Take painting for instance, one of Sarwat’s two great passions, which she mentions often in our conversation. “I think I’m very blessed because I see art on paper, with colours and feel, as if I can see life coming out of it.” From the impressionism of Van Gogh to the calligraphy of Sadequain, Sarwat is filled to the brim with wonder at how art on canvas (or otherwise) can speak to you — she took great time to tell me about Sadequain’s ceiling work at the Frere Hall in Karachi and why I should go see it because it was as if a Michelangelo had lived in our midst. She paints herself as well; when I asked her why, she told me that it was something that was essential for her to be able to function, and at times she has been known to take time out from life as an actor to live for a while in her studio where the ideas have piled up.

Sarwat’s motivation for painting is a lot similar to that of acting; acting allows her to express how she sees and relates to the world. “It’s about the thought and the moment and all of that when you feel the character that you’re playing that makes you accept it. That’s why I only choose roles that I can relate to,” she says. In the five years that she’s been acting, Sarwat confirmed that she had only acted in about a dozen dramas, mostly because “you can’t budge and accept a role for a character you don’t believe in.”

Her belief in this regard goes so deep that when I asked her to name which role was her favourite, Sarwat couldn’t pick; she tried and though she named a few, including Alizeh in Ishq Gumshuda, she ended the round by saying it was too tough a question that I’d have to ask her some other time. “I’ve put a piece of me in every role that I’ve done so I can’t pick one out from the rest and say this was better than the rest. I wouldn’t have chosen the other roles if I didn’t feel they were worth any less than the rest.”