour creches or sets where mothers can enjoy a flexible working schedule so she says, ” For a while, I sat at home, living off my meager savings. I wrote a few articles for newspapers, wrote for the Chicken Soup Series and dubbed several series for National Geographic and Animal Planet and Discovery etc.”

Finally, she signed Baat Hamaari Pakkki Hai to play a character who is obsessed with the idea of marriage as the final solution for a young girl. Does she sometime find herself rebelling against her? She explains, “I personally would rebel against it but  that is not what acting is about. It is about making a character that you may find repellent to your sensibilities, your own and essaying that character believably. Also, Usha  displays flashes of good sense so I am able to live with her fairly peacefully provided I don’t think about it too much and just engage with her, trusting my instincts to draw upon my knowledge of such women that I may know.”

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She continues, “Right after Usha, I had the intoxicating pleasure of playing Rosni Devi a crazy politician who played the power game very well and who is humanized by the realization and ultimate acceptance of her son’s sexuality. That her son is homosexual brings out the mother in her but she does not fall to her knees or anything unrealistic like that. She tries to find the balance that will allow her son to be who he is and protect her career and power-base too. Rosni Devi taught me much and I have applied some of that learning to my public life since. After that, a wonderful play titled Ek Madhavbaug and another titled Mahua by very diverse playwrights have kept me engaged and employed along with an occasional cameo and a lead role in an ‘Art’ film titled Cheekhaa where I play a wasted ‘tawaif’ who has lost her moan and employs a mimic to hide under her bed and moan for the sake of her clients. A role and a script that were fascinating and I only wish we had more funds to shoot it the way it deserved to have been shot. However, it has still managed to get into the festival circuit and even into their competition sections.”

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Having won the 6th Annual Screen Videocon Award 2000 for her TV performance in Nyay, RAPA Award (Radio and Television Advertising Practitioners’ Association of India), the Maharashtra State Jury Award for Best Actress for the Marathi feature film Bindhast, ITA Award for Best Actress in Negative Role for Rosni Devi (Maryada), and many other awards, Mona lets her work speak for itself rather than using the media or allowing it to use her.

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She sums it all up,” I am still working at every role with the same sincerity. But as a woman, I now have immense respect for all the women who raise kids, with or without help. And I value and protect my free-time with great zeal.”

About the choice to be a single mother, she says, ” I am instinctively, a fighter. I mentally uncurl off the floor before the count gets to 10. I am solely responsible for my life – the good and bad in it, the tough and easy of it – and there is a grand plan laid out by Nature or God, which will ultimately be fulfilled. You can either choose to be ashamed of your past and lament and hide, or you can marvel at the challenges life set you and the trips it sent you on, gather up all that and put it into a picture-album and turn it into memories.”

**To Act Is To Do is a theatre and performance workshop that Mona Ambegaonkar brings to  Bangalore on November 23 and 24 at Atta Galatta.

For workshop and venue details and bookings…click on https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=426837687381255&set=a.152292354835791.38955.134206369977723&type=1&theater

After the workshop, on November 24, Mona will also enact her acclaimed, much travelled solo performance of late Chetan Datar’s play No: 1 Madhav Baug.

For details on the play and the venue as well as bookings..click on https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=426836794048011&set=a.152292354835791.38955.134206369977723&type=1&theater