Sheeba Chadha’s gaze is like a flame cutting through fog. Almost as if everything she has felt and lived has been melted in a furnace and poured into her eyes. She is incredibly vital on screen, on stage, on television and yet there is a restfulness about her. And when she kneels on the stage, looking for invisible memories, you sense her joy in the blue-green ocean, in the sand beneath her feet, the breeze in her hair. And when she plays a young girl overlooking the devastation caused by the 1984 riots, she brings back to life all the pain and tragedy that a willfully amnesiac country has forgotten.That is the kind of magic, a great acting talent conjures up for you. And yet this magic is not something that can be rustled up just like that. It is the fruit of great discipline and Sheeba has been fine-tuning her passion for her craft over the last 18 years or more. She was in Bangalore to perform Atul Kumar’s acclaimed play, The Blue Mug and Unboxed Writers caught up with her.

 You vividly brought out the fear and anger that the 1984 riots unleashed in so many us..do you still feel angry that a tragedy of this magnitude has been forgotten, without any closure?

 I don’t think, there can be any closure because we see similar things happening around us repeatedly. I was not a victim of the 1984 riots and was only a witness. I still remember the pain and fear we all experienced during that time, though. Invariably though, one has to let it go. I have no anger and would not like to harbour any because then it becomes a ponderous, dark burden.

 Do you think, we as a nation have a short memory?

 Why just us? It is the same everywhere. The world has a bad  memory about everything. Be it the degeneration of human values, of ecology..environment, politics. That is the nature of the beast, I suppose. We forget.   

 The play recalls a lot of the simpler times. Do you think we have lost our innocence?

 We have. In fact an earlier version of the play had a section that discussed just this. Memories of black-and-white films and the loss of ‘less.’ And everything that globalisation, and the explosion of technology has taken away. The sense of fullness we had in less. Today, everything is more. Information. Anger. Consumerism. Materialism. Violence. But frugality is gone.

 While developing The Blue Mug, did some memories snowball into others?

 That is the nature of memory. Memories provoke, evoke more memories. Just one word can release something similar or opposite. We just had rambling conversations about memories initially. And yes, there was some amount of snowballing.  It is always cathartic to go down the memory lane and release what was kept under wraps. Initially while performing (my memories in The Blue Mug), I did experience that but now after so many performances, I don’t feel like that anymore. But public sharing or venting of a personal memory is always therapeutic. And the thing about  memory is, everyone connects or resonates in parts or in whole.

 Does an actor as gifted as you find work worthy of your talent often? Your work in Zoya Akhtar’s Luck By Chance was extraordinary because it brought out the character’s silent need for validation so acutely… 

 Yes, there are times, one does not take back much from the work one does but it was very rewarding to work in Roysten Abel’s In Othello. I happened to play Desdemona and worked with material that was textually rich. And the role in Luck By Chance was about reading the sub-text of this character. I also enjoyed working in Reema Kagti’s forthcoming film (starring Aamir Khan). C For Clown, a play directed by Rajat Kapoor was also an enriching experience.

 There is a certain sense of intangible but real connectedness on stage between the cast when a good play is on..was The Blue Mug like that?

 All of us have known each other for a long time. And so we are not just co actors but friends. We have worked on other projects together so the comfort level  naturally shows up on stage.

 Why did you become an actor..what was this thing that told you to be one?

 “I just had to be! I knew this was something I would be happiest doing.”

 And her laughter fades off like the final light at the end of a play. Thank you Sheeba Chadha for the memories.   

Reema Moudgil is the author of  Perfect Eight (http://www.flipkart.com/b/books/perfect-eight-reema-moudgil-book-9380032870?affid=unboxedwri )