There’s a whisper going around that Sara Ali Khan was the first choice of the producers to play the troubled IFS officer in Ulajh. But her pricey ways were a put-off. The nawabi attitude is a surprise considering that so far, frivolity has been Sara’s speciality; she is still far from being taken seriously as an actress.
On the other hand, Janhvi Kapoor with that touch of sadness in her eyes, has bagged some really plum roles, whether they work or not at the box- office. Even in disasters like Roohi (2021), she had two contrasting personalities, she was the pivot of the plot.
Sara sparkled in her debut film Kedarnath (2018) but it was Janhvi who had the substantial central character in her first film Dhadak, released the same year. Right from the time they were in contention for the Best Debut award that year, Sara and Janhvi have been interchangeable choices for films made for their age group. There is only a two-year gap between them. Sara was born in 1995, Janhvi in 1997.
It is often said that emotions experienced early in life make a better actor. If that’s true, then Sara and Janhvi have experienced enough upheaval and trauma to help their craft. Sara was barely nine years old, and her brother Ibrahim only three, when dad Saif got into a relationship with Italian model Rosa Catalano and divorced
Amrita Singh.
It wasn’t a pleasant time for Amrita or her two little kids considering Saif had just done a world tour of celebrity shows along with Hrithik and others where his marriage and family life had seemed just fine. One can imagine how upsetting it must have been for Sara when equations changed so drastically that Dad was no longer coming home at the end of the day.
It was worse for Janhvi. Divorce is healable but death has a finality about it. She was 21 and on the cusp of her debut release when mother Sridevi died with the suddenness of a thunderbolt. Her sister Khushi was 18.
So, with all the privilege — that “foot in the door” as Janhvi puts it — these celebrity kids have had their share of hurt and grief. It shows up in Janhvi’s performances. Whether it is the wife deserted by her husband on the cricket pitch in Mr & Mrs Mahi, the girl abandoned in a freezer in Mili, a plucky young lady in the midst of criminals in Good Luck Jerry or the IAF fighter pilot in a gender-biased situation in Gunjan Saxena, there’s always a touch of pathos in her roles. One is yet to see her as a conventional, carefree heroine.
Maybe her two outings in the south — Devara 2 with NTR Jr and another with Ram Charan — will finally have her play a fun-loving young girl who sings, dances and romances. Sara has done it in light-hearted Rohit Shetty movies like Simmba. But when it comes to a woman in a difficult situation, Janhvi seems the natural choice.
Recently, one heard that Karan Johar, a Papa figure to Sara and Janhvi, was trying to make a biopic on Arunima Sinha, the amputee who scaled Mt Everest and Mt Kilimanjaro besides half-a-dozen other daunting peaks. Names like Deepika Padukone and Alia Bhatt were considered and set aside. Deepika was thought of as unsuitable for the part while Alia didn’t want to do anything so gruelling in harsh locations at this stage of her career. Janhvi was the next best bet. One hears Janhvi even did an audition of sorts for it, putting heart and soul into a couple of heartrending scenes from Arunima’s life.
But the biopic is on hold for the moment over legalities that include conditions laid down by the female mountaineer. It would’ve been a challenging film anyway also because Arunima’s claim of being pushed out of a moving train by robbers and losing her leg when another train ran over her, came under a cloud during investigations.
Meanwhile, it would be refreshing to see Janhvi play a light-hearted role. Women don’t always have to be seen as victims fighting enormous odds.