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My life is a split screen: Lisa Ray

Sujata Assomull talks to her friend - model, actress and cancer survivor - Lisa Ray and discovers she's still a free spirit with strong core values.

The almost Bond Girl, who hopes to win the Booker Prize one day, Lisa Ray describes herself as "wild and free at 43". About to make her return to the big screen, Ray has lived many lives. The half-Polish, half-Bengali beauty was born in Canada and, as a teenager, wanted to grow up and be a writer.

Says Lisa, "I was extremely shy and introverted as a child to the extent that I was trying to chose a career on the basis of one where I might have minimal human contact - writing or academia [I was extremely studious] seemed to fit the bill. At the same time, I was possessed with an extremely curious and adventurous spirit, so my main aspiration was to have an unfettered, adventurous, juicy life led on my own terms. I was - and still am - very rebellious in my own way: I refuse to follow anyone else's script as to how my life should go and what success should look like."

At 16, Lisa managed to negotiate a year's sabbatical from her parents before she joined university and was to spend that time in India. She was spotted at a party, and somehow found herself at fashion photographer Ashok Salian's ?studio. She shot some pictures for India's then only fashion glossy, run by Maureen Wadia, Gladrags. Soon after, she went back home to pursue her dream of becoming an author. But then she and her family were involved in a serious car accident, and her mother broke her back. Around the same time, Ray's cover of Gladrags hit the newsstands, and she was an overnight sensation.

"This was the beginning of a theme in my life I call 'split screen'. On one side, fame and fortune beckoned. On the other, there was the personal setback. Maureen actually flew down to Canada to ask me to return and model for her and Bombay Dyeing, and became my first guardian in Bombay. So, basically, were it not for this set of circumstances, I might be winning the Booker Prize right now, dammit!" But there's still time for that, she reckons.

Lisa, a cancer survivor, has been able to keep herself positive through it all, as her story of successes coupled with calamity does not end. The actor makes her celluloid comeback in the film Ishq Forever, releasing in mid February. Her own story could make for the perfect script too. Ishq Forever is a fun romantic comedy directed by Sameer Sippy, introducing Krishna and starring Ruhi Singh, Arif Zakaria and Javed Jafferi. It is not a conventional choice for a comeback, but then Lisa has never been a conventional girl. "Ishq Forever is a very interesting story - a rom-adventure, you might say."

It's set in South Africa and she plays a RAW agent who's the head of security detail for a college kid, played by Ruhi Singh, whose father has become the Prime Minister of India. "In the course of protecting and losing her, I come face to face with my ex-husband, played by Javed Jaffrey. It's a fun script, and I agreed, as the character is strong and independent, but also quirky. I trained with Shifuji for the action scenes - an interesting challenge at 43!" Lisa has also started shooting for her next film, Zaahak, a horror flick that also stars Huma Qureshi.

From the Gladrags swimsuit cover, that broke all conventions, to the Afreen Afreen Girl, she was one of India's first supermodels. It was at this time that I first met her. We were in our early twenties; I was starting as a fashion writer at a newspaper and wanted to branch out into fashion styling. Lisa decided to take a chance with me when she signed on as the face of Lakme: styling the campaigns became one of my first commercial ?assignments. She was carefree - you never knew if she would turn up for a shoot or not (though she did, more often than not). Back then, she never really took modelling seriously and was more interested in learning about Indian art than clothes and make-up. She had no career plan and acting was never on her agenda. "Perhaps it's hard to believe today, but modelling in Bombay in the 90s was an end in itself," she explains. "There was no incentive to be a part of Bollywood for many reasons. Firstly, they were so bad: the quality of acting, the costumes, the stories, and the archetypes. Secondly, I was a huge personality in India at that time without doing films. There was great success to be had in the advertising field. Plus, many films of that era were financed by the underworld, so it was a very unsavoury business to be a part of. Lastly, I never wanted to be an actress!" She was approached by all the big filmmakers of the day, but never took their offers forward.

