Nimrat’s 7-year absence from B’wood was not a conscious choice

eteran filmmaker Tatineni Rama Rao, known for remaking several Telugu and Tamil films in Hindi, died on Wednesday in Chennai at the age of 83. Actor Ajay Devgn expressed his condolences and tweeted, “Sad to hear of filmmaker T Rama Rao Garu’s demise. He dominated the era of socials in the ’80s. My dad and I were closely associated with him.”

Rao’s career began in 1966 with the Telugu film Navarathri, and his foray into the Hindi industry began in 1979 with Lok Parlok, starring Jeetendra, Jaya Prada. He’s also credited with introducing actor Rajinikanth in Bollywood with Andhaa Kanoon (1983), and worked with several other stars, including Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan.

Actor Anupam Kher tweeted: “Deeply saddened to know about the demise of veteran filmmaker and a dear friend Shri #TRamaRao ji. I had the privilege of working with him in #AakhriRaasta and #Sansaar!”

Actor Nimrat Kaur, who has been busy with projects in Hollywood, wishes she had spent more time in the Hindi film industry. She returns to Bollywood with the recently released social comedy, Dasvi, seven years after her last Hindi film, Airlift (2016). Kaur says, “I wish I could have chased my last Hindi project way quicker with a new project. But that’s something you can’t control, especially me, because I work abroad, too. Straight after Airlift, I went abroad to do a television show called Wayward Pines, which took six months.”

In between, Kaur did a Hindi web series titled The Test Case, before returning to the West, once again, to shoot for the eighth season of the TV series, Homeland. She does, however, add that the need to match up with her first project, the critically acclaimed The Lunchbox (2013), drove her to be picky with Bollywood scripts.

“You want to work much more, but things don’t fall into place or you don’t get the kind of project that you want to do,” shares the 40-yearold, adding, “There are a host of variables that you can’t control. I tend to not worry about things that are beyond me, and thankfully, that’s a part of my nature.”

The actor goes on, “I haven’t consciously stayed away from [Bollywood] films.

I genuinely wanted to work on more projects.”

Ask Kaur, if at any point, she was worried about being forgotten by the Indian audience, given her absence, and she says, “I’ve enough faith and belief that whichever project I take up in any part of the world, no matter how much time it takes, there will always be a space in the audience’s mind for me. I hear things like ‘they want to see more of me’, and that’s very encouraging. It’s the ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ kind of thing.”