Zeenat Aman dons Kasturba Gandhi role for stage

Set in the last years of Independence movement, the play is shaped as a fantasy

Zeenat Aman is back with a role that many of us, used to her on-screen persona from the 70s and the 80s, may be surprised to see.

She is donning the role of Kasturba Gandhi in the play ‘Dear Bapu, Love Kasturba’.

Set during the last years of the Independence movement, the play is shaped as a fantasy, centering on a correspondence between Kasturba and Mahatma Gandhi after her death in 1944.

The letters touch on matters as diverse as politics, marriage, family, sex and companionship.

Showtime caught up with Zeenat for a chat about the role.

“We know a lot about Gandhiji, the father of our nation. That’s something we all grew up with. There is information about Kasturba, but most times, not much attention is paid to her,” she says.

Director Saif Hyder Hasan had been reading up a lot on Kasturba’s history, and when he met Zeenat, he illuminated her on Kasturba’s unspoken role in the politics of the time.
Zeenat says, “There is a great deal of information that he gave me. Subsequently, I followed up on my own. I did my own research. I developed a great interest in Kasturba, because she is an unsung heroine.”

She added that although Gandhiji was a huge persona and Kasturba was always seen in his shadow, she walked the walk with him.

“And he credits her,” Zeenat says, “He wrote in the newspaper ‘Indian Opinion’ that Satyagraha was something he learnt from Kasturba. There is a lot of work that she did, with him, without him and in his absence. Whether it was with the harijans or the women whose husbands were in jail because of politics. She was a person of extreme sacrifice and service.”

‘Dearest Bapu, Love Kasturba’ is being performed across the country and will be seen in Bengaluru on March 1.