There is nobody quite like Tabu in the Hindi film industry. Fifty-one years old, she makes frequent appearances on the big screen. Her contemporaries, on the other hand, have slowed down with time. Tabu had made an uncredited appearance as a child artist in Sagar Sarhadi’s drama Bazaar (1982). However, her first commercial success as the female lead was Farouq Siddique’s Vijaypath (1994) opposite Ajay Devgn, her co-star in many films in the years to come.
A glance at her filmography reveals why Tabu is, without a shade of doubt, one of the most accomplished actresses of her generation. A recipient of many awards, the critically acclaimed actress has also enjoyed a lot of commercial success in a three-decade-long career studded with fine performances.
Tabu has appeared in five films since the beginning of 2022, a depressing year for the industry that was hit hard by too many failures. But she had two releases last year, both of them commercial successes. Her first 2022 film was Anees Bazmee’s comedy-drama Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, a standalone sequel to Priyadarshan’s Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007), which was a commercial success. Tabu’s superb performance in the ensemble cast film was a major attraction in BB 2, a timepass masala mix with a ghost, a ‘baba’ and much more, which became a blockbuster.
Her second release of the year was Abhishek Pathak’s gripping crime drama Drishyam 2, the direct sequel to the late Nishikant Kamat’s Drishyam (2015). An edge-of-the-seat thriller revolving around a family trying to evade the legal consequences of an accidental murder committed by the elder daughter, Drishyam 2 was a widely appreciated success. Tabu’s character of a cop does not have much screen time in the sequel, but the actress establishes its relevance in the story effortlessly.
Tabu’s first 2023 release was Aasman Bhardwaj’s action thriller Kuttey, a well-scripted, fast-paced ensemble cast film that takes the viewer deep inside a dark world of deceit, corruption, violence and greed. Playing a foul-mouthed small-town cop, Tabu overshadows others around her whenever she appears in the film. Kuttey received its share of appreciation, but it collapsed at the box-office. Her next release was the Ajay Devgn-helmed action thriller Bholaa, a high-octane entertainer revolving around a just-released prisoner who is going to meet his ten-year-old daughter for the first time. What happens after a police officer (Tabu) gives him a task that takes him on a journey full of dangers takes the story forward. Lovers of the action genre liked the film, and it was reasonably successful.
Some might say, and rightly so, that Tabu has been playing the cop too often lately. Yet, she has given each of her cops a distinct identity, the quality of a gifted and seasoned performer. Tabu’s third 2023 release is Vishal Bhardwaj’s Khufiya, a spy thriller released digitally on Netflix. The actress plays the author-backed character of a secret agent, who happens to be a divorcee with a son who resents her. She develops a special bond with another agent, who gets killed during a mission. A mole in the agency is directly – or indirectly – responsible for the murder. Khufiya is eminently watchable because of how the story unfolds. Tabu delivers what film-goers expect: a fine performance in the central role.
Tabu is a long-distance runner in an industry where most actors drop out of the race in no time. Her list of brilliant performances includes her appearance in Gulzar’s political drama Maachis (1996), a hard-hitting film in which she plays an ordinary woman whose life gets impacted by the aftermath of the Sikh insurgency in the 1980s. In Mahesh Manjrekar’s family drama Astitva (2000), she is a frustrated housewife who has an affair with her music teacher. She is a bar dancer whose life story is a series of heartbreaking experiences in Madhur Bhandarkar’s social drama Chandni Bar (2003). She appears as a don’s mistress in Maqbool (2004), Vishal Bhardwaj’s crime drama adapted from William Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. She is an emotionally fragile woman trapped in a web of disturbing social and personal realities in Bhardwaj’s crime drama Haider (2014), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. She is the crooked wife of a retired actor in Sriram Raghavan’s crime thriller Andhadhun (2018). A risk taker who makes unusual choices quite often, the actress has continued to impress the viewer with consistently first-rate performances.
Tabu has made an impact in films with different budgets and target audiences. She has acted in many bad films, too, but the distinguishing characteristic of her career is her frequent preference for acting in films that challenge the performer in her. That is her defining quality, as she looks forward to more meaningful work in an era, which has a lot of exciting opportunities for the genuinely gifted and adventurous actor.
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