Sai Tamhankar on her upcoming webshow Pet Puran, OTT boom and more

SonyLIV’s new series titled Pet Puraan brings to light the clash in mindsets and priorities between a modern-day, working couple who do not wish for kids and their respective families, who have a more traditional approach towards what completes a family. The show talks about pet parenting in a breezy, fun manner and stars Sai Tamhankar and Lalit Prabhakar in lead roles. Created and written by Dnyanesh Zoting, Pet Puraan trailer features Tamhankar and Prabhakar who decide to adopt pets after struggling with nagging relatives who want them to take the parenthood route. Prabhakar, who is a dog lover decides to adopt a canine, while Tamhankar, a cat person, takes in a kitten. But they soon find out that being a pet parent is not as simple and easy as they assumed. Sai Tamhankar, in an interview with Firstpost, opened up on the series, her thoughts on pet parenting and what should viewers expect from her character. Tell us a bit about your character Aditi.  I think you should expect a lot more witty comments, remarks and various streams of thoughts from her on society. And how today’s women enjoy their independence, not just to have it, but actually enjoy it. The other part is how important is for a woman to find a husband/partner/companion who understands all of this and who supports her. So we will be tapping on various things like this, but Aditi more or less represents today’s woman, she is a 21st-century girl, who probably thinks that they don’t want children, and would rather have pets. And honestly, such points of view do exist, and I individually do acknowledge them with all my heart. How was it shooting with the animals? Honestly, I was a dog person before I did Pet Puran and when we read the script, we were kind of kicked to see that it is very fresh, nobody has done this before but the big question for all of us was how will we execute all of this. What if the pet does not react the way the writer has written the script. Hence we did a week-long workshop with the pets so that way we could befriend them, build a relationship with the two, and that helped us a lot during shooting. And to be honest, every day was different, unpredictable, and I think that is the beauty of this genre and shooting with the pets.

We learnt that you adopted a cat after the show ended. Did you take back any learnings from the show? I learnt different things from both of them Buddy (dog) and Baku (cat). I was attracted to the cat’s ability to be emotionally independent and that quality really pulled me to become more curious about feline creatures. When it comes to buddy, dogs are so innocent, that there are no filters. Everything about them is so pure, there are hidden intentions, and motives. There is only love, unconditional love. And I think I would like that kind of innocence forever. So I think these two learnings were very important for me. What are your thoughts on pet parenting? I don’t think the show is trying to send across any message. We are showcasing just one aspect of our ever-changing society. This is not it, in fact there are so many things, and this is just one part of it. Today’s generation is opting for such options and it is the reality.

You know it is not fair to say that it is right or wrong, because times are changing, and so are their thought processes.

I think one must just acknowledge because that’s all I am doing. I accept that it exists, I am aware of it, and I respect that.

For someone, who has worked across various industries and now on OTT as well, what are your thoughts on the OTT boom in India? I am extremely grateful for it. I can’t even begin to imagine what would have happened to us without the OTT. I think OTT is the biggest game-changer because it has created such huge employment opportunities for many of us. It is positive, wonderful and I think an actor does not think about what is medium, is it films, television or OTT, when he’s approached for work. At least for me, the medium doesn’t really matter, it can be any language or form, there is no criteria to it. The work matters, that’s how I look at it. Can you tell us a bit about your future projects? I am keeping myself busy this year a lot. This and next year’s spread is going to really interesting. I have Madhur Bhandarkar’s India Lockdown, there’s Mohit Takalkar’s Marathi film Medium Spicy, and Red Chillies Entertainment-produced Bhakshak in the pipeline. Pet Puran is releasing on SonyLIV on 6 May

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