It was a very complex moment for me, I had many doubts and discussed at length with my mother as to how a married woman feels when her marriage is not consummated. I was to play a teenager married to a man in his Eighties, frustrated, trapped and ultimately someone who fights for her rights with village heads. Feminism and women's liberation during 1940 wasn't taken kindly,? says Sri Ramya the 19-year old actor who is taking the film world by storm with her fiery role as Suseela in 1940 lo oka gramam .
The film released last week and Ramya says she had been to the theatres to see for herself how receptive and discerning the audience had been. She admits that the subject is outdated but there are still some villages in India where people from lower class are treated inhumanly. Films such as these have very few takers but it has been hugely gratifying to believe in the script and herself. Sri Ramya is gleaming, all her hard work had paid off. She had her head tonsured for the role in this film which won a National Award. She was sixteen when she signed the film and by then had already worked in serials like Shanti Nivasam, Chakra Vakam, Teertham, Kasthuri and Ruthu Raagalu . A product of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Ramya is doing her graduation. A classical dancer, she had bagged her first film while working on a FDC project being made by Dilip Raj, an ad filmmaker. Narasimha Reddy spoke about the script and Suseela's role at length and warned her that she might not get films for sometime because of the nature of the role but even before he wound up his conversation, the actor said yes.
She cites the ?Racchabanda' scene as her favourite wherein she argues with the village panchayat and questions why she cannot have a child like any other woman. The dialogues were not only lengthy but complicated but Ramya says the only tough time she had was doing the romantic scenes. ?The director would enact the scene, showed me what expressions I need to come up with, and I just followed him.? As predicted, she lost on a lot of films on account of her shaved head. She stayed at home, hardly socialising but did give a dance performance with a wig and even won the first prize. ?My friends would call me ?Gundu Sundari' and others would say I'm the Telugu Nandita Das. They said they found me glamorous even in this avatar,? she smiles.
