When an actor signs a project, rarely do they know where it will take them. Now, as Rasika Dugal has won the Best Actress (Series) award for the third season of Delhi Crime at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM), it has reinforced a belief she long held about the show. “I think it’s the best decision I have taken in the last six years, to be honest,” she said of the Netflix series starring Shefali Shah, Rajesh Tailang, and her.
Rasika Dugal in the series. Pics/Youtube, Instagram
In the police procedural drama that first streamed in 2019, Dugal plays cop Neeti Singh. The actor believes that Neeti’s journey across the seasons has mirrored her own evolution. “The character reminds me a lot of myself. Through the three seasons, we almost mirror each other, at least internally — in terms of what I feel about the world, how jaded or how inspired I feel. I can find those connections along with Neeti,” reflected Dugal.
Her character has often been described as “sincere” and “ideological”, but to the actor, these labels don’t dictate how she plays her. She explained, “You don’t want to be living by just words because what you experience and what you feel are much more than that, and it’s often in between those words.”
For Rasika Dugal, the film festival’s highlight was attending a screening of ‘Umrao Jaan’ with Rekha.