March 30, 2003

With a mischievous glint in her eyes, Nirma makes a statement: “I’m an eternal optimist. I always see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty.” And why not? To survive in a place known as Lollywood, you have to keep up the fight every step of the way.

Having said that, Nirma bounces back to her girly, chirpy self during our tete-a-tete, squealing at every curious query about her personal life.

Graciously steering clear of the standard first-interview format, both of us agree it’s too late in the day for a ‘how did you get your first film offer?’ We delve into her later pieces of work and most essentially the person behind the star that is Nirma.

“I’m a fun-loving person who is very straightforward. I’m happy, or rather my soul is happy...but only with friends,” Nirma adds hastily as an afterthought. One wonders what brought on the rejoinder. She is reminded what the average reader is more interested in knowing is how close she has come to portraying her own self in films.

“Let’s see...I’d say it was my chulbulla character in Aik aur love story. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s a must-see.”

 

As for a ceremony held recently, she says it was good. ‘Even better was the black and silver Usman Dittu creation that I wore for the evening. I was supposed to wear a sari, but it was ‘stolen’ by another lady, so I wished her good health when I saw her wearing it,’ Nirma says, momentarily giving in to the cut-throat rivalry that exists between Lollywood’s leading ladies
 

As for the closed-door Lux Style Awards ceremony, for which she flew into town recently and in which she performed to the hit Likhna jaante from the film Shararat, she is asked how it felt to announce the winner of the Best Film Actor category — Moammar Rana — specially since her Oscar counterpart Halle Berry received a ‘big wet one’ full on the lips from Adrian Brody who won the Best Actor Oscar for Roman Polanski’s The Pianist.

She makes a wry face saying that’s not possible here, but loved giving the award.

“It was great! Even better was the black and silver Usman Dittu creation that I wore for the evening. I was supposed to wear a sari, but it was ‘stolen’ by another lady, so I wished her good health when I saw her wearing it,” Nirma says, momentarily giving in to the cut-throat rivalry that exists between Lollywood’s leading ladies.

But the very next moment, she is again the bubbly, vivacious gal who says that she likes to be alone whenever she can since privacy is so hard to come by for someone like her. What about starry nakhras? I ask her, to which she retorts with a vociferous “Never!” However, there is one person she likes to spend her free time with and that is her mother.

Nirma’s firm stand on prickly issues such as exposing and vulgarity in films is no big secret. She gave vent to her feelings in a recently-televised gabfest that was appreciated by viewers as much for its positive dialogue as for her honest approach to the whole issue. While Nirma’s stance was applauded as refreshing and genuine, not so lucky, however, was the fellow actress who did a complete volte-face in an attempt to put on a holier-than-thou appearance.

Strongly believing in the adage that a person is what he or she reads, I ask Nirma the kind of books she likes to curl up with.

“To be absolutely honest, I have a lot of catching up to do in that department. But some really good books that I have read and can even recommend are the biographies of screen legends such as Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren. Reading these has renewed my confidence and given me rare insight into the human psyche. Earlier, I used to think that whatever happens in and around our studios is exclusive to us only. I now know that it happens elsewhere as well. Now, not only do I have better understanding of such issues, but also feel better equipped to handle them.”

After five years on the showbiz turf and having worked on both the small screen and its much bigger counterpart, Nirma is asked to evaluate her work. She looks at me as if I have finally lost it. Rolling up her eyes and blowing away a wisp of raven-black hair from her face, she attempts to tackle this seemingly difficult task.

“My most outstanding films so far have been Usman Peerzada’s Karz, Syed Noor’s Raja Pakistani, Shararat, Fire, Babul and Mehndi walay haath. But I’m glad to say the best is still to come. I’m a stickler for image and class. You’ll know what I mean soon enough when Iqbal Kashmiri’s Aatish and Khalid Rauf’s Laaj get released in April. I’m not doing any more Punjabi films and want to concentrate more on print modelling. On the small screen, I have two knock-out ventures which I’m really looking forward to — Usman Zulfiqar’s Heer and Zulqarnain Haider’s supernatural suspense thriller Khamosh. Also, I have a series of tele-films directed by Farooq Mengal and adapted for television by Asghar Nadeem Syed. They are based on the artistic works of legendary writers such as Manto, Prem Chand and others. I’m really excited about the project.”

At the end of the day, what Nirma would like most is to be the star for whom audiences throng to theatres.

“I want to be the Shabana Azmi or Smita Patel of the Pakistani film industry.” No wonder then that she’s working to achieve that end.

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)