‘Thanks to social media, women are now confident of speaking against sexual harassment’: Actress Sandhya Mridul

Actress Sandhya Mridul flashbacks a few years and remembers when she came out and wrote on social media platform X against her harassment. She has also not forgotten how some publications trashed her.

“Today, all you need to do is take screenshots of the lewd messages men in the industry or elsewhere send and put them up. You know many people stress that the ‘Me Too’ movement failed. On the contrary, it has made many men cautious — the ones who would say the nastiest things now know when to shut up,” actor Sandhya Mridul said.

Her latest outing may have been the solo comedy show ‘Ridiculous Ms Mridul’ performed in the national capital recently, still, the actor, who started her career with the popular TV serial ‘Swabhimaan’ and went to do ‘Banegi Apni Baat’, ‘Koshish’ and ‘Hu Ba Hu’, smiles and says, “Well, now when I enter my mother’s room, she knows the television must be switched off.”

Deciding to walk away from the repetitive character of television, Mridul might have done some successful films like ‘Saathiya’, ‘Page -3’ and others, but it was crossover cinema where her soul was — ‘Strings’, ’13th Floor’, ‘Chowki’, ‘Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.’, ‘The Great Indian Butterfly’, ‘Angry Indian Goddesses’ and ‘Waisa Bhi Hota Hai’.

While many insiders cautioned her that doing such cinema was a perfect recipe for being ignored by the ‘mainstream’ and going broke, she remembers telling herself: “Passion has always driven me, why should it not now? After all, these roles require craft, and not makeup.”

Coming back to ‘Ridiculous Ms Mridul’, her first solo performance, the actor who has worked with theatre directors like Mahesh Dattani and Lillete Dubey admits there was no ‘plan’ — she just started writing ‘something’ and what emerged was a relaxed take on men, relationships and sex. “Not to mention how single women in society are looked at.”

Mridul laments that being in Mumbai, one is so ‘busy’ being an actor that she/he tends to undermine her capability to create. “And the past few years, I have been feeling... See, as it is, I’m a niche actor who works on very selected projects. And of all the mediums, theatre was my favourite. Then why am I spending the least time on it? After all, it is all about spontaneity, something I truly believe in. You know exactly what you’re making the audience feel.”

“While you are entertaining them, they are giving back much warmth and energy. It is probably the most thrilling and passionate of mediums. While I have been writing other things too, Excurators Events Pvt. Ltd. wanted to go with this gig,” she adds. Pinning her hopes high on OTT platforms, she feels they are not only willing to tell different tales but also tell them differently.

“One is seeing fresh faces, newer talent in every department, and actors who were in their labyrinths coming back. I do not care much about the algorithm thing going on with OTTs. I just hope they remain true to craft and not go the usual Bollywood way,” she concludes. (IANS)

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