Dreams of limelight

Assamese films

She started her career as a child actor in Abhimaan (1990), and has since been leading a charmed life. Or so it would seem from the fact that Zerifa Wahid is today not only a top Assamese cinema star, but has also launched her own production house. To top it all, she has successfully acted in and produced Assamese adaptations of well known plays.

In her zone

Zerifa has proven herself as an actor by working with noted film director Jahnu Baruah, in the film Raag: The Rhythm of Love with Adil Hussain, Kapil Bora and Kenny Basumatary. “I have been a leading lady in Assamese cinema for the last 15 years now,” she says proudly.

She was in Delhi recently when Kothanodi (River of Fables) got the Rajat Kamal for Best Film in Assamese language in the 63rd National Film Awards 2016. As director Bhaskar Hazarika of Peepli Live fame was felicitated, Zerifa was among the team members attending the glittering ceremony at New Delhi’s prestigious Vigyan Bhavan.

Kothanodi also starred Adil Hussain and Seema Biswas. Kapil Bora won the post-production grant, and the film was premiered in the Busan International Film Festival last year. The film was India’s official entry in the London Film Festival, and was also showcased in other prestigious events across the globe.

The plot line of Kothanodi is adapted from events and characters in four stories in the Assamese folktales compendium Buri Air Xadhu (Grandma’s Tales), compiled by Assam’s foremost literary luminary Laxminath Bezbarua in 1911. While the stories have traditionally been presented as tales for children, Kothanodi tries to push them in darker, unorthodox directions. It is a stylised, poetic film, interweaving folk stories, evoking the terrifying undercurrents of human mind as depicted in folk mythology.

Though Zerifa does not have a film background, her father was an actor in his university days and wrote screenplays. She seems to have inherited his acting talent and his passion for cinema. She says her debut was co-incidental: her uncle’s production house was looking for child actors, and she happened to be around. However, when the opportunity presented itself, Zerifa essayed the role with ease. She puts it simply: “My entry into the world of cinema was never planned. But my family is proud of my achievements.”

Unexpected choices

A law graduate from Delhi University and a topper in history, Zerifa managed to indulge her passion for acting in numerous Assamese feature films. She nurses ambitions of making it in the Hindi film industry, saying she would love to work with prominent film directors such as Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Raj Kumar Hirani, among others. She is a big fan of Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, Vidya Balan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

The world of cinema is her world, which she describes as a 24x7 job. She still loves reading inspiring books, which she says enhance her inner beauty as well as knowledge.
On the whole, she says, her journey from a child actor to a famous leading lady has been a beautiful, memorable experience that included stints with legendary film directors like Jahnu Barua, Bidut Chakravarthy and National Award-winner Manju Borah.

Among her best memories is shooting for a scene in a railway station at night, in the presence of around thousand people. They maintained pin drop silence, but everyone clapped at the end of the scene. “It was touching,” she says. Her production house, Zerifa Wahid Productions, curated a festival of plays ‘Just Theatre’ in Guwahati. It showcased three plays namely, Girish Karnad’s Nagamandala, Arun Sarma’s Napoleon and A R Gurney’s Love Letters in Assamese. In March, the company staged an English version of the last.