I'm a greedy person: Lekha Washington

On first meeting, she appears to be a typical girl-next-door. Scratch the surface, and one finds there’s lots more to Lekha Washington than meets the eye. The Burmese, Marathi, Punjabi and Italian mix who was brought up in Chennai, recently created much buzz with her exhibition ‘That which is, is not’ featuring a massive 15-foot ball suspended mid-air, as well as her Dot and The Drop chairs which was on display at Palladium. She’s very passionate about public art and hopes more Indians take to it. Creative pursuits aside, Lekha is no stranger to the big screen having starred in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi films. She lets After Hrs have a glimpse of her life.

The balancing act
Lekha completed her Master’s in Filmmaking and Direction from National Institute of Design where she discovered a desire to act, but art and sculpting has always been a part of her life with her having her first exhibition at 18. Ask her which of her many professions she enjoys the most and she says, “My ideal case scenario would be a balance of the different things that I do. Like I need to have performance in my life. I need to have creative pursuits like product design or art in my life, so for me, a perfect balance is when I have some of this and some of that. I’m a greedy person. I was very insecure before being an actor and for me being sort of adulated gave me a sense of — it helped me get over my deep insecurities as a person. I mean I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone but it really gave me a sense of self-confidence that I didn’t have before that.”

Filmi fundas
Aside from some theatre and VJing work and hosting the IPL, it was films that held an appeal for her. She has to her credit Jayamkondaan and Va — Quarter Cutting in Tamil, Kamina, Vedam in Telugu as well as two unreleased films, Peter Gaya Kaam Se and Power in Hindi. 
“I really liked the last Tamil film I did — Kalyana Samayal Saadham. It was released about eight months ago and was a massive hit and the character was quite similar to me. In the sense, she was a relaxed fun sort of outspoken person. But I’ve done a couple of roles where I’ve played really out-of-type characters like Va, where I played a suicidal 19-year-old who was depressed. I find that it’s quite interesting to play out-of-type characters. If you’ve seen any films that I’ve done, each character I’ve picked is dramatically different from the other. I think that’s probably the way most actors feel, that it would be nice to play a whole variety of things  – I’m happy to play from a prostitute to a 90-year-old, the more varied, the more interesting for me,” she admits. Though she’s found much success in the South, her Bollywood work hasn’t completely taken off. “I got to work with Amitabh Bachchan for Power, so that was cool, very cool actually. I do hope they actually finish it, but Rajkumar Santoshi is not keeping too well. I was heartbroken when the film didn’t release, actually that was the main reason I started my product design company. Power for me was a perfect Bollywood film. The guys who were making it weren’t playing any games, it was clean. Big-ticket film, the script was great. I was really excited about my role. And after it didn’t happen, I lost the will to keep hustling,” explains Lekha.

All about ideas
Lekha started Ajji — The Odd Product Company three years ago to channel her creative energies and some of her designs like The Sink Collection and The Dot Chair have got a great response. “The reason I started it was purely personal —  I love ideas. I’ve got an excessive amount of bizarre ideas in my head that I don’t know what to do with. I figured I would start a company that would take one idea and put it into another. The business model is like I’ll make an idea happen, manufacture it, retail it, take the money out of that and put it into the prototyping of another idea.  Since I had the luxury of being an actress, being financially capable of creating something that takes time to prototype and I had the money to be able to do that, this is the way I went with it,” she says.

“It’s hard work. Usually with design, to keep it visually simple takes a lot of prototyping and re-prototyping. Quality control is a tough task in this country. Sustaining and manufacturing things over a period of time takes a fair degree of effort. What makes us stand apart is that we’re willing to back the most extreme ideas, the most ridiculous ideas. The harder they are, the more fun they are. I try to push the envelope as far as it can go.”

Artistic love
From innovating to painting and sculpting, Lekha loves art and her recent exhibition at Palladium partnered with Asian Paints Royale Play Artist Circle was one of many. “I used to paint, but gave it up when I went to NID. Sculpting just comes naturally to me. Initially, when I started off being a sculptor, I found it really easy to replicate something in clay. But right now, what I find more fun is an idea in my head that I can make come alive. I like the idea of shock-and-awe, making people feel... which I think a lot of times with current art people intellectualise it quite a lot — the way you react to a piece of art, that first initial reaction is fairly valuable to me.  I realised the common element with a lot of my work is the element of surprise. Originally, people would walk past the dot chair, now they’re sitting in it and the fact that you can sit in it and it’s comfortable, is surprising. With Old Love (15-foot ball), it seems like a weighty, heavy ball-and-chain but it’s floating. I feel like things aren’t always what they seem. I like to play with that notion.”

Time to unwind
Ask Lekha what she does during her time off and she laughs, saying she has virtually none. “I was quite the diver. I like adventure sports in general. But I haven’t done it in a year-and-a-half. I really like to travel too. I used to take the money I’ve earned and jet off on a ridiculous trip. I’ve become a little more rooted now,” she says. As for future plans: “Sleep and more sleep. I have too many plans. As you can see, I’m trying to have three full-time careers at once. I’m a little ambitious or foolish. Immediately, I’m having an exhibition at Sakshi Salon — the Gauri Khan studio in Bandra on the 16th, so I’m working towards that. In November, I’m having a larger solo show and want to take Ajji and my art international. Also, I want to direct a film, write a book and own 12 cats. I’m going mad!” she signs off.