Nandita Das has been called a film star 'with a social conscience', more keen to talk about women’s empowerment and human rights than participate in the glamour of Bollywood.
CNN’s Anjali Rao caught up with Das in a sound studio as she is post-producing her directorial movie debut In Such Times. She told Rao about her new film project, her controversial choice of film roles in Fire and Bawandar, an emotional visit to Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the Tsunami, and the honour of being a juror at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. 
For an actress who ‘kind of stumbled upon acting’ and ‘didn’t ever want to be an actor to begin with’, Das' talents are well-recognised, most recently winning the French award of Ordre Des Arts Et Des Lettres for her contribution to cinema. Das told Rao that she acts because ‘there are stories to tell…wonderful stories’, and she explains how the lack of realism in typical Bollywood fare never attracted her: ‘‘There's a certain kind of cinema that I don't relate to…I didn't even grow up watching them.’’
Das brushes off the controversy stirred up by her role in the film Fire, “the bigger evil was that how can you talk about homosexuality in a society that would rather not talk about it.” And of her role in Bawandar playing a woman who is gang raped, “I often tell women that you've got to be strong, why do you feel humiliated when you go through sexual abuse.” But she said, “I don't think women's empowerment is ever going to be possible without a society overall wanting to change things.”
Das told Rao about her new role behind the camera, directing In Such Times, a movie about how acts of violence affects its characters' lives, “I think it's a universal story, I think we are all concerned about violence…at some level, there is a collective desire for peace and it's good to examine yourself.”
Besides telling stories on screen, Das also shared with Rao the experience of visiting Sri Lanka and seeing the children in the aftermath of the Tsunami, she said, “they subconsciously get stored somewhere in your mind and form your overall thinking, or they help you to be a little more sensitive than one was.”
The ideal match
Embarking on a ‘husband quest’, Discovery Travel & Living’s new reality series ‘How to find a husband’ documents Sally Gray's 10-week experience as she gives up her day job, clears out her diary and goes on a mission to find herself a husband in time for the wedding.
The episodes of ‘How to find a husband’ will air every Friday at 8 pm and repeat every Sunday at 9 am. Get ready for an exciting roller coaster of fun, laughter, heartache and serious soul-searching.
