City girl Pallavi on shooting with Alia in Delhi University
For any Delhi University (DU) graduate, it’s great to be back on campus — whether for work or leisure. It was no different for actor Pallavi Batra, an alumna of Indraprastha College for Women, who was in North Campus to shoot for the recent release, Raazi.
“We were in Miranda House (MH) to shoot for Raazi, wherein I play Alia Bhatt’s friend, Mitali. And it was great to be back where I’d started,” she says talking about the shooting.
“Classes weren’t suspended for our shoot so there were students milling around. We had to create the ’70s but with students and their cell phones it was tough, so Alia asked everyone to sit down and promised to click photos. Only then we could get the shot done,” she adds.
Earlier, Batra has essayed various roles in films such as Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi, PK, and Ek Thi Daayan. Ask her about her experience of working with Alia, and she says, “She’s very down-toearth and there are no starry airs about her. We even played badminton once after the shoot.” The actor is quite accident prone too, shares Pallavi. “There’s a scene in the film wherein a piece of glass gets stuck in Alia’s foot. So during the rehearsals, Alia goes ‘ouch’ in the first take and her security guy comes running. He’s like ‘kya ho gaya, kaha lag gayi’ and we burst out laughing. It’s because Alia is so accident prone that he thought she’d gotten hurt for real.”
Whether it was graduating from DU or being a part of Delhi’s theatre circuit, both have helped Pallavi in many ways. “The former gives you a modern outlook to life. And being in a girls’ college, I developed the independent streak that helped me develop strong roots. The discipline that theatre teaches you takes you a long way,” she says.