Ten years ago, I was inexplicably afraid of many things. Of flying, living alone, being in the dark, death.... Today, I am intimidated by nothing.

She has consistently bucked expectations, to go beyond the ordinary, aided no doubt, by an undeniable courage and a sense of humour. Presently garnering national attention with the bravura Eve Ensler-written The Vagina Monologues, stage diva, Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal came up trumps with directing Hollywood actresses, Jane Fonda and Marisa Tomei, on an Indian platform. Looking MEHER MARFATIA squarely in the eye, she says, “I dive in where others fear to tread. Does that make me a fool?”

[Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal: attention-getting performer]

“To think I’d finally end up on stage…” Sweeping histrionics isn’t quite the normal route following double degrees in microbiology and geology. Her father wanted her to become a doctor. Thankfully, medicine’s loss turned into theatre’s whopping gain. Mahabanoo believes being an only child may have made her crave similar attention outside the family, which she knew theatre would spotlight – “One director actually accuses me of this! But attention embarrasses me in my private life. I can’t make that first move. People not knowing this consider me a snob.”

Dabbling in school plays, public speaking, singing with Remo for AIDS awareness, her professional 1994 break saw her essay the feisty Ouiser Boudreaux in da Cunha’s Steel Magnolias. “With an actress’ dream lines, I was dying for it. It established me,” she acknowledges.

“Vagina is not a dirty word, it’s the biological name for a part of the body of half the population of this world. And the entire population has spent the first few months of their lives in close proximity to it. Is this so difficult to comprehend? We are such hypocrites. Sorry to dwell on Page 3 stereotypes but they’re blindly cloned. Its women dress in overpriced and undersized clothes that almost exhibit the vagina – and we can’t say the word! How stupid is that?”

The Vagina Monologues celebrates women’s strengths and sexuality. Introducing its explicit, no-holds-barred, often poetically beautiful passages, was ‘crazy, challenging’, Mahabanoo recalls. “Thankfully, the response isn’t restricted to your fancy foo-foo crowd. It was gratifying to have a simple, 80-year-old man hobble over to declare he’s happy to be living in an India that has begun accepting the ‘V’ word.”

Directors like da Cunha swear Mahabanoo has huge reserves of untapped potential. So, what exciting possibilities does the fine actress herself want to tap?

“I’d like to swim uncharted waters, maybe attempt a role that’s completely Indian-rooted and not funny.”

Till then, it’s cheers to her yet-to-come best…