Veere Di Wedding actor Ayesha Raza Mishra: Bollywood mothers have evolved

In the recent Veere Di Wedding, too, she plays the loud Punjabi mother from west Delhi, who performs an aarti for the newly betrothed couple at the airport itself. “Ever since I started playing these roles of Punjabi mummy/aunty, many people have told me that I remind them of their own aunty/buaji/maasi. This is very far from my own persona and it’s funny as I am not from Delhi or even a Punjabi.”

Ayesha, now 41, grew up in Muscat on a steady diet of Doordarshan TV shows. “It was pretty luxurious, things like air-conditioning were taken for granted. But, to ensure that we don’t end up being spoilt brats, my mother ensured that summer vacations were spent in Delhi and Lucknow at the grandparents’ houses, with black-and-white TVs, aur jahan batti gul toh bas baithe hain garmi mein (where we faced power cuts and had to sit in the heat),” says Mishra, who later attended the Blue Mountains School in Ooty.

During her time in Delhi, she was also exposed to the vibrant world of theatre. Late actor Zohra Sehgal was the great aunt of Mishra’s mother — Salima Raza, founding member of Yatrik, one of Delhi’s oldest theatre groups. Stalwarts such as the late Joy Michael, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Sushma Seth and Roshan Seth were regulars at their Delhi house. “Though I came from a performing family, I was a reticent child. I was not the kid whose parents could turn to at a party and say, ‘Chalo beta poem sunao (Come on kid, recite a poem).’ My mother was shocked to see me dance in Dil Dhadakne Do — my whole uninhibited act was a massive surprise for her,” says Mishra.

After school, as the first step to becoming a teacher, Ayesha enrolled for a B.A. (honours) degree in English literature at Delhi University, in 1995, followed by a B.Ed degree. A chance gap in her M.Ed degree at Temple University, Pennsylvania, made her enroll for a set design and acting course. That’s when the proverbial epiphany occurred. Over a phone call, she told her mother that she was returning to India and could no longer deny the draw of acting. “I came back to Delhi and did a short theatre course. I also did voiceover gigs, which became a staple for me, and acted in Zindagi Kitni Khoobsurat Hai show for ETV Urdu. All this gave me confidence, and I left for Mumbai,” says Ayesha.

In Mumbai, in the early 2000s, she put up in a paying-guest accommodation in Lokhandwala, and took the jetty to Madh Island for her first Mumbai shoot — a horror TV show by Tigmanshu Dhulia, in which actor Irrfan Khan directed one episode. “Even at 26 then, my role was of a Punjabi aunty. Then I did a role in a TV show with Dilip Kumar and Saira Bano — where I was playing a buaji. That’s when I thought, ki yaar, 26 ki umar mein yeh haal hai (gosh, this is the situation at 26), so I left acting for eight-nine years,” says Ayesha, who now lives in Madh Island with her actor-husband Kumud Mishra and their nine-year-old son. “I started doing voiceovers for advertisements, besides theatre,” she says. A few years ago, a Tata Sky TV commercial caught the attention of casting director Nandini Shrikent. An audition for Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do ensured that Ayesha was back to business in a role she had initially shunned. What made her change her mind? “This is Bollywood after all. There would be such roles that need to be filled. Every actor wants to play varied roles, and maybe that day will come. But till then, I have to earn my living,” she says.

On the sets of Veere Di Wedding, she discussed real-life motherhood issues with co-star Kareena Kapoor Khan. “We have come a long way from the self-sacrificing ones like Nirupa Roy in the ‘80s. Bollywood mothers have evolved, Indian mothers in real life, not so much,” she says.