LAHORE, Feb 14: Roohi Bano is poised for a new role in life. Among the best acting talents that the country has produced, she was admitted to the Fountain House in 2005 for treatment of schizophrenia. She has now recovered and vows to rebuild her broken house. Tracking down the murderers of her son, Ali, is central to her plans.

According to her psychologist, Waheeda Noor, Roohi’s sister Rubina Yasmin brought her to the Fountain House in November 2005. It was soon after her son had been murdered in mysterious circumstances.

For the next one year, no one was allowed to see her except for her sister. Initially she was in the worst schizophrenic state of mind and would have images of her son visiting her. Her recovery came only after months of painstaking treatment but even then she would complain of her ‘jealous’ relatives and co-workers who had let her down.

The irony is all there for someone to capture: the celebrated Roohi, anointed as one of the finest and most sensitive actors ever to emerge on the whole of the subcontinent, invites a director to make a film on her life.

What Roohi is looking for is an audience and not a crowd. She told Dawn in an interview at the Fountain House the other day that ‘there are too many people around here’ and that she would have preferred to have been treated at a small, private facility. But detained in a place she termed ‘jail’ in a note soon after her admission, she has been watching television to while away her time.

Her verdict: “Like autumn replaces the fragrant spring” television has changed. “Very few plays now depict reality. Glamour grips drama.” And it doesn’t take her long to link the current trends with her own acting lull.

Roohi Bano’s first television appearance was in a quiz show in her student days. Then Farooq Zamir offered her to act in plays. She accepted while continuing her studies that culminated in an MSC degree in psychology from the Government College, Lahore. Roohi married twice and also acted in a few films but television is where she is at home. Her outstanding performances in Qila Kahani, Zard Gulab, Hairatkada, Darwaza, Kiran Kahani, etc, placed her head and shoulders above other actors.

“I put my soul into acting but I was pushed back,” she says, accusing her co-actors of holding grudges against her and also condemning the politics and bribe culture that had crept into the system. “Every type of bribe was given and taken to bring down those with talent,” she recalls, before she shifts angles to see the positive side of it all. “Ptv gave me what I couldn’t even imagine. I had just taken a shot in the dark.”

She has a fair idea what she wants in life from here onwards. She wants to renovate her house with the Rs500,000 grant she has been given by Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi.