Surekha Sikri on surviving brain stroke and attending acting workshops

The August 15 holiday isn’t one for Surekha Sikri. That morning, she’ll travel by car to a major production house in Santacruz for a look test. The role she’s hoping to get is one she describes as “complex and interesting”, one written by a major director for a streaming platform. Sikri isn’t nervous. She’s been rehearsing in front of the mirror at her Versova flat for days. The four-hour-long test is a tiring process, but her day isn’t done yet. She’ll then make the 30-minute drive to Andheri to attend an acting workshop by Atul Mongia. She’s been out from 12 pm to 9 pm. And at 74, she’s still raring to go.

Still, having a packed schedule is somewhat of an anomaly for the actress. She spends her mornings following a leisurely routine of prayer-breakfast-bath at her Versova flat. Evenings are for fulfilling ‘phone obligations.’ Sikri puts on some classical music (“some Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, some Mozart”) and figures out whose calls she has to return, who she has to text back. “I’m not tech-savvy and these new phones are so hard. It’s like a puzzle inside which I get lost,” she says. She watches films, but “with a critical sense, always” and declines to name any she’s enjoyed over the past year. She doesn’t go out often, preferring instead to read. On her bookshelf? Mostly autobiographies.

If Sikri’s been taking the past year slow, it’s because she’s been advised to. In November last year, she was shooting for a TV serial in Mahabaleshwar when she fell and hit her head in the bathroom, suffering a brain stroke. The months that followed were hard. “The key word was paralysis. As an actor, I felt like a musical instrument that was not being played. I can’t use my left hand the way I used to. There are so many things I want to do in terms of movement and speech that I can’t.” Harder still was losing out on roles. A script for a short film centered around the LGBTQ community was the first thing to pique Sikri’s interest six months after the accident. However, the part required her to perform certain hand and leg movements, something the makers were not convinced she was well enough for. “I felt quite bad about it,” she says. Now, she refuses to keep feeling sorry for herself. There’s a steely resolve that with physiotherapy and the right attitude, life will go back to the way it was within the next few weeks.

A month before the accident, Badhaai Ho in which Sikri plays the acerbic dadi, hit theatres. In one standout scene, she reacts to the news that her daughter-in-law, Priyamwada (Neena Gupta) is pregnant. There’s confusion, slow-dawning comprehension and then, rage. “That was a lengthy scene. We shot for five to six hours. (Director) Amit Sharma took around a 100 takes of the whole scene from different angles. Not once did she say: I will not do it or ho gaya na, kitna chahiye? Not a single frown,” says her co-star Gajraj Rao. There’s another tirade towards the end of the film, only this time it’s in defence of Priyamwada instead. Sikri found the transition from a combative mother-in-law to an accepting one difficult to crack. So how did she play it on that day? “Spontaneously, just as it should have been,” she says. The blessing she gives Priyamwada at the end of the scene was completely improvised.

She’s a fighter.. 👏

We miss you onscreen.. 😒

Pls recover soon.. 👍