Mona Singh: 'I know what I don’t want to do anymore'

 IN THE NEWLY released Kohrra 2 on Netflix, there is a scene in which Dhanwant Kaur (played by Mona Singh) is beat­en by a murder suspect. He punches her face relentlessly, kicks her in the stomach and then, as she tries to bite his leg, pummels her some more. Even as she lies there, bleeding and bruised, she points in the direction of where he has run away as her colleague, Garundi, tries to help her. It is one of the most sustained scenes of assault on a woman onscreen. There is nothing sexual about it, just survival-fuelled rage.

But in that one scene, Singh establish­es her character’s dedication to her work, in a world where shortcuts are easier, and where turning a blind eye to wrongdoing is more profitable than doing one’s job.

At 44, after 23 years in show business, Singh is finally ready for her close-up as the lead of a prestigious streaming show.

It has not come by chance or accident. It has come from assiduously working on herself, paying her dues by doing every genre of TV. She has played the ugly duckling in Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin, the beloved Noughties series based on the Colombian telenovela Yo soy Betty, la fea (Ugly Betty). She has hosted reality shows. She has acted as Aamir Khan’s sister-in-law in one movie; his mother in another, something she was told would be career suicide; and most recently as a gangster in Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jasoos.

Now, here she is, 12kg lighter, having recently played a series of remarkable women, from the outspoken Bulbul Jauhari in Made in Heaven Season 2 on Prime Video, whose sunny exterior harbours untold pain. She has been a spirited single mother in the 2024 sleeper hit, Munjya. In a short but intense role, she played a physically challenged doctor in Kaala Paani; as the Punjabi mummy from Delhi with a secret, she was one of the many stars of The Ba***ds of Bollywood; and in yet another powerful role, she played Sunny Deol’s wife in the emotional Border 2.

So what’s driving her choices now? “At this stage of my life, I’m driven by clarity,” says Singh. “I know what I don’t want to do anymore, and that’s very liberating. I’m interested in women who feel real—who are complex, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes unlikeable. Whether it’s a mother, a wife or a cop, I’m drawn to characters who reflect life as it is, not as we want it to be.”

Indeed. Kohrra’s showrunner Sudip Sharma says: “Mona is an easygoing person in real life, but she is sensitive to the world around her. She totally surrendered to the part of Dhanwant. It was a difficult part, and she embraced the character’s inner world and the tragic life situation Dhanwant finds herself in the show. It initially overwhelmed her a bit, the darkness she was dealing with in her character’s life, but she eventually managed to find that balance and joy in the little things while at a shoot. It was a joy to witness her trans­form into the part and make it her own.”

In Kohrra 2, Singh’s Dhanwant is a committed police officer who turns up to work, resolving the murder of a young NRI woman, despite her personal challenges. She has lost her young son in tragic circumstances, and her husband, internally tortured by guilt, is an alco­holic. As Dhanwant, Singh is in almost every frame, her sombre face fitting in with the ghostly landscape of rural Pun­jab. There are no mustard fields here, no Pulkari-draped women doing the gidda or turban-clad men drinking lassi. This is a landscape of vast houses, separated by huge fields, worked by labourers all the way from Jharkhand and Bihar, the hidden engines of Punjab’s growth.

For Singh, inhabiting Dhanwant was difficult. She says: “Kohrra 2 was emotion­ally demanding be­cause the character doesn’t express herself much. I’ve always said that the hardest roles are the quiet ones. She’s deeply wounded, but she keeps going—she doesn’t give herself the luxury of breaking down. That kind of emotional restraint stays with you even after pack-up. It’s not draining dramati­cally, but it weighs on you.” Then there was the Punjabi that Dhanwant speaks. It is Singh’s first language but dialect and context still matter. “The Punjabi spoken in Kohrra is very rooted, very lived-in, and Border 2 required a different emotional pitch altogether. So yes, we worked on tonality and rhythm to make sure it felt authentic to the region and the time.”

Her weight loss has helped Singh’s confidence. “I wanted to feel stronger and have more energy. Emotionally, it’s been a very positive journey because it came from a place of self-care. I’m much more aware of my body now, and I respect it more than I used to,” she says.

Television has always been her foun­dation. “It taught me discipline, consis­tency, and how to perform day after day. Streaming is a different space altogeth­er—you have the time to build a character quietly, to sit with silences. I don’t see them as opposites; I see them as different chapters of my growth,” she says.

And it has been quite a journey from her debut as the star of Sony TV’s Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin as a bucktoothed, bespectacled fashion house intern. As Gurpreet Kaur in Laal Singh Chad­dha (2022), she had to go from house to house, running from raging mobs, in the fictional recreation of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. As Bulbul Jauhari, the queen of Chandni Chowk and the unlikely feminist powerhouse of Made in Heaven, Singh won many hearts as she turned heads. “I had to walk in high heels through the crowd in Chandni Chowk saying ‘Hi’ and ‘Namaste’ to everyone on the streets, almost like a runway model. We didn’t have much time so when I nailed it, I knew it was something special,” she says. In Kohrra 2, the assault scene required a lot of physicality on her part and the ability to take hits and falls in your strides over and over again for all the takes and angles. “Although we take all safety precautions while shooting, shooting action of this nature is never easy,” says Sharma. “But she was a sport about it. I remembered landing up on the set that night and the first thing she told me with a smile was, ‘Sir, aj te kut peni ae’ (I am gonna be thrashed tonight).”

DIFFERENT CHARACTERS, different demands. But Singh listens to her gut. She was told by many not to play Aamir Khan’s mother in Laal Singh Chaddha as it would ‘age’ her prematurely. She didn’t listen, do­ing what she felt was true to her. She has been persistent, taken her chances, but always tried to remain relevant.

After the success of Jassi, Singh went on to win a series of reality shows: Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa (2006), Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena in 2008, and then Arre Deewano Mujhe Pehchano (2009). She hosted reality TV, she acted as the bechari bahu in a number of shows and she had a memorable cameo in 3 Idiots (2009). In 2013, she de­cided she had had enough of television. Digital gave her a new life with the com­edy Yeh Meri Family, which premiered on TVF Play in 2018 and she hasn’t stopped working since.

She also opened a new restaurant, Kona Kona, in Mumbai in 2025 followed by a second branch in the city last year. Food has always been close to Singh’s heart: “Being Punjabi, you grow up knowing that food and love go hand in hand. I like being involved in things I genuinely connect with and can give my time and energy to.”

But Pune remains home. That’s where she grew up, where her thinking and values come from. No matter where work takes her, that connection remains very strong. It keeps her grounded.

Singh is a proud Army brat. Her fa­ther Colonel Jasbir Singh, a Bombay Sap­per, fought valiantly in the India-Paki­stan War of 1971. After a life-threatening injury, where he lost his foot after step­ping on a mine, he married Rani Singh, Mona’s mother, in an arranged match. “My mum told us that she married him because he is a real-life hero. That is the spirit that guides our family,” says Singh, who married advertising professional Shyam Rajagopalan in 2019.

It was from Pune that Singh would travel every day for auditions before landing the part of Jassi, with her father’s constant encouragement. On whether this is the busiest phase of her life, she says: “I feel content—and that’s important. I’m doing work that excites me, I’m at peace with my choices, and I feel balanced. Every phase teaches you something, but this one feels very honest.”

So is she Mona 2.0 or 3.0? “I don’t think of it in versions. I think I’m just more comfortable now. I trust myself more. I’m enjoying my work, and that confidence comes with experience,” she says. And more joy for viewers.