Three years of Dia: The tragic love story that put Pruthvi Ambaar, Kushee Ravi and Dheekshith Shetty in the spotlight

In early 2020, there were two films with love stories that caught the imagination of audiences. One was Darling Krishna’s directorial debut Love Mocktail, a feel-good rom-com about one man’s trust with love throughout his life, while the other, Dia, was not only about love from the perspective of the heroine, but was also tragic in its narrative. Both films were doing well at the box office, when the pandemic struck and everything was shut down. Subsequently, both had a good reception on OTT too.

Pruthvi Ambaar, who, until then had only done some uncredited roles in Kannada cinema and some work in Tulu, was one of the leads of the film, while Dheekshith Shetty made the transition from TV to the big screen and debuted with it. Joining them was debutante Kushee Ravi in the titular role. The film was about Kushee’s character, Dia, a student with a massive crush on her senior, Rohit (Dheekshith), who bumps into him years later when she moves to Mumbai on work. When they finally hit it off and embark on a relationship, they meet with an accident, which proves fatal for Rohit. Unable to come to terms with this loss, Dia becomes suicidal, but is then literally brought back to life by happy-go-lucky Aadi (Pruthvi). Over time, they develop a bond and just when all seemed on track for Dia and Aadi to have their happily-ever-after, Rohit returns and more tragedy unfolds in Dia’s life.

The film gave a massive fillip to the careers of all three actors. Pruthvi went on to act in the Hindi and Marathi remakes of the film and has a good set of Kannada movies lined up, while Dheekshith is slowly and steadily finding a footing in Telugu cinema. He will next be seen in Nani’s Dasara in a major role. Kushee has also been doing well and was, most recently, seen in the film Spooky College.

In case you have not seen Dia yet, you can catch it on Amazon Prime Video.