Last year this time, nobody had heard of Triptii Dimri. Along came a violently misogynistic Animal and who came out of it as the national crush? A slim, cheesy side attraction who was added to the plot to only further Ranbir Kapoor’s “lick my shoes” swag. Even more than heroine Rashmika Mandanna, it was Triptii as Zoya, the honey bait in a brief appearance, who walked away with all the popularity votes. What the Garhwali from Uttarakhand couldn’t get from the hefty, full-length lead performances she had put into Laila Majnu (2018), Bulbbul (2020) and Qala (2022), she got from a supporting role in the toxic blockbuster of December 2023.
Rashmika was already a busy star in the south with hits like Pushpa: The Rise (2021) introducing her to the Hindi belt too.
Triptii, her earlier films forgotten, was the new flavour with a practically empty diary. She was shooting for films like Dharma’s Bad Newz when Animal was released. But she was still relatively free and filmmakers like Anees Bazmee and T-Series eagerly snapped her up. Bazmee was a man faced with a huge mandate. He had aced it with Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (2022) which had taken the popular 2007 original several steps ahead. Bazmee now had to make Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 bigger and better. Bringing back Vidya Balan was smart. Pitching her with the charm and dancing prowess of Madhuri Dixit was even smarter. But with a young Kartik Aaryan who had a sprightly partner like Kiara Advani in BB2, Bazmee needed a chronologically suitable heroine with dates to spare. Triptii was already a T-Series favourite. She was the most reasonably-priced actor in the star-studded BB3 when she was brought on board. But by the time the film reaches the theatres this Diwali, Triptii’s fortunes would have changed. Bad Newz, released earlier this year, has been great news for her.
Today, when she promotes Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video (VVKWWV), she’s no longer the side attraction to hero Rajkummar Rao. The promos promise a rib-tickling repeat performance from Rajkummar after his outstanding act in Stree 2. The cameras also seek Triptii, the attention coming with a mix of the nasty and the nice. Triptii is not known to be a fluid dancer, so Ganesh Acharya’s choreography in Mere Mehboob was keenly scrutinised, with the majority commenting that Rajkummar executed the energetic dance steps while Triptii’s moves were more raunchy than real dance.
But with Bad Newz, VVKWWV and BB3 coming in quick succession, Triptii is here to stay, featuring on the list of mountain girls who have made a mark in the plains of Hindi cinema. Triptii may have started with a side role in Sridevi’s last film Mom (2017) and nobody would remember her as Shreyas Talpade’s love interest in Poster Boys (2017) but she will join Anushka Sharma (whose mother is a Garhwali) and Himachali women Kangana Ranaut and Yami Gautam as talent that’s come down from the hills to stake a claim for stardom.
Interestingly, the makers are not pushing her name forward but next week will also see the return of Mallika Sherawat who will thicken the plot in VVKWWV.
While casting coups and interesting plots are being brewed, established frontrunners like Karan Johar need to shake their complacency. What did he have in mind when he lent his name (and not a rupee for sure) to last week’s badly-scripted Devara: Part 1? Karan was roped in to give pan-India appeal to a product from the south. But every big starrer that comes out of Hyderabad is not a Bahubali and it adds no weight to the Dharma portfolio to be associated with a film over which it has no creative control. It was the same with Liger (2022) where Karan had gone out of his way to promote Vijay Deverakonda as the next big Greek God after Hrithik Roshan.
Think again, Karan, before you say “Yes” to the next hunk from Hyderabad.