Meanwhile, I'd moved from news-papers to fashion magazine ELLE. As I called to tell her the news, she announced she had signed up for Kasoor, a film directed by Vikram Bhatt, starring a relative newcomer, Aftab Shivdasani. It seemed like an odd choice, but Lisa says, "I don't believe in planning. Not one bit. I believe in being curious and following the signs to where life takes you." Something about Bhatt and the female-dominated script had clicked with her, so she signed on. The film was not a "super-hit" but she had made an impact; the Bhatts even signed her up for Raaz, which she dropped out of for personal reasons.

Lisa did not feel mainstream cinema was for her and so looked for something new. "I was intrigued about this acting thing; then Deepa Mehta offered me ?Bollywood/Hollywood and my appetite for acting was really whetted. I was sim-ultaneously studying meditation and yoga and discovered a lot of overlaps."

After that film, Lisa disappeared from Mumbai and from my life for a while. "After a decade in Bombay, I was feeling suffocated," she says. "I needed to exp-lore a different sort of life, away from public scrutiny, and become a student again. I moved to London and enrolled in drama school. While I was immersed in my programme and life in London, Deepa sent me the script for Water and I had to petition my principal to let me go off for a semester to film!" Lisa spent three months in Sri Lanka shooting, and then, just before its release, I got a phone call from her. That summer, I happened to be in London, and we picked up right where we left off. She introduced me to yoga, and we went to the museums and enjoyed evenings out at some of the city's best restaurants.

Lisa is a trained yoga teacher and today co-owns a yoga studio in Toronto, called Moksha Yoga Brampton. "I don't subscribe to the idea that my whole life revolves around work, career or staying in the news - let's not forget this social media mania is a recent phenomenon. I like to have space to pursue my private interests, whether it's meditation, art ?or yoga. I lived in London, Paris, Milan, New York and Los Angeles, and went on extensive meditation retreats to Dharamsala." Again, the split screen metaphor comes into play: on one side, a glamorous, international lifestyle and a refusal to conform, and on the other, many months spent in silent solitude.

As I moved to Delhi to launch Harper's Bazaar in India, Lisa moved back to Canada, becoming a well-respected TV anchor and actor there. Again, we lost touch. I heard she had auditioned for a part in the 2008 Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, and was one of the two finalists for the role. At the time of Bazaar's launch, it struck me that we should have a story on her. But I could not get in touch with her, and I put it down to her needing time off, as she often did. Then a common friend told me she had ?multiple myeloma, a cancer of the white blood cells that produces antibodies, and that her mother had passed away six months ago (we later learnt her mother's passing was the reason she went back to Toronto). It was now 2009 and we were in our mid-thirties. I had to reach out to her but had no idea what to say. All I remember was her positivity, how she sounded full of energy and was excited to hear about my new life in Delhi.

Lisa had started a blog - The Yellow Diaries - chronicling her time with cancer. "There is no simple answer as to where I got my strength. I'm writing a book... when it comes to cancer, I don't like to offer platitudes and one-liners. Wait for the book," she says.

She got better and came to stay with me in Delhi a few times, and all her trips centred around raising awareness for cancer. She even came out with a limited edition collection of saris for Satya Paul for the wedding season, and its ?proceeds went to the Indian Innovation Research Center.

Always upbeat, there was never a ?minute when Lisa showed signs of des-pair - only gratitude. She still wanted to spend her days looking at art galleries and was happy to go out for a good ?dinner in the evening. "I don't think of myself as a survivor, which seems to imply that I'm lying by the seashore, seaweed in my hair, gasping for breath," she says. "I'm a better version of myself, post-cancer. I met my husband, and reaffirmed my vow to live life on my own terms wherever I wish: I'm a successful cancer graduate, though I must point out that multiple myeloma is technically incurable and I'm still on drugs."

Now married to Jason Dehni (she ?married Dehni in Napa Valley in 2012), an investment banker who lives in Hong Kong (where she travels to frequently), Lisa has a home in Mumbai and travels to Canada often. She continues to work as a model and has been Rado's brand ambassador for over a decade. Though more grounded now, she is still a free spirit at heart.

As Lisa says, "Marriage to Jason has given me wings. Some marriages chain you, but my marriage is full of support and unconditional love so that I can ?continue being the zany, wild-hearted creature I've always been - only now, I have a cave to return to."

All I can say is that it's a privilege to have a friend like Lisa.

sujata@khaleejtimes.com