It’s very typical of middle-class Indian thinking – if you have a strong academic record, then you only pursue a particular career. I used to do some college theatre, but I never really thought I would be an actor,” says Tannishtha Chatterjee, of her early life in Pune and her college degree in chemistry. “I guess destiny had some other plans.”

Her story makes you believe in destiny. Watch her on screen and it’s difficult to imagine that an actor of such incredible talent might ever have been just a couple of decisions away from becoming something else. Chatterjee’s story has neither the inevitability of the star child inheriting a parent’s mantle nor the dogged, fabulous nature of the small-town person-making-it-against-all-odds plot. In interviews, she has spoken about her father’s puzzlement at her choosing to give up a career for what he thought should have remained a hobby. But her own determination to act, and a scholarship at the National School of Drama, changed everything.

The actress who started out in 2003 with Swaraj (which earned her a National Award nomination for best supporting actress) has gone on to do path-breaking work in movies like Bibar (2006) and, most famously, 2007’s Brick Lane. Accolades at festivals have become part of her films’ routines. Her presence at Cannes last year to represent the eagerly-awaited Road, Movie was impactful in a way that the acres of column inches afforded to her better-known colleagues from Bollywood were not. Due for a February release in India, Road, Movie is already generating the sort of festival buzz that we last saw for that little big indie flick, Slumdog Millionaire. “I have been a huge fan of Dev Benegal’s movies since my high school years,” Chatterjee says, of her motivation for the project. “He was one of the first film-makers who redefined urban Indian cinema when he made English, August. It was a great experience for me to work with him in Road, Movie. I love Dev’s humour – he is very chilled out.” It’s been no lightweight project, helmed as it is by the producer team responsible for Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette. International enthusiasm for the film has been immense. “Yes,” Chatterjee says, “Both screenings at the openings in Toronto were sold out. We had an amazing response.”

Even more recently, Chatterjee reaped fervent praise at 2009’s Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council film festival, where she won a Best Actress award for her role in New York film-maker Joseph Matthew Varghese’s Bombay Summer. The film also showed to rave reviews at Goa’s International Film Festival of India. The New Indian Express’ Baradwaj Rangan was pleased to call Chatterjee ‘superb’ in it, declaring, ‘There are several hints of how this modest movie could have become a Bollywood blockbuster – the tease of a love triangle, or the struggling writer who, despite his collected composure, might just be wishing that his publishing-industry girlfriend were a tad less successful…this is the sort of lived-in Bombay cinema we need more of. Just wondering – where do these films vanish after making the festival rounds?’ Geeta, the central character of the film, was perhaps more autobiographical than some of her other roles. Chatterjee’s talent is the sort that comes along once or twice in a generation, that of the actor whose presence on screen is riveting, even as her ability to slip under the skin of her character is absolute. In Brick Lane, as the Bangladeshi immigrant to London who strives to establish a sense of self, her transformation is beautiful to watch; gentle, quiet, expressive, and perfectly accented in every way, from her English to the stoop of her shoulders. She calls it her most difficult role, but it is effortless on screen. Small wonder, then, industry insiders have called her a phenomenon, with a luminescence unseen since the days of Smita Patil.

Dividing her life between London and Mumbai, Hindi and English (and more), acting and her other great accomplishment, music (she is a trained Hindustani vocalist, and has sung for her German film Shadows of Time, as well as for Road, Movie and the forthcoming Bhopal, A Prayer for Rain) – what about dividing time between art house and Bollywood? No direct answer is forthcoming. She would pick Almodovar over Tarantino, but can’t choose between Imtiaz Ali and Vishal Bhardwaj, “for separate reasons.” Her foray into multiplex cinema with Raja Menon’s Barah Aana last year indicates that the interest exists. Still, so does the ambivalence. “I love Bollywood when it sticks to what its good at,” she says. “Entertain. I love films like Sholay and Deewar. I loved Om Shanti Om.”

It’s clearly a good thing, then, that Bollywood, in spite of a seemingly monolithic identity, has entered the most heterogeneous phase of its history. Perhaps some day its path will cross with Chatterjee’s own, and the results might be spectacular. But right now, one suspects it’s not the first thing on Chatterjee’s mind. For someone who equates acting with life, ambition goes beyond the politics of distribution. “I’ve never made plans,” she smiles. “Things just happened. I’ll also leave it, in the future, to things happening.”

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