Rasika Dugal’s stellar performance in the second season of the Emmy award winning show Delhi Crime is being praised by critics and audiences alike. Dugal who plays IPS trainee Neeti Singh in the crime drama now recounts her horrid experiences in Delhi.
During an interaction with Vice India, the Mirzapur actor revealed that during her college days, she had to cross a dangerous and desolate stretch of road every time she had to walk towards her college. She shared, “Experiences in Delhi on the roads were not fun at all. I don’t think as people going to college we needed to feel so much fear. Every time I walked from my PG to my college, I was petrified because there was a patch of the road which was sunsaan (deserted). Ek taraf there was nalah ek taraf there was a school which used to shut by 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. So if you cross that patch, you have to tell 10 people that you are crossing it, just so if you did not arrive on the other side of it somebody would check.”
While the first season of the critically-acclaimed crime drama was set in the aftermath of the 2012 Delhi gang rape, the second season focused on the Chaddi Baniyan Gang. In an interview with a media portal, the talented actress had revealed how she prepared in order to essay an IPS officer. She explained, “It’s not easy to live a character. There are a few scripts that touch your heart and you can relate to the character. Neeti is that character for me – I was very much like her in my college days. The sincerity she has, the hard work she puts in, her drive to learn and grow, and the realization that you need to negotiate to survive in the system are some of the things I could relate to.”
She added further, “Preparing for Delhi Crime was interesting as I didn’t have much time to do that. I requested my team to introduce me to some at the same rank that I was playing (a probationary officer). I followed her everywhere and tried to understand her mannerism – the way she salutes, the way she stands, or talk to an officer, every detail was important to make the character look real. For season 2, I again connected with her and she is also ACP now. I went to meet her in Chandigarh and stayed around her for five days. I learned lessons for a lifetime while staying at the police station with her.”
Besides Rasika Dugal, the second season of Delhi Crime also featured Shefali Shah, Rajesh Tailang, Adil Hussain, Anurag Arora, Aakash Dahiya, Sidharth Bhardwaj, Gopal Dutt, Danish Husain and Yashaswini Dayama.
