No abla naari!

The just-released Hamari Adhuri Kahani now behind her, Vidya Balan insists she’s no laachaar, dukhi aatma in real life, despite playing the sensitive yet vulnerable Vasudha in the film. Here, she talks about the film and her character...

Humari Adhuri Kahani =Agnisakshi?
She insists, “This is a completely different film. This is not a marriage where there’s domestic violence. What you see in the trailer is a one-off. The couple in HAK (Hari and Vasudha) is a traditional Indian couple where the man feels he owns the woman after marriage. She, too, has allowed him to control her like that. So he cannot conceive how she could have feelings for someone else. He feels he controls her body, her mind. He’s more like, ‘How did you have feelings for someone else which are not controlled by me.’ Hari is an abusive husband but he does that because he cannot stand his wife loving someone else. It’s not a typical case of domestic violence as in Agnisakshi. Vasudha, here, does not go looking for love. It just happens to her.”

Animal instincts
One thing Vidya is sure of. “My character is not an abla naari. Vasudha is vulnerable, but she’s unapologetic about the love she has for Aarav (Emraan’s character). It’s evident from the manner she unabashedly confesses her love for him in front of Hari (Rajkummar Rao) and gets slapped.” She adds, “You have to understand. Theirs is an arranged marriage so they’ve never known love. To them, marriage is a license to have rights on each other. But invariably, the man has a right on the woman but the woman does not have a right on the man. I think she has experienced love for the first time and Hari can’t take it. If your girlfriend told you she’s in love with someone else, you would want to hit her. That’s the basic animal instinct in each one of us.” 
If my husband told me the same, even I would want to hit him. But we are all educated and civilised. That’s the difference between animals and us, so we don’t go out and react out of instinct or impulse. There are some people who act like animals. Hari is one of them.”

Staying strong
“I believe my films and my roles are just an extension of my beliefs. I cannot play the bechari, abla naari roles. Like for Vasudha too, she is really vulnerable, but at the same time, she’s fearless and unapologetic about her love. I love layered characters. Playing the staple bebaas dukhi aatma is not my type,” she asserts.

If Vidya was Vasudha...
She’d “kick the man where it hurt him the most!”