Chaya Unnikrishnan (DNA; May 9, 2019)

After making the rounds of various international film festivals, Yours Truly, which has Soni Razdan playing the central role, is being streamed on the OTT platform, ZEE5. The short film based on a book, One That Was Announced, is about the journey of a 57-year-old woman who is on the verge of retirement and feels lonely. “It was quite a journey for me, too,” laughs Soni. “For the first time, I was doing a role that centered around me and a lot of times, I was alone on the sets. Usually, one chills with the co-stars during a break, but since there was nobody, I actually got lonely. When Aahana Kumra joined me, I was so happy to see her. I realised how we take our co-stars for granted,” she shares.

When asked what prompted her to take up the role, she says it was filmmaker Sanjoy Nag’s determination to make a film about a middle-aged lonely woman that convinced her. “I told him, I am not terribly sure people want to watch the life of a 50-something woman. They want to see light entertainers. Only a niche audience will be available for a film like this. He said, the fact that nobody wants to make such a movie is the reason he wants to, which I thought was interesting,” she reasons.

The actress, who is winning rave reviews for her performance, recalls how she ended up living the character that she was playing. “We were shooting at a place that was one-and-a-half hours away from Kolkata. The buildings are very old and crumbling. We shot in a building which was 350 years old and people are living there. It was fascinating to live in that house and essay my role. The days I was on the sets away from everyone, I had become the character,”  says Soni, who is happy that roles for women have become interesting.

“Earlier, women, especially the elderly ones, were relegated to the sidelines. Actually, older, younger, women or men, roles across the board have become interesting. An evolutionary growth is taking place in cinema,” says the veteran actress.

One can’t help but ask her about her successful daughter Alia Bhatt, who has also been in the news for her relationship with Ranbir Kapoor. Probe her about when are they taking it to the next level and she says, “It’s her life and at this point, I can’t say much as I don’t know myself what they have thought,” she signs off.