01 April,2026 01:13 PM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Prasanna Bisht
The recent web series, Chiraiya, headlined by Divya Dutta, Sanjay Mishra, and Prasanna Bisht, among others, has sparked some serious conversation regarding sexual harassment, marital rape, consent and victim blaming. Prasanna, who plays Pooja, a newly married woman who is a victim of marital rape in the series, got candid with mid-day regarding the darker aspects of the series.
Given that the character was a vulnerable and emotionally intricate one, we asked the young actor how she got into the mindset of Pooja. To which she revealed, "Something happened with me before I got the show. I faced something during the shoot. I had invested so much of my emotions and my time in a project that I was emotionally connected to. And there was this person who crossed their limits. When I spoke about it in front of the team, I thought the team would back me up on that. But they started quoting me as a problem. They titled me as somebody who was creating problems on set, just because I spoke up for myself."
She added, "So I think that experience really helped me. I think I was just portraying what I went through. That's how I could relate to the character more."
Further explaining how she prepared for the darker scenes in Chiraiya mentally, she says, "It's the trauma that we all have seen. It's the experiences that we all have faced as women. And I have seen it happening around me, with me. So, of course, it was very dark, and it was very heavy."
Living and reliving such trauma while filming a scene is no ordinary deal, but Prasanna says, "I feel like I'm an actor, and if somehow my five-minute trauma, if I live it again and it empowers people, then I'll do that again and again."
Did the emotional scenes stay with her after the cut? "Yeah," she asserts, adding, "It happened when there's a scene where I go, and I try to speak to my mother and she tells me to go back. She doesn't help me, she doesn't listen to me. She was not ready to accept that something like this could even exist. And even if it does, then she just wants me to sacrifice myself, my body, so that my father-in-law can help my brother with his job and other things."
The Farrey actress explains, "So, that kind of stayed with me because I think I come from a family where my mother and father have always taught me to be independent. They are very supportive. Even though there were times that I was not able to speak to them about sexual harassment because I think there's something with Indian families, they don't even talk about it. Like, there is no conversation about it."
"When I did that scene, then I realised that there are so many parents out there who don't even support their daughters. And that completely shattered me. And then I started thinking about women who actually live in such houses."
Talking about how she got out of that zone, she says, "I think everything takes time. You just live with it. You don't come out of it. You just live with it, and you just talk about it."
