Sheeba Chaddha describes herself as a “switch-on-switch-off” actor, embracing the character as soon as the camera rolls and seamlessly shaking it off after the day’s shoot. But when Pagglait (2021) came her way, she knew she would require more than an artiste’s instinct to play the part of the grieving mother who has lost her young son. “I am an actor who doesn’t prep. I don’t take my characters home. But with this one, I felt it wouldn’t be okay to not stay with the character. It’s almost as if I wanted to stay with this woman and her grief, outside of action and cut,” she recounts.