The non-stop praise for her web debut, Dahaad, plus ‘adulting’ with a brand new sea-facing abode — Sonakshi Sinha, it seems, is riding high! The actor, who turns 36 today, gushes, “It’s been incredible, so overwhelming. People who have not spoken to me in years are messaging me; those I don’t know from the industry have reached out. I was in a restaurant when people walked up to me — not for a photograph, but just to say they loved me in Dahaad. I don’t know how to deal with this right now!”

Sinha says this is exactly how she felt when Dabangg, her big- screen debut, released in 2010. “I feel like I have made my debut all over again,” she says and continues, “The last time I was appreciated like this was a long time ago — for Lootera in 2013, then Akira (2016), and even for Kalank (2019), but not on this level.”

Show director Reema Kagti had said in a recent interview that she has always found Sinha to be a “good but underused actor”. Has the artiste herself felt the same over the years? “Sometimes, but not all the time. I am glad people like Reema and Zoya Akhtar (filmmakers and co-creators of the show) have taken note of that and actually given me a character to justify my abilities (as an actor),” ends Sinha, who will next be seen in filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Heeramandi.