The glam girl as serious actress

Aishwarya Rai is surprisingly believable in a deglamorised role in her latest film Provoked.

First things first. Aishwarya Rai can act. And, with or without the baggage that comes with being a former Ms World "" not to mention the "Kajrare" item girl lately "" she is convincing in her portrayal of a Punjabi, not-quite-educated, battered wife. "My English not very good," she repeats again and again in the film, the quintessential desi wife, powerless, abused and ashamed in a foreign land, the home of the husband. Ironically, we believe her.

Ever since news started doing the rounds that London-based filmmaker Jagmohan Mundhra (who has films like Bawandar to his credit; he is attracted to "strong women characters", he says, and is now casting for Sonia, a film on Sonia Gandhi, the lead to be famously played by Monica Bellucci) had signed on Rai to act the part of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, connoisseurs and critics were up in arms. "Bad casting", they screamed shrilly and unanimously.

But Rai's latest portrayal puts all such doubts to rest. And conclusively at that. Provoked, Mundhra's saga inspired by the real life story of Ahluwalia who burnt her abusive husband to death and eventually became instrumental in British law recognising the "battered wife syndrome", is a powerful film with some superlative performances, including by (a deglamourised) Rai.

Though the film only comes to India in August, it was recently premiered in Dubai as the "IIFA World Premier Film", a status also enjoyed by films like Lagaan and Parineeta in the past "" films that went on to do brilliantly both commercially and critically, one may point out.

But while such future is yet in the realms of speculation, what is undoubtedly clear is the acclaim Provoked was able to garner that night, uncannily similar to the accolades at Cannes recently. The entire industry "" present in full force in Duty Freeland in a paid holiday of sorts "" raved about the film.

The critics were silenced, the audiences somber, still reeling under powerful emotions ostensibly, and Shabana Azmi for one, very visibly happy. Azmi (who, incidentally, is part of the cast for the Umrao Jaan remake which also stars Rai, but that's another story) went up and hugged Rai "" quite unprovoked, I might add. And considering that the parliamentarian is one of our finest actors around, if Provoked and its cast needed any vindication, this was it.

For Mundhra this was vindication of his belief in Rai. Acting prowess apart, the filmmaker had been quite candid about his reason for casting the star in such an unlikely role. "Honestly, with Aishwarya one hopes that the film will find a much larger audience than it would ordinarily have done."

There's no arguing with the rationale and indeed one hopes that the film finds a larger audience in India than the limited multiplex audience Mundhra is hoping for. Only 15 per cent of the film's monetary target is to come from (urban) India, the rest, Mundhra hopes, will come from the US and UK markets, eventually making enough to not just recover the pounds 3 1/2 million budget but also modest profits.

Money apart, both the filmmaker and Rai unanimously believe that their greatest victory has been Kiranjit Ahluwalia's reaction to the film. "Considering that we were telling the story of a real person and that she would still have to go and face the world, we needed to walk a very fine balance and we were very conscious of our responsibility in dealing with such a sensitive subject," Rai said.

The star added that she felt very relieved and "satisfied" when Kiranjit came up to her after watching the film and said, "Mujhe aisa laga ki woh main hi thi (I felt that was me)." Kiranjit now works at a post office and when her colleagues heard of the film being screened, they apparently held a small celebration in the office.

Ask Rai whether she was ever apprehensive of doing such a deglamourised role and she points out that she did such roles right in the beginning of her career. "At that time, I used to be told don't do these sari-clad roles, you are too young for these, have some fun, sing around trees in mini skirts... but that was never an issue with me."

So be it and if you think you'd rather watch her all glamour and pancake, you can have your pick of that too. Provoked may be for the select intellectual audiences, but Rai is hardly going on the parallel track "" the coming few months will see her both in the stylised and slick Dhoom II as well as in the ostentatious and elaborate Umrao Jaan. Till then...

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PROVOKED

Starring: Aishwarya Rai, Miranda Richardson, Robbie Coltrane, Naveen Andrews Direction: Jagmohan Mundhra

The film is based on the real-life story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia (Aishwarya Rai), a young Punjabi woman who comes to London, cutting short her studies and ambitions when she gets married to British-Indian Deepak (Naveen Andrews). She soon finds out that her husband is an alcoholic and a womaniser and life becomes one traumatic incident of abuse after the other.

For more than 10 years, Kiranjit continues to suffer in silence as the battering get worse, till one day, something snaps and she pours kerosene on her husband asleep in a drunk stupor and sets him afire.

The husband dies, Kiranjit goes first into shock and then to jail and her two young sons get separated from her as they go to stay with her mother-in-law who is reluctant to let her grandsons see their mother. Kiranjit is convicted for murder as the law does not recognise abuse that happened more than two hours before the incident as "provocation".

Ironically, it is in jail that Kiranjit feels free for the first time as she makes friends and finds a mentor (Miranda Richardson). Radha (Nandita Das) is a women's activist who takes up Kiranjit's cause and pushes for a retrial, until Kiranjit is finally set free.