Having been a part of the Indian entertainment industry for some time now, actress Wamiqa Gabbi has dipped her toes in Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam films. Her most recent performance as Manu in Grahan has earned her rave reviews. The web show, which was mired in several controversies ahead of its release, received superlative reviews on social media, and off it. 

Opening up about her life after Grahan, Wamiqa shares that she hasn’t stopped smiling. “It’s been great. I haven’t stopped smiling! Imagine me sleeping, waking up, taking a bath, eating, with a smile on my face – that’s how my life has been,” she said in an exclusive interview with Times Now Digital. 

The actress opened up about her experience of playing Manu and explained that she really enjoyed the “happy part” of her character’s arc where she didn’t care about what she was doing. She also talked about understanding her character’s emotions after she found out that her lover Rishi is rejected by her parents, and that she was to marry someone else.

Wamiqa further detailed her thoughts on the one thing that changed her character’s life forever. “One of the reasons why we wanted Manu to be on the numb side was because she would have never ever imagined for something like that to happen to have happened with her. She is very innocent and she was living in your own little world. She is so delicate, soft and she is so kind and happy,” she said, adding that usually, people find out about the cruelties of life gradually, but for Manu, it all happened in one night when she was raped. 

When asked about shooting the sensitive sequence, Wamiqa shared that she didn’t want to think about it before the scene since it had to come as a shock to her character. “I think the rape scene just happened. Obviously, it was tormenting when we were shooting the bit where she is actually getting raped. I wasn’t preparing for it, maybe that’s why when that was happening, it was such a trauma for me to think what my character must be feeling. The experience of just thought that somebody wanted to take revenge or whatever that person wanted, he’s done it now, without any fault of the girl in the whole thing. That was tormenting,” she said. 

The actress recounted that she was most disturbed as her character after the rape scene, when she was sitting outside and Rishi enters the frame. “I remember I kept thinking about it. How this girl must be feeling. That night was horrible after shooting,” she added. 

“I don’t even remember I looked at Rishi when he entered. I don’t even remember when they said action and when he comes and I started looking at him… it was such a bad zone to be in,” shared Wamiqa.

After she was done with the shot, Wamiqa recounted that she stood up, went to a corner and heard Om chant with tears in her eyes. “I stood in a corner and I started listening to Om chant because I wanted to get back to my normal self. The whole process was troubling me, and my hairstylist was with me and I was crying. I just opened my eyes and saw that my hairstylist was also crying,” she said, adding, “I looked at her and asked what happened and she was like I also have a kid, and then she was crying.”

The actress said that both she and her hairstylist cried, hugged each other, thinking about the heinous act that can make any woman feel helpless. Released on June 24, Grahan is based on the book Chaurasi by Satya Vyas. The series stars Pawan Malhotra, Zoya Hussain, Anshumaan Pushkar alongside Wamiqa in the lead roles. The series is streaming on Hotstar.