Smrithi refutes claims Raksha Bandhan promotion were fake

• Shah Rukh Khan’s magic words, “Kehte hain agarkisi cheezko dil sechaho,” are sworn to by actor Smrithi Srikanth.
• To poori kainath’s usage, lag jaati hai milane ki koshish.
• Smrithi couldn’t have hoped for a better start in Bollywood than the one she received with Akshay Kumar in Raksha Bandhan after a lot of effort and persistence.

Shah Rukh Khan’s magic words, “Kehte hain agarkisi cheezko dil sechaho,” are sworn to by actor Smrithi Srikanth. To poori kainath’s usage, lag jaati hai milane ki koshish. Smrithi couldn’t have hoped for a better start in Bollywood than the one she received with Akshay Kumar in Raksha Bandhan after a lot of effort and persistence. The young actor admitted, “It was my brother who helped record my audition tape; It was meant to be,” in an interview.

After sending Mukesh Chabbra my audition tapes, I waited for the next two to three months before hearing anything, Smrithi remembered on tracing the steps leading up to her big break. Smrithi was working as a dancer at the time, and everything took place during the lockdown. “One day, I got a call and they said ‘you have been shortlisted. I had not told my family about the film until then. When I got to know that Akshay sir was a part of the movie, I was on cloud nine. That day I bought sweets home and touched the feet of my parents. To be honest, my parents were a little concerned in the beginning because I am not someone who comes from a filmy background. But everything vanished after I got Raksha Bandhan.”

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Further, Smrithi went on to describe working with Akshay Kumar, who was her first real co-star. “As a person, sir is very humble. He is in a school of acting. He has an aura around him. I was a bit nervous initially. But, he was the one who broke the ice and made us comfortable. He would wait for us to have lunch together. He is very caring on the sets, Akshay sir is actually a very responsible and protective brother. He can be joking in a moment and after ten seconds, he can flip and get into his characters and start crying in an emotional scene.”

In the movie Raksha Bandhan, Akshay portrays Lala Kedarnath, a kind brother who adores his four sisters, one of which is Smrithi. The performers had a fun making the movie, and they afterwards spent days touring the country to promote it. “While the shooting was fun, the promotion was on another level. We played games during our flights. Since he lost in one, he promised to get us one souvenir from each city where we went for the promotion; anything special from each place.”

On social media, Akshay posted snippets of his travels with his real-life sisters as well as items he had purchased for them, including chikankari kurtas from Lucknow, bandhani sarees from Ahmedabad, and pearls from Indore. Many people on social media referred to them as a publicity stunt for the movie, but Smrithi admitted the truth:  “I have all my gifts now. We even wore our pearl sets on the next day of our shoot. There’s nothing about showing it off on camera. This really happened. He actually bought all of those things for us. He did the payment. We even told him ‘sir rehne dijiye (please let it be)’, but he insisted ‘I want to make your experience memorable. Go ahead and just enjoy.’ It was very sweet of him.”

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The social message against India’s dowry practise is highlighted by Raksha Bandhan. But how much is it still applicable today? The actor said, “The film deals about a very severe societal problem, hence the label regressive should not be used,” in response to the criticism that it was “regressive.” Dowry is still a very common practise. Even though we might believe we have overcome it, many people still use it. They might not refer to it as dowry but yet view it as a gift obligation. The finest response to the patriarchal society is our movie. On social media, there were also boycott trends for the movie. However, nothing could diminish the newcomer’s self-assurance. “Not even for once, I was worried. We were so busy working hard before the film’s release.”