Rytasha Rathore, the lead in Badho Bahu, talks about being TV's favourite fat girl, and why she is a lot like the boy who survived
Rytasha Rathore with a co-actor on the sets of Badho Bahu. Pic/Sneha Kharabe
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We First noticed Mumbai girl Rytasha Rathore on Instagram, thanks to her #Kaarname video routine, where she talks of the dilemmas girls face on a daily basis, like 'to wax or not to wax', with a comic spin. She now also plays Komal Lakhan Singh Ahlawat or Badho on and & TV's Badho Bahu, which is slowly gaining a devoted audience.
This could be a character that's as far removed from Rathore's real life persona as can be. And, as the 24-year-old says, she cried on the day of the look test when she realised what she had got herself into. "They only called me because they needed a fat girl. When it's TV or movies, I only get calls when it's a fat character. The makers loved my audition and then I was sold the show. I didn't know how typical it was till I came for the look test, and that's when I cried. I was terrified," says Rathore, as we sit and chat over chai on the sets of Badho Bahu in Madh Island.
The show could be seen as a 2017 version of Balika Badhu. Badho, a Haryanvi gaon ki ladki, is married off to the village hunk, played by Prince Narula, because her dead father and father-in-law were best friends. She then faces the wrath of the family, especially her bhabhi, mother-in-law and husband, because she is fat and hence, not-so-desirable. "I have looked down on this kind of TV for so long. But now, every day, I look down less. It's because TV has the kind of reach that it has.
You can touch the lives of people who you never could have dreamt to. So it's good that we can use a show like this to drive some important messages home," says Rathore as she readies for a shot, dressed up in a ghagra with a pallu over her head.
The actress, a SoBo kid, spent her adult life living in Worli and studied at the posh Cathedral and John Connon School. "I was a big girl in school too, and I knew that I only had a sparkling personality to count on. The only problem was that the boys I liked, didn't like me back," she says wryly. But Rathore, after doing a few plays, realised that acting was her thing and headed off to Singapore to study acting at the LASALLE College of Arts in 2013. When she came back, she got parts in productions such as The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Merchant of Venice. But, it was not until Badho that she faced the camera. "There was a lean time before I got Badho where I worked on my Insta videos, which really took off because I was so consistent. People message me every day on Instagram saying I inspire them," she says, "But it's Badho that's really taught me the art of facing a camera. Every little thing gets picked up on camera, so you have to be really good, and, I may be a big girl but I am f****** talented. I have decided that I want to be an actor, not a star. Look at me!"
She may have decided to take on the challenge but her SoBo friends still exclaim every time they see her on TV. "They say 'everyone is so mean to you all the time'."
But, how does one use a show with an innately regressive format to address issues that matter to the young woman today? Rathore assures us that there is always a loophole. "So, just yesterday, there was a scene where my friend in the show is telling me that I should do anything that my husband tells me. And I was like, 'no, you can't say that. That's such a wrong message to send out to young girls'. And so we just didn't say that. I can take liberties now, just because I know Badho like no one else does."
Right now, Rathore is busy soaking in the admiration that comes with being on TV. "Someone just tapped on the window of my car the other day, saying 'Oh Badho!' And recently, at a party, a lady in her mid-thirties came up to me who said that since her family has started watching the show, they call her Badho lovingly, as she is also a big girl!" she says. Along with trying to change the way TV audiences perceive a hard-on-her-luck character like Badho, Rathore says that the trick lies in knowing what makes this character so formidable.
"In fact, Badho is like Harry Potter. You just keep slapping on the atrocities, and she just keeps coming back. She is always in a state of triumph."
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