Roles with the punches

She began her career playing a defiantly unglamorous assistant on a TV show about breaking stereotypes. Two decades on, Singh, now 44, has portrayed a mother, gritty cop, formidable gangster and sand mafia chief, each part pushing her to reinvent herself. What draws her to these unconventional choices? And, what does it take to carve a niche in an industry that rarely shifts its lens

- Arshia

In the history of Indian television, very few occupy the distinctive space that actor Mona Singh does.

She entered the scene with the Hindi television show Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin (2003-06), an adaptation of the wildly popular Colombian telenovela Yo soy Betty, la fea (1999-2001), hidden behind thick glasses, braces and unflattering outfits.

Playing the defiantly unglamorous Jassi, Singh took on the role of a character who used grit, wit and grace to navigate the unforgiving fashion industry - mirroring her own instinctive command over her craft.

The network eventually went on to pull off one of the biggest promotional coups of all time by withholding Jassi's real persona from the public eye until much later, a move that cemented the actor as impossible to ignore, and even harder to forget.

Singh says the show also helped her find her own voice.

"For me, Jassi was also all heart. And that is when I realised that the audience will follow you if they believe in you and your art," she says.

Twenty-three years later, Singh, now 44, is still listening to her heart, driven by the instincts that keep her from being stereotyped into roles — like that of an older woman or mother — that are so often the laziest boxes women in the industry are pushed into.

Interestingly, some of her most notable performances have been in big-ticket projects where she plays a mother, such as in Laal Singh Chaddha (2022), a Hindi adaptation of Forrest Gump, in which she plays the mother of Aamir Khan, who is 16 years older. In the TV series Made in Heaven season 2 (2023), she plays the sharp Bulbul Jauhari — again a mother, this time a firm yet empathetic one — to an errant teenager.