We remember her as the adorable Tina, the younger avatar of the role played by Kareena Kapoor in Mujhse Dosti Karoge! (2002), we then saw her in House Arrest (2019) on Netflix and more recently in 36 Farmhouse (2022) on Zee5. We most recently saw her as SoBo rich-kid Aisha Mehrauli in Masaba Masaba Season 2 on Netflix, that just released and she’s back now with a brand new show on Voot Select. Barkha Singh has come a long way since her days as a child artiste and is now one of the most popular faces on OTT with hit web series’ like Engineering Girls and Please Find Attached also in her kitty. We catch up with the actress to talk about her latest release The Great Weddings of Munnes, on Voot Select — where she also plays a bride, like in Masaba Masaba Season 2 — which is now garnering a lot of praise from all quarters.
“It was a lot of fun shooting it. I think this was the first time I was a part of something this desi and something that was this out rightly pure comedy. It was a huge learning experience as comic timing is something easier said than done. I was in the best company, though, and that’s why I think I was able to pull it off. There were times, we had to stop shooting, because the lines were so hilarious and one of us would end up losing it and bursting into peals of laughter,” begins Barkha who was born in Visakhapatnam, but was raised in Goa, Agra and Mumbai.
“We were shooting in the remotest of locations in Uttar Pradesh and sometimes even cars wouldn’t be able to reach our shooting spots, so we had to use those tiny tangra rickshaws. My character, Mahi, while from a rural background (that the show is placed in) is not as traditional as some of the other characters in the show. But yes, I did prep quite a bit by trying to imitate the local accent and learning local words, phrases and slang. I tried to incorporate all of this as subtly as possible into my character,” the actress adds.
Barkha, who also has over 2.8 million followers on Instagram is quite the social media celebrity too and is known for her quirky content that she releases as reels every now and then. Were films, TV and OTT therefore very different for her, we ask. “I absolutely love performing. Period. So, for me, it’s all about who I am shooting with and what I think about that script. The medium hardly matters,” concludes the actress whose family comes from a military background of several generations and with an ancestry based in Rajasthan.
Next, she will be seen in Please Find Attached Season 3 on Amazon Mini TV and Maja Maa on Amazon Prime Video.
The Great Weddings of Munnes is streaming on Voot Select.
romal@newindianexpress.com
@elromal