“Happiness, and its opposite, unhappiness, is what life is all about. We experience both happiness and unhappiness at different points in our life, and both are needed. As for finding happiness, I try to find happiness in the small things in life. This can be something like having coffee with the rising sun in the morning, listening to the birds as the sun is rising, and just going for a shoot, being in front of the camera, working on my characters, all this makes me really happy,” she says.

Namita, who was a banker prior to becoming an actress, says that she still remembers the feeling of being on stage for the first time. “When I restarted my career in 2015, and got on the stage, it felt surreal. I had just finished my first show, and it was a very tough act for me. I played a 70-year-old grandmother of a Bollywood family. I remember I had 90 minutes of stage time where I was talking in English and Punjabi accents. I came off the stage and people surrounded me. They asked me where I studied theatre or what I had done before. That was a moment of extreme happiness for me. That day I found pure joy. On a regular basis, watching a film in theatres, having popcorn and bhel puri while watching the film, dancing to music; all this makes me happy,” she says.

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“The experience of visiting Cannes was amazing. To be on the red carpet with these people was incredible as well. I am here with two of my films, I got the invite through some close friends in the industry in France. I relished the experience. It was so different this year, after two years of Covid. India was being honoured and there was a whole Indian contingent, at the opening, which I didn’t see in 2019,” she says.

She adds, “The red carpet was just amazing. It was a very emotional moment for me and I enjoyed it. I was in the same area as the jury members. I also got an opportunity to click a phone with Deepika, Julienne as well as AR Rehman and some government ministers as well.”

Talking about meeting Deepika, she says, “Deepika was dressed in an amazing saree and was looking stunning. I was in a saree too. In fact, we were the only two people in a saree and we attracted a lot of attention!” she laughs.

Ask her which film of Deepika’s films she loves the most, and Namita promptly replies, “I loved Deepika most in Piku. I found her totally in character, without the normal makeup and get-up she has had for other characters. She was just so in character in Piku.”

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“The number of OTT channels that have come up and much of the content in them is very realistic. Yes there are a lot of opportunities for that. TV serials have taken on a very different turn. In the last 10-12 years, we had some very good TV serials with good content like Ye Jo Hai Zindagi, Hum Log, Hasratein and others and now we see regeneration in TV with soaps like Anupamaa,” she says.

The actor adds that TV can actually bring in some amount of change in the way daily soaps are being made. “Shows like Anupamaa are creating quite good content and the actors are giving amazing performances. While it straddles the world of TV serials and cinemas, I think it’s more cinematic and very good. So I think more such shows would be wonderful. It has a very bold theme which has a great social message,” she adds.

InTalking about how the entertainment industry changed from the first time she started off, Namita shares, “With the amount of OTT that has come into existence, as an actor I see there is a growing opportunity for mature performers. In the past, I would have probably not really been joining the industry but now there is a lot more acceptance of people with talent. I am glad that at this time having left my banking career to join the industry, it has welcomed me as an actor, producer and director. I am enjoying my journey.”

With so much uncertainty around in terms of Covid and the pandemic, work-life balance is a concern. “Being a celebrity is not a joke as it brings its own baggage as well as responsibilities. But not every celeb understands that. Having been in the corporate sector, I always believed in work-life balance, it’s not always easy. For actors especially, I have seen that when you have night shoots or 12-hour shoots, it gets very difficult for them to create a work-life balance which is why many actors do fewer films especially if they are established and they take some holiday breaks. That is the best way to get a break from work,” she ends.

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“My experience of attending the Jaipur Literary Festival was absolutely wonderful. It is an amazing event and was actually something that had been on my mind for the longest time. A lot of my friends had gone there and I was always keen to go. Since it was around March this year and I happen to be free in that week, it was a very impulsive decision to actually do it while I can,” she smiles.

She learnt a lot from JLF. “One of it is that there are so many interesting things about India and the world that I got more aware of the writers, from all over the world, who attended it. It was a wonderful amalgamation of cultures from across the world that are coming into India and experiencing literature, music, politics and religion through a festival which is held in Jaipur. One of the cultural meeting points in the country, it was a thriving place,” she adds.

