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Recently we saw Rasika Dugal portraying a young mother in Tu Hai Mera Sunday. The talented Rasika is now all set to play Ishrat – a Kashmiri mother, in the upcoming drama, Hamid. The film revolves around Kashmir’s conflict zones through an emotional mother-son journey. It traces the eight-year-old boy’s quest to find his father.
It was a daunting task for Rasika to play a mother whose husband is lost and her young son is on quest to find her father. Hamid takes the audience to a whole new level with the performances by Rasika and child artist Talha Reshi.
To prepare her role, Rasika did her homework by reading and watching documentaries on the life of Kashmir’s ‘Lady of Iron’, Parveena Ahangar. Parveena is the founder of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for her pacifism and human rights activism. The actress was also very influenced by Iffat Fatima’s 26-minute documentary – Where Have You Hidden My New Moon Crescent, which tells the story of Mughal Masi, who died waiting 20 years for her son to return. Rasika researched on the internet by going through various petitions, news articles published on the plight of Kashmiri women to locate their husbands and children in the conflict zone.
When asked Rasika about her research she said,
“It’s a part of my job as an actor to do research work on a part I am going to play. That is the most basic thing that I can do. The more important thing is to somehow find a connect with people and situations which are seemingly beyond your own realm of experience. I always find it useful to accept to myself honestly that I will always be an outsider to another person’s experience but, at the same time, I am craving to be let in. That leaves me both vulnerable and curious. But at the end of the day, I can only do my work to the best of my knowledge and hope that I have been sensitive to the people whose story we are attempting to tell especially when it’s about people who have lived in conflict for so long”
