'Saeed's Life Is His Business'

MADHUR Jaffrey doesn't give anything away. Her face is like alabaster, her demeanour is almost aristocratic, and her words are chosen carefully. No, she did not read the autobiography of Saeed Jaffrey, her former husband, which was released last year although she does admit to looking at reviews of the book. Only raised eyebrows and a disbelieving smile betray some of her feelings when bits of the text are described to her. Indicating, without words, that some of the contents referring to her might be baloney. Jaffrey has no comment about the fact that the book has been reviewed to be a pointless chronology of sexual encounters which reads like the biography of a penis' rather than an autobiography. And she has no response to the fact that Saeed blames the beginning of the deterioration of their marriage on her admitting to being kissed by a black man. And no, she has no interest whatsoever in reading the book now or ever. The reasons are painstakingly worded upon a piece of paper. His life is his how he wants to live it and how he wants to write about it is his business. It has no connection with me anymore, she writes. I want desperately to keep my private life as private as possible. I have had my run-ins with the tabloid press and I want to stay as far away from it as possible. So ask me anything else you want, but I don't wish to answer questions about my private life.

Enthusiasm returns to her voice as she talks animatedly about how her adopted home New York has become appreciative of young Indian talent. The hard part was that for young Indian actors there was very little work... We would only be cast as Indians. But that has changed dramatically in the last few years.

She has recently been involved with a movie called Chutney Popcorn and another called ABCD -American-born confused desi both written by young Indians born in the US. In the old days, one could not get much work and one never saw anyone like oneself... you felt invisible.

And just as she convinced Merchant-Ivory to produce Cotton Mary, she is now putting her weight behind Indian writers in New York. These are very young people just out of film school and they are just brilliant, she says of Krutin Patel and Nisha Ganatra. It's not very lucrative but she is proud to help them get readings together and to raise money.

The integration is being seen at different levels. For the first time on the street, I see Indian bums as well. They look like western bums, but speak Punjabi, she exclaims. These people, not just doctors and engineers, are now giving a new life to America.

Then, there's cuisine. Indian food is now cooked by the best chefs in New York, and is not the preserve any more of run-down restaurants on Lexington Avenue. As a well-known chef herself, this point has enormous appeal. Even on location in Kerala, she cant resist working on a new recipe for grilled vegetables which she then explains to the chef of the hotel she is staying at. You need more vegetables on the menu, because many foreigners can't eat the local salads, she says, convincing the German proprietor. The recipe tried by guests and management was approved and will now be added on to the main menu. However, she still thinks of herself after many cookbooks as an actress who likes to cook rather than the other way round: I began doing it for the money, but now of course it is a profession.

Merchant had earlier said that the role of Cotton Mary was a lifetime opportunity, as the whole film pivots around this complex character. How does she view this challenge? It's a very difficult role... She's so mercurial and always playing games. You never know when she's for real and when she is trying to fool people.' Jaffrey has been pondering the role for over five years. It's the toughest I've ever played. Is she more confident as an actress now than her Shakespearewallah days? As you get older, you might gain in maturity, but you also become more insecure as you become aware of all that you dont know.

An interesting aspect of playing Mary is that Madhur gets to act with her daughter Sakina. She and I have been with the script for so long. Hardly anyone else has had that chance to work closely with the other actors. There is no feeling of having to compete and she believes that the interaction has given a quality to their scenes together that she does not feel exists in any other scene. The author of the script, Alexandra Viets describes it differently. Their interaction was good because of the conflict that came out a closeness but at the same time a desperate need for rebellion.