Mumbai: Richa Chadha, in her 2013 crime-comedy flick Fukrey, wowed the audience with her confident portrayal of Bholi Punjaban, a loudmouth, not-so-bholi local don. The character that that won the hearts of many was inspired by the real-life human trafficker, Sonu Punjaban aka Geeta Arora, as revealed by the actress in an interview from 2013. The Dwarka District Court sentenced Sonu Punjaban to 24 years of jail today.
“There was a girl in Delhi, Sonu Punjaban. My character is loosely based on her. She got criminally active at a very early age. By the age of 20, she was known in entire North India,” Richa had said about her character in Fukrey in an interview during the film’s promotion.
There was not much information available about Sonu Punjaban back in 2013. Richa had said she was first trafficked in 2013 before she started her own racket – Richa took the character and made it her own. So much so, that producer of Fukrey, Farhan Akhtar felt that hers was the most apt casting decision.
“Richa is the perfect casting for this character. She is someone with a really strong personality, a tremendous amount of character and a very strong sense of self-belief. She has that look, that if you mess with her, she will beat the crap out of you,” Farhan had said the same year, just before the release of the film.
Bholi Punjaban was a negative character who pretty much sets the ball rolling for the other characters in the film – Pulkit Samrat’s Hunny, Varun Sharma’s Choocha, Ali Fazal’s Zafar Bhai and Manjot Singh’s Lali Halwai. Hunny’s money-making scheme leads them to Bholi Punjaban, who, impressed with the deal, agrees to invest in it. Things go awry when, due to hilarious turns of events, the four lose her money, and now must find a way to return it. More hilarious scenes ensue that leave the cinegoers in splits as it was heavy on situational comedy. Richa gave a stellar performance perfectly aided by the rest of the cast who held the plot together.
Bholi Punjaban alongwith the rest of the cast returned for a sequel in 2017, titled Fukrey Returns. But, Richa almost didn’t make it in the sequel. She was the last actor to have come on board simply because the makers of the film were unsure if she had slots. “I’m glad Honey (Trehan, casting director, Fukrey Returns) came to the rescue. To think that this almost didn’t happen is scary in retrospect,” Richa had said in 2017.
PNN/Agencies
