Swara Bhasker: Lived in office for a month-and-a-half as we couldn't find a house

Swara Bhasker/picture courtesy: Yogen Shah

Swara Bhasker, a Delhiite, moved to the city of dreams to enter the world of showbiz, but her early days were difficult. She has stunned the audience with her impeccable acting skills and the scripts she has picked so far. In an interview with Hindustan Times, Swara shared how, just like the characters from her film, she was looking for a house in Mumbai, and the actress along with her roommate had her own struggles to look for a place to live.

When asked if she struggled to get a house in Mumbai during her initial days in the city, Swara Bhasker shared, "Yes I did. I actually lived in an office of Anjum Rajabali sir, who is my mother's friend and a celebrated screenwriter. Me and my roommate (Lopamudra Raut) lived in this office for a month-and-a-half as we couldn't find a house. She was my college friend and came to Mumbai as she got a job."

The actress added, "We had to leave the office before 9 am. We would have a bath and leave and go to the nearby mall and hang around on its stairs. I would leave for my audition and she (Lopamudra) would leave for her job from there. I saw every single release that month, good or bad, as I got to spend three hours in an air-conditioned theatre."

The actress concluded, "No society in Mumbai was ready to rent a house to two single girls, one of whom was trying to get into the film industry. They asked us, ‘Will you be meeting boys?' We said ‘yes'. I even got into fights with a few landlords who were being very kattar (staunch). I started explaining to them our fundamental rights - Article 19 of the Indian Constitution. Our broker said, ‘Madam, if you want to do all this, go find a house somewhere else, I can't help you'. We eventually found a house in a building which wasn't a part of a society. It was a new construction and there were not a lot of occupants. That's how I got my first house."

On the work front, Swara Bhasker had two OTT releases during the lockdown period - Rasbhari and Flesh. Rasbhari has Swara play a teacher whose teenage student becomes obsessed with her, while Flesh dealt with the issue of human trafficking and Swara played a cop for the first time in the series.