Bhubaneswar
At first glance, Suryamani Hansdah appears ordinary. She seems more of a lone wolf who prefers to be away from the hustle and bustle of public life. She looks a shrinking violet, away from campaigns and congregations. But that’s only till you happen to know her.
After all, she has walked off with the Best Actress Award for her feat in Santhali film ‘Sacred Gulochi’ at the International Short Film Festival in Kolkata last year and has basked in the glitz and glamour of showbiz as easily as a pro.
She has barged into the rough and tumble of political life like a seasoned politician. She never had a stab at farming, yet she toils and tills to meet life’s exigencies. She is extraordinary, indeed.
Interestingly, the role had come to her accidentally. “I had a talk with Suryamani when I approached her daughter, Nirupoma Hansdah, to cast her as the heroine of ‘Sacred Gulochi’. Then and there I discerned Suryamani’s potential,” says Swathi Murmu, the Director of ‘Sacred Gulochi’ that hit the floor in 2021.
Recently, another Santhali film Director Deepak Beshra has also decided to offer her a role in his forthcoming flick. But barring it, Suryamani has not received any offer after the Kolkata festival. Beshra says, “Perhaps, she lacks the art of connecting, the prerequisite for making one’s presence felt.”
Talking of her own journey, Suryamani of Rairangpur in Mayurbhanj tells The Indian Tribal, “My plays in the eighties posed as a prelude to my foray into filmdom. I got a role in Santhali play ‘Bidu Chandan’ in Rourkela in 1983 when I was only 11. I accepted it just to satisfy my childlike curiosity.”
Child Suryamani acted in another play ‘Oh Hai Bachare Buru Aale Re Gidi Ko Madrao Kan’ in 1984, and was crowned as the Best Child Artiste. In 1985, she was the heroine in the play ‘Sharna Parsi’.
But she wrapped up her promising career in 1986, when she got hitched to Mansingh Hansdah, an SBI employee. “I was then about 14 years old,” she says.
A good 11 years thereafter, and by then a mother of two, she was prompted by her well-wishers to try her luck in the Rairangpur Notified Area Council (NAC) polls in 1997 as an Independent. She did, and lost. The local politicians, however, did not give up on her and persuaded her to contest in the 2003 civic polls. This time, she contested as a Congress candidate and became a Councilor.
However, unwilling to forget her NAC defeat earlier, she contested the polls once again on her own volition as a BJP candidate in 2022, when Rairangur NAC was converted into municipality, and emerged victorious.
She has had her share of testing times when Mansingh’s right side was almost paralyzed in 2014 and she herself suffered a gynecological disorder in 2016 forcing her software engineer son Baba Dhalaram Hansdah to quit his job in Pune and return to look after his sick parents.
Suryamani along with her son also indulges in farming. “We started cultivating black paddy and ginger. We grew black paddy in four acres and ginger in two acres in 2019. Both fetched over Rs. 80, 000 in 2020 and over Rs. 70, 000 in 2021,” she says.
From a child artiste to a wife, mother, actress, politician and farmer — Suryamani’s life has been eventful to a large extent. “Who knows which other roles are awaiting me,” she avers.
