Shodha’s Siri Ravikumar: Kannada web series will really pick up once accessibility is sorted

Siri Ravikumar’s third Kannada web series, after Kyaabre and By Mistake , is Shodha , a suspense thriller that is dropping on Z5 (and via OTTplay Premium too) on August 29, 2025. She is Meera on the show, the wife of the protagonist Rohit, played by actor-filmmaker Pawan Kumar. He, however, protests this and maintains that she’s an imposter, while his actual wife is missing. Is Meera really not who she says she is? Or has Rohit forgotten his better half? This is what the show deals with.

Siri Ravikumar on working on a thriller series

Siri shot for about 16-17 days in Madikeri and shares screen space with everyone but Saptami Gowda. Although she’s been exposed to the thriller genre with the film O2 in which she had a supporting role, as a lead, Shodha is her first in the genre. “It was fun working on a show that has you constantly wondering the who, where, why and how of a crime. I enjoy such content and being a part of a show like Shodha gives me a good feeling,” she says.

Meera is not a character that Siri can talk about prior to the show’s official release, but given that Shodha is her third web series, what does she make of the OTT space? “See, when we did Kyaabre, I was amazed by the number of people who watched it. If there is good content, people will consume it. With Kyaabre, we had a lot of technical difficulties and there are flaws galore, but I am very proud of what we pulled off. For instance, in a sequence, you can see a boom mike in the background, but people forgave us and accepted it with arms wide open. Till date, I am often recognised as Arbeen and not Siri,” she says.

Also read: Pawan Kumar on doing Shodha: The web series space offers far more creative freedom 

The actress adds that eventually, it all boils down to accessibility and if that is there, people will watch the content. “In Kannada, the complaint is that the content and quality is bad, which is not entirely true. There is good stuff out there, you just have to make it accessible to people. I think the web series space will boom in Kannada once accessibility is sorted. It has to be on one of the major platforms that already has a wide subscriber base; you cannot do it on a random channel that requires yet another subscription. The hope is that a show like Shodha is widely accepted and gives the bigger platforms hope in Kannada content,” she says, adding that the efforts of Z5 are a step in the right direction.

FAQs

Q. Who is the director of Shodha?

A. Sunil Mysuru, who made the Kannada film Orchestra Mysuru earlier, is the director of Shodha.

Q. When and where will Shodha stream?

A. The 6-episode Shodha is coming to Z5 on August 29. It is a suspense thriller with Pawan Kumar in the lead.

Q. Who is on the cast of Shodha?

A. Shodha stars Pawan Kumar, Siri Ravikumar, Arun Sagar, Anusha Ranganath and Saptami Gowda, among others.