My Story: Nisha Madhan - some of my Shortland Street storylines were ‘100 per cent racist’

Theatre-maker Nisha Madhan.

Nisha Madhan is an actor, artist and producer, best known for playing Nurse Shanti Kumari on Shortland Street. Madhan is currently curating FOLA – Festival of Live Art – a joyous celebration of subversive art playing at The Basement Theatre, February 14-19.

My parents are Punjabi, from New Delhi, from the very north of India, so being nomadic is part of my ancestry. When Pakistan was formed in 1947, both my parents’ families were disrupted by Partition, then, in the 80s, I understand there was a big recruitment drive to attract doctors from India to the Middle East. That’s how my parents moved from Delhi to Qatar with my older brother and how I ended up being born in Doha in 1982. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the early 90s - which led to George Bush Snr becoming involved - my parents started looking for a way out of the Middle East. As a stepping stone to leaving, they shipped me and my brother off to the foothills of the Himalayas where there are quite a few boarding schools. For two years we went to Woodstock, a co-ed Baptist international school established by American missionaries 160 years ago. That gave our parents time to pack up our life and put all our belongings on a ship that arrived in Waitemata Harbour in 1995.

Walking to school in the lush hillscape of Himalaya was insanely beautiful. There was this swing where the higher you swung, the more snow-covered peaks you could count. The Himalayas are also monkey heaven. Having not grown up around monkeys, at first I thought they were so cute, but they’re actually absolute rascals, and they’ll steal things out of your hands, like cameras and food. They’re rather dangerous too. My family is Hindu, although not super strict, and Woodstock definitely had a desire to convert us. Christianity was seductive too, because Baptists aren’t singing hymns. They’re singing songs like Twist and Shout but the lyrics are skewed towards Jesus. It was a very born-again vibe, and I was impressionable so, for a while, I was tempted.

I was 11 when I left Qatar for Woodstock, and I had my 13th birthday in New Zealand. My education was very different in each location. In Qatar, our school followed a British system, at the Himalayan school it was an American system and here in New Zealand it was totally different again. People were consumed with very different values in each place too. One thing I regret is losing my language because I stopped learning Hindi after leaving Woodstock. One reason I let it go as a child in New Zealand, I felt that my language was mocked here. Because people love to make fun of the Indian accent and mannerisms, you almost feel like, if you know your language, you’ll be laughed at, which is bollocks and such a product of colonisation. In contrast, my mum always takes India with her everywhere she goes, because she loves being Indian. She is incredibly proud of where she is from and how many languages she speaks.

When my brother played Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Doha, I loved it so much that I stole his script and read it over and over. I loved the experience of being in the theatre and seeing my big brother onstage and seeing him be really funny. That’s when I developed a bit of an obsession with Shakespeare, although I also have a very complicated relationship with him, because I no longer consider some old white man to be the benchmark of culture and art. I was more of a music kid than a theatre kid and I was really into playing the piano. If there wasn’t a piano around, I’d draw one on a piece of paper and practice on that. It wasn’t until I was in my teens at Northcote College that I started thinking about acting. This was partly because the drama department did a Shakespeare every year and I wanted to be in them, but I was usually the stage manager instead. Then, in seventh form, I was cast as the head witch in Macbeth and from there it was all on. I was also a really shy kid, so acting was a great way to break out of that.

Nisha Madhan is an actor, artist and producer.

My Aunt Anjali took me to see Krishnan’s Dairy at The Maidment Theatre in 2001, and I loved it. When I looked at Jacob [Rajan] onstage, I said to myself, I’m going to work with him one day. I forgot about that, then in 2016 Jacob asked me to audition for a show called Kiss The Fish and I got the part. On opening night, standing next to Jake backstage, I pinched myself because the vision I’d had was about to come true. At drama school it was clear to me that there weren’t many parts for women, let alone brown women. Or if there were parts for brown people, they were usually shockingly stereotypical. That’s when I realised I’d need to cast myself in the roles I wanted to play, and I started producing my own works by putting on little plays in pubs like The Dog’s Bollix. That was a real baptism by fire.

I started on Shortland Street in 2007 and I had my first real dark night of the soul when I chose to leave. To have a core cast role, and be the first Indian in a core cast role, that was such a dream come true. But it was also pretty hard because I had to compromise a lot of my sense of self and give in to the stereotyping. I can say this now that I don’t work for them anymore, but some of Shanti’s storylines were 100 per cent racist. Something I’ve learned first-hand is that New Zealanders aren’t great at owning up to being racist. “No, no, no,” they’ll say, “that doesn’t sound like us”, but it’s true. New Zealand is racist. My character was such a stereotypical good Indian girl, while behind the scenes I was living on K Rd, touring the country with a 10-piece band, and getting up to all sorts of mischief. I was also performing with Dust Palace doing burlesque and striptease. It sometimes seemed that the more of a good person Shanti was, the more debauched I became. Because Shanti wasn’t like me at all, and when people saw me drinking, or with a cigarette in my hand, I could see it went against their image of what an Indian person should be.

On the last day of filming, when Shanti was killed off, I came home and cleaned the house and put the big bunch of flowers I’d been given in a vase. Then I started sobbing because I felt like I’d murdered Shanti. I’d killed my character off. She was such a good girl and didn’t deserve to die like that, but the best drama always breaks hearts. There are times when I’m offered very specific ethnic roles, and I have to draw deep on my instincts. So if someone wants me to put on an Indian accent, I’ll have a big discussion with my agent about whether it’s appropriate. Or is it tokenistic or exploitative? Lately though, something seems to have shifted, and my last two roles, instead of playing good girls or arranged marriage brides, I’ve been the murder suspect. I’ve worked really hard to transform people’s perceptions of what I can play and what I’m capable for.

I’ve definitely given up a lot for the arts. It’s only in the last three years, as programme manager at The Basement Theatre, that I’ve had a steady job with financial security, but I also couldn’t imagine a better life. When I was starting out, my father suggested I have a backup career. He said, “why don’t you go to teachers college?” And I said, “dad I’ll teach when I have something to teach”. Since then I’ve travelled all over the world with my work, and I’ve learned so much from so many artists from many walks of life, so I think I’d be happy to teach now. I’m a little obsessed with documentaries about Egypt, where tombs are excavated, and all the things a king was buried with are brought out. Treasures, beautiful artefacts and art.

I’m 40 today, and I’m looking out my window in Grey Lynn and the world is in such a state. It’s drowning and burning at the same time, and I think about all these ancient civilisations and my own ancient Indian civilisation. How many times it was wiped out in the past only to rebuild itself. And I wonder if we’re standing on the brink of it all being wiped out at any moment? But it’s also possible that life will go on. Or reconfigure. And when our tomb is excavated, it is the artists who will have made the time capsule of what life is like today. Reality will be seen through our eyes, and our expressions which is why I’ve fought hard to preserve what my ancestry has given me, to find my voice, and say what I want to say. My work is political, which is why it’s important for us all to question whose eyes those pictures of civilisation will come from, when our metaphorical tomb is unearthed.

www.fola.co.nz