Actor Suhasini Mulay, 72, appeared before a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) judge on November 16 and stood surety for Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case. The veteran actor told the special court that she has known Navlakha for nearly 30 years since he is a resident of Delhi where she has also lived for some years. At a time when most people associated with the entertainment industry hesitate to take a political stand fearing a backlash, Mulay’s court appearance tells a different story. But then, a look at her life and career — which began with a spectacular debut in Mrinal Sen’s landmark film Bhuvan Shome (1969) — makes it evident that she has never believed in following the beaten track.
Daughter of the noted documentary filmmaker and film historian Vijaya Mulay, she was a Class XI student in Delhi when Sen decided to cast her, at the age of 15, alongside Utpal Dutt in his first Hindi venture. Mulay, who had lost her father at a young age, charmed viewers as the vivacious Gauri who brings about a change of heart in a senior railways official, played by Dutt, during his hunting trip to Saurashtra.
Despite the stellar debut, Mulay walked away from acting for nearly three decades till Gulzar offered her the role of Malti Barve in his film Hu Tu Tu (1999). Mulay’s return to acting in Hu Tu Tu, playing a schoolteacher who becomes an ambitious chief minister, bagged her the National Award for Best Supporting Actress. This apart, she has won four more National Awards, including for her documentary films, An Indian Story, which is based on the 1978 Bhagalpur blinding incident; Bhopal Beyond Genocide, which was about the Bhopal gas tragedy; Chithi and Official Art Form.
Following the accolades Mulay received for Hu Tu Tu, she went on to act in a number of prominent Indian movies including Lagaan (2001), Dil Chahta Hai (2001), Jodhaa Akbar (2008) and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015). The 72-year-old actor has also been making regular appearances in popular television serials, including Virasaat (2006), Desh Ki Beti Nandini (2016), Udaan (2014) and Everest (2014). This year, she played Madhuri Dixit’s on-screen mom in the Netflix show The Fame Game (2022). Prior to that, she appeared in another Netflix series, Mismatched (2020).
Mulay has made unconventional choices in her personal life too. She surprised many when she got married in an Arya Samaj temple to physicist Atul Gurtu in 2011. Gurtu retired from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, in 2011 as a senior professor. They met on social media. At the time of their wedding, which shattered social norms, Mulay was 60 and Gurtu was 65.
Decades prior to this, Mulay took many by surprise when after Bhuvan Shome’s release, she not only stayed away from cinema but also left India to study agricultural technology with a specialisation in soil chemistry and microbiology at a Canadian university. Later, she enrolled in a course for mass communication at McGill University in Montreal. She did two brief stints at Doordarshan and the Film and Television Institute India, Pune, eventually finding her calling as a documentary filmmaker.
However, before she dove into the world of documentaries, she assisted two masters of Indian cinema — Satyajit Ray during the making of Jana Aranya and Sen on Mrigaya. Both films were released in 1976. After working on these two critically-acclaimed movies, she moved back to Delhi from Kolkata, focussing on making documentaries about social issues till Gulzar’s offer brought her back to acting.
Write to the author at alaka.sahani@expressindia.com
