Living the script

If there’s anything actress Aahana Kumra loves as much as acting, it would be travel. And these two passions come together in her latest venture — a web series titled It happened in Hong Kong about two solo travellers who meet on a trip and travel a new route in life.

Aahana, who shot to fame last year for her bold role in Alankrita Shrivastava’s film Lipstick Under My Burkha, says she loved the role especially because the character is so close to how she herself. “I thoroughly enjoyed playing myself. The character embarks on a solo trip which is something I wanted to do for a long while, and finally did last year. The story is about a girl trying to find her own voice amongst all the noise. She is running away from reality, running away from a lot of things in fact. That happened to me last year and when I got this role which closely paralleled what I felt last year, I jumped at it,” she says.

Directed by Lakshya Raj Anand and co-written by Amol Parashar, the four-episode series airs on Viu streaming service. Talking about the collaborative experience of working on the show, she says, “There was a set script but Amol Parashar (her co-star and co-writer of the show) wrote it in segments, and we would brainstorm every night and Amol would write scenes and we would have discussions about a certain scene and how a certain actor would behave after doing a certain incident. A lot of things were thought on the spot and we tried to be as fluid as we could.”

Travel holds a very special spot in her heart. “Travelling is my hobby, lots of travelling actually. There is a big world out there and to explore it is great fun. Japan is my favorite destination. It doesn’t bore you as a country. Every city is different and there is a lot to do there, and the people are wonderful. It's a very quirky country and we don’t feel like Indian tourists out there. I have been to most parts of India and to the US, Australia, England, Russia, Ukraine, Japan. I have a long list of places I have been to and I plan to travel again very soon,” she says.