People who have never been to school rarely make it to the list of esteemed guest speakers at the Singapore Writers Festival.
But award-winning Indian actress Sarika, 49, who has never attended school for a single day in her life, is a worthy candidate.
Not only is the veteran Bollywood star well-qualified to speak on Saturday on the importance of good scriptwriting in films, she is also a voracious bookworm who taught herself how to read.
In a telephone interview with Life!, the Mumbai-based actress recalled how a busy film career that started when she was only four years old left her with no time for school.
'I was taught the basic alphabet by tutors and learnt everything else on my own,' she says.
'It started with the newspapers. I would circle the words I could not understand and use a dictionary. Then I was reading the newspapers and dictionary simultaneously.
'Once I got started, I moved on to magazines before stepping into the fascinating world of books.'
Her eclectic reading list includes the historical novel Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ (1880) by American statesman and author Lew Wallace, the Booker Prize-winning novel The English Patient (1992) by Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje, the satire A Clockwork Orange (1962) by English author Anthony Burgess and the epic fantasy novel The Lord Of The Rings (1954-1955) by English writer J.R.R. Tolkien.
Her life, too, reads like a book.
Barely 12 when she scored her first lead role in a Hindi film, she went on to carve an illustrious career in about 100 films.
In 1988, she gave it all up for love when she wed actor and director Kamal Haasan. The union, which produced two daughters, ended in divorce in 2000 and she returned to Hindi cinema with an award-winning performance in the film, Parzania (Heaven And Hell On Earth).
The 2005 film, based on the true story of a 13-year-old boy who disappeared during the 2002 riots in Gujarat, will be screened tomorrow as part of the festival at The Arts House. She will be present for a post-show dialogue.
'For me, what really matters is not just the role but also where it stands in the script,' she says, when asked what drew her to the role as the boy's devastated mother.
'It has to challenge me and this one did. Parzania had a brilliant script. I know when the script works, my character will work too,' adds Sarika, who is set to star opposite Indian superstar Amitabh Bachchan in the upcoming movie Shoe Bite.
She has also acted in director Santosh Sivan's critically acclaimed Tahaan (2008), which is based on the life of a young boy and his pet donkey.
In it, she plays the mother of an eight-year-old in the troubled Kashmir Valley. She says the simple story highlights how conflicts impact children's minds and their lives.
She says: 'Tahaan is a film I am very fond of. I like the way it is treated. It is a very happy film but at the same time, it is very scary because it is a reality that whatever conflicts happen in life, it affects children'.
Acting is all about going to places she has not been to before.
She says: 'The most beautiful part about being an actor is that you get to be everybody except yourself.'
But much as she loves her job, she refuses to take on back-to-back projects and admits that she is very selective about her roles. One big draw for her are films in which she gets to appear without much make-up, which is what she prefers in real life.
In Bheja Fry (2007), a quirky film about a music producer and his singer wife, she sported unstyled hair and no make-up.
'If it is a slightly more glamorous role, I put a bit of eye make-up and lipstick. I have always hated make-up,' she says.
In another rare admission, she also talks about being a night bird.
'I am a night person. I come alive at night. I like to do everything at night.'
Perhaps one of these nights, her Singapore fans might just bump into a make-up-free Sarika at her favourite Singapore haunt.
'I love the Newton Circus food centre. That place has amazing energy. Once I have had my fix of steamboat there, my life is set.'
