Sarita Choudhury goes from ingenue to Mother India
Saturday, May 3rd 2008, 4:00 AM
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Sarita Choudhury
Not long ago, Sarita Choudhury would have been playing the feisty young bride at the center of the new play “Rafta, Rafta.”
Instead, Choudhury - the alluring star of such 1990s films as “Mississippi Masala” and “Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love” - has the role of the bride’s tradition-bound mother, whose slightly prudish air is played for laughs.
“It’s taken me a while to adjust,” says Choudhury, 41. “My early acting was ingénue stuff. I’ve always played the younger generation, so it’s comical for me to be playing what I rebelled against. But as I get older, the roles get better.”
In “Rafta, Rafta,” opening Thursday at the Acorn Theater on W. 42nd St., Choudhury has dressed down and transformed herself into a middle-aged woman by donning a pair of dowdy glasses in hopes that “people couldn’t see me that well,” she says.
“I didn’t want the glasses to do the acting, but wearing them all the time made me feel a little bit uglier. When I see myself, I think I look a little like a prime minister.”
Written by Ayub Khan-Din, “Rafta, Rafta” is based on a British comedy by Bill Naughton, transplanted to London’s Indian immigrant community. The story focuses on a pair of newlyweds whose conjugal problems are magnified by living with the groom’s parents, giving them little privacy as they deal with their inability to consummate the marriage.
Beyond the obvious sex jokes, the play pits traditional values against the urge to modernize, with children confronting parents in an inevitable clash of hopes and dreams. The struggle is typical of - but hardly unique to - Indian culture, Choudhury observes.
“I have a Cuban friend who came to see the play - and he went on and on about how it reflected his culture,” says Choudhury, who was born in London and is half-Indian, half-English.
Choudhury made her acting debut in Mira Nair’s “Mississippi Masala” (1991), playing Denzel Washington’s lover. While the art-house hit still has a devoted following, Choudhury admits that it didn’t launch her career in the way she hoped.
“When it came out, no one knew what to do with my look,” she says. "Back then, to be black was okay, but to be Indian in America? That wasn’t so useful. So I studied and got my American accent down and feel I’ve escaped being pigeonholed.
“Still, every time I get to play an Indian role, it’s exciting. I feel like I’m honoring what my father taught me.”
Choudhury has a recurring role in an upcoming TV series she won’t disclose that will keep her busy after “Rafta, Rafta” ends in late June. Until then, she’s happy to be in a play aimed at the ever-growing Indian audience in New York.
“In England, entertainment by and for Indians is huge,” she says. “But here, there’s very little. So people are relieved to have something like this to come to. Most nights, the audience is half-Indian. But the laughs come from everyone.”