Actress Patralekhaa, who is garnering rave reviews for her performance in the Anubhav Sinha directorial web series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ marks a decade in the entertainment industry. In an exclusive interaction with mid-day.com, she gets candid about her journey from Shillong to Mumbai and how the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi served as the ice-breaker for her in the maximum city. 

Patralekhaa was determined to be an actress

Patralekhaa made her debut in 2014 with the film ‘CityLights’ directed by Hansal Mehta. She starred alongside Rajkummar Rao, her now husband. She recalls, “People didn’t warm up to me. It took me 10 years. When I was in Bangalore, I would get offers randomly to do modelling. I used to shut it off. Once I came to Mumbai, My dad wanted me to become a CA. He took me to the institute and enrolled me because he was a CA. For the first year, I was like, ‘Listen. I just came out of ICSE’. I used to study a lot because I was a good student and 'I just want to take a year off'. He was like, ‘Cool’, and then we never spoke about it. It was an unsaid thing. We didn’t have a face off and by then I was quite determined to do this (acting), but I didn’t know how to navigate my way, I was so new. I didn’t even have friends, but one thing like to the other. I hustled like a maniac.”