When well-known film actress Nirupa Roy passed away a few years back, the first reaction of one of my friends on hearing the news was to exclaim, "Now Amitabh Bachchan won't have a mother."
While such a reaction might provoke laughter at the onset, the remark is a telling statement on the film industry � the merging of the reel and the real, how certain roles get stereotyped, the deification of lead characters and the obscuring of the existence of the rest of the crew in comparison, and yet the intrinsic and undeniably important role of supporting characters in making a film a success story.
Longjam Ongbi Lalitabi Devi has often been eulogized as the Nirupa Roy of Manipuri films. She has played mother to many of the leading actors and actresses of the State. Yet for her each new film and each new motherhood is a challenge to be surmounted.
"While two films would have a similar storyline, similar character I always strive to give something new and something different with each performance � be it in dialogue delivery or in acting," she says.
Lalitabi has acted in more than a hundred films � both celluloid and digital films -- apart from acting on the proscenium stage also.
Her celluloid films include the film Jehera based on Hijam Anganghal's novel by the same name which tells of the love of a Musim girl Jehera and a Meitei during the royal regime in the 1930s and the racial prejudices the two lovers undergo.
"During the shooting for Jehera, I walked up to the mangol of a nearby house in the costume (I was playing a Muslim lady) and asked for water. To my amazement, an old lady of the house shooed me away and asked me to stand at the churitapham instead. She insisted on my placing even the glass I drank from down on the ground instead of the mangol. I was so troubled that day," she narrated.
While the incident shows how deep rooted are racial prejudices in the State and how it exists even now, it cold also be taken as "... the ultimate test for any actor, and the old lady took you for a Muslim lady while you are not," as film producer Shanti Thokchom feels.
Lalitabi has won the best supporting actress award for Inthoklabi at the Manipur State Film Festival, 2006.
Film producers and directors make a beeline for her while selecting the cast of a new film. However the formulae of her success is simply "god-given inspiration."
She has had no formal training in acting or a long-running relation with the theatre or the film world. Born in a penury driven home headed by her widowed mother (her father, a mason, died when she was just starting to crawl), she and her siblings had to struggle for even the basic amenities of life.
"I am the youngest of eight siblings -- one brother and seven sisters. Therefore I managed to get away from work most time. But we all did our share of weaving all kinds of clothes for mother to sell. This was to keep the kitchen fire burning. Otherwise we couldn't even afford to buy books, borrowing from others to read most times � which inevitably the owners would take back during exam time," she narrates.
Witty, resilient and good-humoured, Lalitabi however makes light of the hardships she had faced with a joke "� and thus I managed to study and thus I managed to fail."
Lalitabi did her initial schooling from Thamchet Girls High School and shifted to Wangkhei Girls for her Class IX and X. She however couldn't pass high school.
She married soon after to Longjam Tomba of Nongmeibung Porompat Chuthek, an employee with the United Bank of India. They have two children � a son and a daughter. Her husband passed away a few years back.
It was while her husband was posted in Kakching that Lalitabi had her first brush with theatre, acting at the Kha Manipur Dramatic Union for a few plays. She was around 25 years old then.
It was however in 1996 that she was re-introduced to theatre and became associated with the Manipur Dramatic Union (MDU). She also started doing films around the same time.
"One wish that remains is that I want to do art films, for I want to do leela, not show off my good looks. But sadly there is no market for these films in Manipur," she says and adds, "Whether it rains guns or bombs, since I have stepped into this art world, I'll go on performing without fear."
Besides Jehera, other celluloid films she had worked in are Thawaigi Thawai, Inthoklabi, Yaosanggi Meiri, Cheina, Wahangsina and Ayukki Shingarei.
Some of her digital films include Tellanga Mamei, Thajabagi Wangmada and Nangtana Helli.
Thingnam Anjulika Samom wrote this article for The Sangai Express .
You can contact the writer at thingnam(at)yahoo(dot)com .
This article was webcasted on February 13th, 2008
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