PremiumExclusive! Chaithra J Achar: Sapta Sagaradaache Ello Side B’s Surabhi is not the third wheel in the tale
Chaithra’s decision to be a part of Hemanth M Rao’s film was only driven by the desire of being in a good project and team, she says.
Last Updated: 04.19 PM, Nov 16, 2023
Chaithra J Achar hoped to be a part of Hemanth M Rao’s Sapta Sagaradaache Ello and was thrilled to bits when she got a part eventually, even though it was clear that the leading lady’s spot had been taken up already. As Surabhi, who appears in the film’s second part, Side B, Chaithra too has a pivotal role that is relevant to the narrative, but what she probably didn’t reckon at the time is that audiences would take a fancy to the lead pair – Manu (Rakshit Shetty) and Priya (Rukmini Vasanth)- and root for them even amid all the adversaries they face. Based on the little that audiences have caught of her in the teaser and trailer of Side B, there seems to be a relationship between Surabhi and Manu too.
From a time when people knew nothing of the film to now, when all eyes are on Manu and Priya, Surabhi is the newcomer between this much-loved couple. “Sapta Sagaradaache Ello is and will always be about Manu and Priya, no doubt. But it is also a story of Surabhi. In fact, when Hemanth narrated the script, he did not say that the character will come between Manu and Priya, instead, he said that Surabhi also exists in their equation. She has her own trajectory and comes with some baggage. She then meets Manu at a time when he is also dealing with the baggage of his past and when such characters meet is what Side B is all about. Surabhi is never the third wheel – Side B is about three people co-existing in the same space,” Chaithra explains.
The actress adds, “Hemanth was very clear when he told me that Surabhi plays an important role in the lives of Manu and Priya. There is an existing love story, no doubt. My arc in the story is with the Manu of 2020, and the circumstances in which we meet and what happens thereafter is what the tale is all about.” Chaithra admits that when she took up Sapta Sagaradaache Ello (Side B), she did not imagine the scale to which Side A would grow. Her choice to play Surabhi rested on being a part of a good film and team. Tell her that there are two major fan theories about Surabhi, with the major one being that she plays a commercial sex worker and the other that she is an older version of the girl who lost her father in the hit-and-run case Manu went to jail for, and Chaithra remains non-committal about either. “The film will be in theatres shortly. Watch it!” she says.