Cruel Rhea-lity

What would you do if you were a young woman who had been catapulted into the world of glamour as a teenager and after a successful stint as a VJ, hadn’t quite fulfilled your early potential? And had then fallen in love with a rising star, Sushant Singh Rajput, only to be victimised on national television and have the might of the Indian state fall on you when he died? Well, if you’re Rhea Chakraborty, you still try and keep your chin up. It has not been easy. She has been questioned by four agencies: Mumbai Police, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate, and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). While Mumbai Police was superseded by CBI, the latter is yet to file a chargesheet in the Rajput case. NCB has filed draft charges against her and her brother Showik. The only silver lining is that her bank accounts have been unfrozen and she now has access to her savings after more than a year. As for work, there’s not much though there are meetings aplenty—notoriety can be a powerful magnet. Her attempt at a chat show with a new app only had middling success from what I could see—the questions people have do not quite elicit the answers they want. There are a few minor brand endorsements, including one for a dog food brand. But mostly, Bollywood is a cruel country where sympathy doesn’t sell tickets. Notoriety does, and several people have parlayed that successfully into a career via reality shows. Chakraborty is lucky to have a few good friends, like anchor-actor and gym partner Shibani Dandekar Akhtar, who have stood by her through all her troubles, and her Instagram is a study in positive self-goals. But going from a bit player in Bollywood to No 1 national villain in an instant is tough. The road back is even tougher.

The Turning Point

Sometimes, a girl can have everything and even that is not enough. After playing the beloved Sweety in Season 1 of Amazon Prime Video’s blockbuster series, Mirzapur, Shriya Pilgaonkar, the talented daughter of actors Sachin and Supriya Pilgaonkar, should have had the world at her feet. There she was, an intelligent, pedigreed actor with a critically acclaimed Marathi film, Ekulti Ek, directed by her father, behind her, and several opportunities ahead. She got them and used them as well, playing the seductive Chanchal in Gurinder Chadha’s Beecham House, the earnest Kashaf Quaze in Amazon Prime Video’s cool legal drama Guilty Minds and the upright Radha Bhargava in the media drama, on Zee 5, The Broken News. She has an interesting series of roles ahead, including a part where she has to play a butcher. Yet, Pilgaonkar is not the first name (or even the second) that comes to mind when it comes to magazine covers and red carpet events, things that go to women with far less talent and fewer credentials. I asked her whether it bothered her, and the answer was a composed no. Turns out she can play the waiting game well, doing different roles, and getting better at her craft. And raising her profile bit by bit, her lovely head firmly attached to her slender shoulders. After all, she came to the profession late, not doing the obvious thing by following her DNA, but thinking she could be a swimmer or an IAS officer. In the end, it was a 10-minute stage performance at the NCPA in Mumbai that convinced her that acting was her forte. I see her going places.

 Scene and Heard

How often does an actress return to the screen after 16 years and boom, is a star again? Well, that’s happened to Sriya Reddy, who plays the policewoman in Amazon Prime Video’s hit Tamil series, Suzhal: The Vortex. The actress says she would say no to everything offered to her, including Oram Po, the first film made by the noted directorial duo, Pushkar-Gayathri. But when they offered Suzhal to her, she couldn’t say no. The character, Regina Thomas Vadivelu, a senior police officer, operates in the grey zone, which was difficult for Sriya Reddy, who believes in things being black-and-white. But she’s glad she’s done it now, with co-star Aishwarya Rajesh saying all her friends can talk about is Reddy, whose last major film was Priyadarshan’s award-winning Kanchivaram in 2008. Not only does she fill a police uniform quite nicely, but she also brings the acting chops that have seen the series being binged by entire audiences.

BollywoodcinemaRhea ChakrabortyShriya PilgaonkarSriya Reddy