Shivani Raghuvanshi has said Bollywood does not know how to write funny women, in an interview with ThePrint published on 8 November. The actor, who plays Roshni Jha in the Prime Video series Dupahiya, spoke about the gap between the comic roles written for men and the parts written for women. Her remark has drawn attention because it comes from an actor who makes comedy look easy on screen.
Shivani Raghuvanshi’s point is about the writing, not the acting. She has said the best kind of comedy, especially situational comedy, comes from truth, and that an actor cannot approach a scene with the intention of making it funny. “You have to first understand how real and meaningful that situation is to the character experiencing it,” she told Bollywood Bubble in October. “If you start playing the comedy or trying too hard to get a laugh, you risk losing that sense of reality.”
Dupahiya gives her room to put that view into practice. The series, set in the fictional village of Dhadakpur in Bihar, follows the Jha family after a prized motorcycle, a dupahiya, is stolen from a wedding. Roshni, played by the actor, is the daughter of schoolteacher Banwari Jha, played by Gajraj Rao, and the second season follows her as she tries to pass her SSC exams while her brother Bhugol becomes an overnight internet star.
Shivani Raghuvanshi and the Roshni Jha role
Roshni is a hard part to pin down. On paper, she comes across as manipulative and mean, but director Sonam Nair wanted her sweet, and unaware that she is doing anything odd on purpose. Shivani Raghuvanshi has said she had never come across anyone quite like Roshni, and that building the character from scratch was part of the fun. The second season, which arrived on 1 October, gives Roshni more to carry, as the family struggles with money and she falls into a moral trap over exams.
She has said she prefers characters with something to do, and that a woman in a story should have her own voice and something substantial to contribute. “I think what matters most to me is that a woman has her own voice and something substantial to contribute to the story, whether it’s a conventional heroine in a big Bollywood film or a more unconventional character,” she told India Forums in October. The remark sits beside her ThePrint point: the writing has to give women room to be funny, and to be more than likeable.
Her career so far shows the range she is talking about. She made her acting debut in the 2014 dark comedy Titli, directed by Kanu Behl, and she earned wider notice as Jaspreet “Jazz” Kaur in Made in Heaven, the wedding planner who is ambitious and outspoken. She has since played a police officer in Murder in Mahim, a single-episode part in Zindaginama, and Roshni in Dupahiya, moving between genres without settling into one role.
Shivani Raghuvanshi on comedy and reality
The comedy in Dupahiya works the way Shivani Raghuvanshi describes it. The humour comes from the situation, not from a punchline, and the characters treat absurd events with complete sincerity. In the second season, villagers worry that a new tower will take away their strength or cause jaundice, and the show plays the fear straight, which is what makes it funny. Raghuvanshi has said that treating the situation as real is what lets the comedy land.
Shivani Raghuvanshi has also spoken about the parts she has not had a chance to play. She has said she has not often auditioned for conventional heroine roles, and the only film audition she remembers is for Laal Singh Chaddha, for a younger version of Rupa. She has said she would like to explore morally grey characters, and that there are enough sweet heroines already, who are usually very far from reality. A thriller is on her list, along with roles asking for more than charm.
Shivani Raghuvanshi and the work ahead
Born in Delhi in June 1991, Shivani Raghuvanshi came to acting without a film background. She did not go to acting school, and she has said most of her characters so far have been instinctive, built from feeling what the character is going through rather than from technique. Her next project, a SonyLIV show called Civil Lines, was finished almost four years ago, and she has said she is looking forward to it.
ThePrint interview was published on 8 November, and the remark about funny women is the line that has travelled furthest from it. Shivani Raghuvanshi’s point is a narrow one, and she makes it from inside the work: write women who are funny because of who they are, not because the script needs a joke. Dupahiya season 2 is on Amazon Prime Video now.