This has been a bountiful year for Patralekhaa… and it’s not even June. Her debut film as producer, the zany, freewheeling dark comedy Toaster, premiered to positive word-of-mouth in April. Starring husband Rajkummar Rao as a miserly doofus, the film has been trending on Netflix’s global charts for a month. Patralekhaa and Rao welcomed their first child, a baby daughter named Parvati, last November. Now, one of her acting projects, the slice-of-life road trip film Heer Sara Aur Pondicherry, with Manvi Gagroo, is arriving in theatres on May 29.
“My mind is too full but I'm really enjoying this time!” Patralekhaa says on a zoom call from Shillong, her hometown, where she’s on a maternity break.
Written and directed by Kartik Chaudhry, Heer Sara Aur Pondicherry tracks the friendship of two women who meet at a personal crossroads, and embark on a journey of self-discovery. Patralekhaa’s character, Sara, is a motorcycle and travel enthusiast from Indore with dreams of building a women-led travel startup.
The actor shares that as a child, she had met with a cycling accident and developed a lifelong fear of two-wheelers. But for the film, shot on location in Pondicherry and elsewhere, her director insisted she learn to ride a bike. “I did learn and I overcame my fear, which was a personal win for me,” Patralekhaa says, recalling the process. We interject promptly: how does one learn to ride a bike on Mumbai streets?
“Luckily, in Juhu, where we live, there are a couple of hours in the day where the roads are empty. In the morning, I would wake up, take the bike out and go.”
She adds that Rajkummar Rao owned a Harley-Davidson Fat Bob at the time — “some 300 kgs of bike” — and she even learnt to ride that. “Once you get over your fear, it is actually quite empowering.”
Chaudhry's film, she says, explores how a new friendship can be transformative, helping us tap into a part of our personality we are too scared to confront (the trailer hints at Sara's unresolved emotions for her estranged mother). Working with Manvi Gagroo — a veteran of sorts of this genre, with popular shows TVF Tripling and Four More Shots Please! to her credit — was a breeze, Patralekhaa says. This is the first time the actors have collaborated on a project.
“I didn’t know Manvi that well. I met her on the sets of Heer Sara. And I can call her my friend right now,” Patralekha says, calling Gagroo ‘a chill girl’ and a really fine actor.
“She’s a girl’s girl. If I would get stuck, she would help me manoeuvre through the scene.” Reflecting on the bond they developed, she adds with a laugh: “It’s a special friendship. Two actresses can be friends!”
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Patralekha and Rao have named their production house—Kampa Film—after their mothers’ initials. She views the response to Toaster as a reassuring first step in the world of producing.
“I'm in Shillong right now. The folks here do not watch that many Hindi films. But they have really enjoyed Toaster. I have so many of people walking up to me and saying it's such a funny film.”
Undoubtedly, a draw for audiences has been Rao’s observant, witty performance as a compulsive cheapskate.
“I think people have really taken to Raj’s character,” Patralekha observes. “Whenever I'm meeting people, they're telling us, you know, my chacha ji is like that. Or my father is like that.”
Their next production, Raftaar, switches gears dramatically, setting up a fast-paced thriller in the startup economy world. The film stars Rajkummar Rao and Keerthy Suresh and—unlike Toaster—is headed for a theatrical release.
“We are currently doing the post-production on Raaftaar. It’s the kind of a story that hasn't been told yet in the Hindi film industry,” Patralekhaa emphasises. “I'm really thrilled for it.”
Meanwhile, a third film, with a popular director attached, is presently in development at the production house, and will go on floors by the end of the year. The company is focusing on efficient, genre-led stories that move the needle in mainstream cinema.
“I can’t talk much about it but it’s a really exciting project. We have a very interesting director on board. And he always brings something new to the table whenever he makes his movies.”
Between the recent release of Toaster and the final rounds on Raftaar, not to mention the whirlwind of raising her newborn daughter, Pratralekhaa says her plate is currently full. She is reading screenplays—both as an actor and a producer—but does not intend to take on a new project anytime soon.
“I’m not ready to leave my daughter home and go to work yet,” she says. “We’ll see next year.”