Jaipur happens to be her maternal grandmother’s home. “So I have been to Jaipur as a child many times. I had gone there this time after a couple of decades maybe and experienced Jaipur city and its beauty. I feel it is one of the best cities that I’ve been to, great infrastructure, great place and great people,” she says.

Books and literature have a great significance in Namita’s life. “I have always been a good reader and the industry I’m in right now, filmmaking, theatre, it’s all about stories from all over the world and that too in different genres. I enjoy thrillers as much as I enjoy spiritual writings and poetry. So it’s a very diverse range of interests that I have for books and reading,” she shares.

Being a well-read person, one wonders how that helps in her acting career or the characters she plays. “Reading actually helps in many ways. I disappear into the characters in the books that I read. And the depth of understanding the character comes through the words first and then how you portray it in front of the camera or on stage is just an expression of your understanding of a particular writing. So every character is written, every back story is written and then you’ve to perform it in the moment. And reading is great. It has great value for this purpose,” she adds.

Namita likes experiencing new things. When asked about her idea of exploring life, she says, “That’s exactly what I did with Jaipur i.e Out of impulse I went there, said yes for an idea which comes and this year is my year of sayings. I bought a book by a famous writer called Huma Abedin. She’s written a lovely book and even signed it for me. She said this on stage which exactly I said, this year is a year of saying yes. That’s my idea of exploring life. Just say yes and go for it, experience it and come out better from the learning of it.”

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“I have been a career banker for almost 20+ years. I worked in Standard Chartered Bank after I finished my MBA and worked in many countries like India, London, Africa, the Middle East, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand. When I quit, I was the managing director of a big global business, running all of the corporate banking business verticals in 2019. I’m from Lucknow and Delhi. I have studied in many schools across Dehradun, Bareilly, Moradabad and finally ended up at St. Stephens where I got a bachelor’s degree in History. Then I did an MBA from the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) Gujarat,” she says, adding, “I used to always be on stage in school and I enjoyed it thoroughly. But St. Stephens in Delhi had a big theatre culture and I was part of the Shakespeare Hindi and English society. I did a play at Kamani auditorium which was a part of Hindi society called Badi Buaji. I was the lead. It was directed by Veerendra Saxena and just loved doing that. It was my first year of college and I realised that I love the camera. The process, the direction by Viru Dada, the friendships that developed across, it was a memorable part of my life.”

This was when she realised that she was born to act. “I think it was at that time that I thought that I was going to be an actress. But I wanted to concentrate on my studies first and build a career and then wanted to move on to follow my passion,” she says.

Her next tryst with acting was a few years later. “In 2015, a playwriter in Singapore, Sangeeta Nambiar wrote a play called Another Ticket to Bollywood. And she wrote a role for me because I was very vocal about my passion for drama, though I hadn’t done it for all of the years that I have worked in Standard Chartered bank. This was my first break into theatre again after that many years. It was a tough role. It was a role of a 70-year-old Biji who speaks English in a Punjabi accent. And on stage, I was dressed in a white saree and dark glasses because she is partially blind and she is just chanting and singing a song and that was my first break back again. I got great reviews,” she says.

As an actress, she loved playing parts that were so alien to how she was in real life. “People really didn’t know me as a theatre actor and I loved the fact that nobody recognised me! I realised that I had a passion for playing characters who are so different from what I’m in my real life. And after that, I auditioned for many plays. I took part in many as well, including some really good ones like A Dance of the Birds where I had a south Indian accent. It was beautifully written and directed by Gauri Gupta. And I did Lihaaf on stage because of which I got an acting offer in India for the film which was being made. Kashmiri director Rahat Kazmi got copyrights from Ismat Chugtai’s (novelist) family. And he knew the director of the play that was being done in Singapore and we got in touch. That was how I landed in my first feature film,” says the actress who has also produced Lihaaf and has also been part of other films such as Wishlist and Oxygen.

Talking about her future plans, she says, “Now I have relocated to Mumbai from Singapore and my plans are to invest myself in the world of cinema and theatre, direction, writing, and acting primarily. I do want to audition for strong female roles in web series commercial cinema, independent cinema and short films. I am passionate about writing as well and I enjoy the process of directing. But primarily, I want to focus on my journey as an actor in the next two years.”

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