Good times: Women taking the driving seat in Bollywood

Sonakshi Sinha thrilled to see solo roles for leading ladies, excited about audience response to song ‘Rajj Rajj Ke’

MUMBAI: Actor Sonakshi Sinha says that it is a great time to be a woman in Indian cinema as great characters are being written for them and the audience have also accepted it. The Dabangg actor will also be singing live for the first time, at a college in Mumbai next week and is elated to see her dream of singing turn into reality.

“There are some great characters being written for women in today’s films and I am really happy about that,” Sonakshi said, at the launch of her song Rajj Rajj Ke from her film Akira.

“The audiences have become so much more accepting of what they are watching on screen. I think it is a great time to be a woman in Indian cinema.”

Actors such as Sonam Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Kangana Ranaut  have recently delivered women-centric films like Neerja, Mary Kom and Queen respectively, while Alia Bhatt and Deepika Padukone experimented with Highway and Piku. Sonakshi, too, will now be seen in the same light, in some intense action sequences from her upcoming film, Akira. Speaking about her preparation for it, she shared, “It’s actually been the most challenging, and most physically demanding film I have ever been a part of. It was very gruelling, and I had to undergo hard training in mixed martial arts. I had to work on myself so that it looks convincing.”



The actor — who made her debut into singing with a new single titled Ishqoholic last year — added that she feels lucky to have the opportunity to sing such a beautiful and soul-touching song like Rajj Rajj Ke.  “Ever since I was a kid, I had one big dream that someday, I will sing live and have people dancing to my tunes. Slowly, that dream is coming true,” Sonakshi stated.

Hoping she wins everyone’s hearts with her live gig, she said, “When I heard the song a few days before the shoot and while we were shooting the video, I couldn’t stop singing it. From that, it led to me recording for it and from that to actually performing it live. I am very excited and I really hope everyone likes it.”

Presented by Fox Star Studios, Akira is directed by A R Murugadoss, who has previously directed Sonakshi in the film Holiday. Akira sees Sonakshi’s character coming to Mumbai from Jodhpur, where she gets into a tiff with the goons of the college she enrolls in. The story is about her fight to come out of a case in which the goons and corrupt police officials play crucial roles. The film, also starring Anurag Kashyap and Konkona Sen Sharma, will release on September 2.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 5^th, 2016.

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