Theatre and film veteran Sushma Seth shares her life in her just-launched memoir that also doubles up as a guide to theatre. Stageplay: The Journey of An Actor is now on store shelves

Theatre and film veteran Sushma Seth shares her life in her just-launched memoir that also doubles up as a guide to theatre. Stageplay: The Journey of An Actor is now on store shelves

It may have been three decades since Hum Log went on air, but Sushma Seth is still Indian television's most popular daadi.

The actress, who has played character roles in several hundred movies, appeared in a fair amount of television shows, and even revisited her first love stage traces her life in a just-launched autobiography.

It is an effortless piece of writing, and her childhood days ("I did not like school," she admits candidly) are a pleasure to read.
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Strangely though, there is no specific dateline mentioned at the beginning of the book, nor does she specify the place where she grew up.

Stageplay takes us through Sushma's childhood in a liberal joint family, introduces the reader to her talented aunts, and gives readers a peek into the elaborate celebrations of each festival.

The acting bug bit her early on.

Sushma and her numerous siblings and cousins would enact plays written by her own uncle.

School performances followed, and before she knew it, at 18, the actress was ready to study at Briarcliff College in New York in 1956.

Sushma speaks fondly of New York in the fall, the exotic hued leaves, and passionately about the various classes she took up Drama, History of Art and Music Appreciation.

The actress recounts her plays back in India, including Abe Lincoln in Illinois by Robert E Sherwood, Our Town by Thornton Wilder, and a Hindi adaptation of Russian play The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol.

Her first film, Shyam Benegal's Junoon, is remembered with warmth as is her conviction to play the matriarch in Kumar Vasudev's Hum Log. What we miss are details about her marriage, and the birth of her children.

Part two of the 146-page book kicks off with what reminds us of a mini textbook on how to conduct children's theatre workshops.

It all began with Sushma wanting to keep her three little ones engaged during their summer vacations, and signing them up for workshops she conducted herself.
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Readers are given theatre tools, teaching formats and modules for workshops. At this point, the book stops reading like an autobiography.

Stageplay ends on a lovely note, with contemporary character actors, who were Sushma's associates or prot ufffdg ufffds, paying tribute to her. It's a graceful book, but the genre is a little confusing.