Talent can be a patient thing. It doesn’t leave your side, honing itself quietly until the right moment comes its way. For Sushmita Sen, it came 24 years after her Bollywood debut, in the form of Aarya. If the first season made people rediscover Sen’s acting prowess, the latest instalment has proved that she gets better as the stakes rise higher. To the actor, the Ram Madhvani creation represents the kind of content she always believed in. “Now, I am moving in the right direction. I am marrying the person I am with the role I choose. It required a director like Ram and such a team to allow me to do that,” she says. 

In the eight-part series, circumstances and shifting alliances compel Sen’s Aarya to transform from a homemaker to a fierce don. The actor is delighted that the audiences have embraced a woman-led story, season on season. “The show is inspired by Penoza [the Dutch series], or [if you see the similarities], the role is a female version of Michael Corleone from The Godfather. So, it’s tough for Indian audiences to suddenly accept not just a strong female lead, but to see her being everything that we consider masculine. Thanks to Ram, Aarya is still as feminine as she can be, because she is a mother first.”