Kiron Kher spent over six months learning Bengali to be able to work with director Rituparno Ghosh in the yet-to-be released film Bariwali. Kher's Bengali tuition seems to have paid off well, as her leading role has won critical acclaim and several awards, national as well as international. However, the most striking aspect of Kher's role is the fact that she plays an ordinary Bengali woman. In her own words, ``Unlike the strong women I have portrayed in films like Darmiyaan and Sardari Begum, Bariwali is docile and mild. The character's simplicity attracted me.''Come to think of it, the name Kiron Kher was not a force to reckon with ten years ago. One has faint memories of her appearing as a model for Hawkins pressure pan and Duncan Double Diamond tea in the early '80s. Her small role in Pestonjee can be easily forgotten. It was only in Feroz Khan's play Saalgirah that one noticed Kiron Kher besides star-husband Anupam, although her role was not much of a challenge. Then onwards, it was an upward move for the actress all the way up to Bariwali.As director Shyam Benegal puts it: ``It is a pity that Kiron Kher started acting much later in life. She is a trained, talented and a focussed actress who devotes herself totally to the director's plan of action. As an artiste, she is tremendously reliable, which I realised on the sets of Sardari Begum.'' Interestingly, Kher, an aspiring actress, had met Benegal in the early '80s, but, obviously, she did not fit the bill.Kher led a rather interesting life before entering Bollywood. Born in an army officer's family, Kiron Thakar Singh spent the better part of her childhood touring different parts of India. Few know she and her sister were badminton champions representing Punjab and later India in national tournaments in the late '60s. During her college and post-graduate education in Chandigarh, she pursued theatre as a hobby. During her course in the department of theatre, Chandigarh, she took lessons from veteran director Balwant Gargi. ``I acted in many professional plays during these years. And somewhere around this time Nargis aunty and Sunil Dutt, who had come to meet Sanjay at Sanawar, saw my photograph. They came over and offered me a role in a film,'' she recounts.That the film did not take off was a different story, but it brought Kiron Kher to Mumbai for good. Her initial attempts to find space in the film industry did not bear fruit. As she put it bluntly: ``Every director of the parallel cinema was so busy with Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil that a newcomer like me was not entertained.'' Those were not happy times on the domestic front too. Lack of right breaks and a young son to look after proved deterrent for the career launch. But it is heartening to find that the past has not made her bitter. ``I need a secure home turf in order to perform well,'' she cuts short.Kher does not like to be called a ``star-wife'', but there is no denying that much of the clout she wields comes from star-husband Anupam. Incidentally, Kher's outfit J Radical Entertainment Private Ltd has produced Bariwali and some other tele-ventures. However, Kiron denies the use of her husband's company as a launching pad. ``Rituparno Ghosh had taken me in the movie even when NFDC was producing it. It is only a coincidence that NFDC backed out and Anupam offered to finance the project,'' she clarifies, adding that ``it is true, I came to know many people in the industry through Anupam. But no individual can achieve success exclusively due to family relations.'' She says Anupam was her friend from ``theatre days''. ``I enjoyed rehearsing Saalgirah with him for days on. It was a lovely experience. I have always associated theatre work with him.''While Kher is credited with unquestioned professionalism on the sets, she is said to lack the faculty of dispassionate self-analysis off the sets. The controversy revolving around the film Darmiyaan elucidates the point. When director Kalpana Lajmi was asked to reason out the film's box-office failure, she pinpoints various factors, including lack of effort taken by Kher to reduce weight to suit the role. The criticism was not taken sportingly. As Lajmi laments: ``She is a wonderful actress with an exceptional readiness to do intellectual homework for her roles. But she lacks control over her physique. When I pointed this out, she called me names. It is unfortunate that an otherwise cultured person reacted so aggressively. And she continues to rake up the issue in her interviews, as late as the ones taken after Bariwali's success. I wish she forgets the episode.''Like Lajmi, many in the industry endorse the national recognition received by Kiron Kher. Junior co-actress Rajeshwari Sachdev thanks God for better-late-than-never acclaim received by Kher. ``She is like an earthen pot brimming with pent-up energy, finally exploding on-screen. She has found her rightful space for self-expression, myriad manifestations of which are to follow,'' elaborates Sachdev.And as Kher herself reasons out her success: ``I am not an ambitious leading lady running around trees. I am not even interested in commercial cinema. I have an eye for meaningful off-beat assignments and, fortunately, I have got what I wanted.''
