An actress and a human being. These may be two different roles, different entities altogether. But when the person playing these two roles happens to be the legendary Marathi actress Alka Kubal-Athlye, then one senses a conscious effort on her part not to allow too much compromise with her personality and sense of self worth and dignity in real life. “Playing different characters is all right, but I do draw a line beyond which I have never gone. For, besides being an actress, I also am engaged in multiple real-life roles of a wife, a mother, a daughter-in-law. So, I have chosen my own priorities,” she asserts. This comes to fore in a pronounced manner when the iconic actress appears in a public interview in front of a capacity-packed audience at the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Saraswati Mandir in Ram Nagar. Interviewer being noted actress and anchor Prabha Deoskar, the interview lasting for about an hour extracts different dimensions of the reel-life and real-life personae of Alka Kubal-Athlye -- whose iconic Marathi film ‘Maherchi Sadi’ had done a stunning business of over Rs 500 crore a quarter of a century ago.

 

Of course, Alka Kubal-Athlye rues having been typecast in melancholic roles of a suffering woman of soft personality. Yet, she also shows a consciousness that those roles have given her the status of a true legend. “I would have loved to do other roles as well. But the reality is that out of my 350-plus movies, I played characters of suffering women in more than 200 outings,” she says. The questions are designed smartly to extract best of answers from Alka Kubal-Athlye whose looks defy her sixty years of age. Yet, the actress plays it cool, taking her own time to respond, flashing her inimitable smile, partly throwing back her head and narrowing her eyes while responding to a tricky question. But the ease with which she responds to questions shows how seasoned she is in this game of public outings -- fully conscious of the place she occupies in the minds of Marathi audiences for well over forty years. So comes the conscious effort to ensure that no wrong impression, no wrong message goes out. “I never made compromises with my personal values and personality,” she insists. “Once, I was asked to indulge in an unnecessary exhibition of my physical assets. I refused, because I realised that what the Directors expected me to do was actually totally unnecessary for the role I was playing,” she adds.

 

She then lingers in the memory of the public adulation she receives all the time. “People take me like something of a goddess or an epitome of virtue. They shower upon me so much appreciation for the reel-life characters I have played. At times, it is quite embarrassing, I must say. Yet, that is the way the audiences -- especially the Marathi audiences -- are, very emotionally involved, very sentimentally attached to the characters they happen to love and adore on the screen,” she says. All times are not the same, the actress says, recalling how many producers behaved with her when she met with a terrible accident while driving a car on a rainy day, hurting her spine. “The moment they realised that I was to be out of commission for a long time, they came to me to take back the signing amounts for the six films I had signed at that time,” Alka Kubal-Athlye says with a tinge of sadness in her voice. As she says this, the audience senses certain numbness, certain disgust with the ways of the world. But then, at this point in the interview, one senses the amazing ability of the great actress to communicate her feelings to audiences. Though she is speaking in real life, the actress does demonstrate her ability to capture the people’s attention in the most honest manner. She answers questions about the role she would love to play if given another opportunity, about how her husband and her two daughters and in-laws have treated with so much love and respect for her art ...!

 

“Why did you not turn to Hindi cinema and make more money?,” Prabha Deoskar asks. “Oh no. That was the last thing I would have done. For, having been at the top in Marathi films for so many years, I would never want to stray into Hindi cinema playing side-roles and insignificant characters. I am not made for that kind of a life only for money. And, believe me, I have been extremely satisfied with my earnings -- of money and popular respect and adulation,” she says in a firm tone. Of course, the smile on Alka Kubal-Athlye’s face never wanes, no matter the tone and tenor of the question posed to her. Flashes of pain of vagaries of life do sweep across her beautiful face, all right, but that is always momentary. She says, she always looks forward to doing something special, something she has not done so far. “But nothing will come through compromise with my values,” she says. The details of her filmography are well known to people. But what the public interview brings out is the emotional persona of the virtuoso actress. “I have won many honours in my life. But the honour you have bestowed upon me has obviously come from simple people without any flashiness. That is what I value the most,” Alka Kubal-Athlye says with a disarming smile.