In 2018, Bengali actress Debattama Saha came to Mumbai for the first time. At that point, her father didn’t know that she had shifted base from Kolkata to the city of dreams. “I didn’t tell him for a while. I knew that if I wanted to do something in the Hindi entertainment industry then I would have to be in Mumbai. I remember I stood outside the airport with my bags and I didn’t even have a place to stay. That was the scariest part! I contacted a friend via Facebook and that’s how I managed to arrange my accommodation for a day.”
The actress got her first Hindi break in the industry in 2019 with the TV show Isharon Isharon Mein. It ended in 2020 and now she is gearing up for her next.
She will be seen playing the lead in Mithai, in which she plays a character who dreams of carrying forward her father’s sweet shop business.
She relates to her character and says she was exactly like this when she first came to Mumbai wanting to fulfilll her dreams.
Debattama recounts how she used to eat one vada pav and go for auditions. She adds, “I used to make friends there and then would stay with them. The struggle here in Mumbai is something else! When I got my first role in Ishaaron Ishaaron Mein, that’s when I told my father that I had shifted to Mumbai. My dad, who lives in Silchar didn’t believe me at first.”
Talking about how she has come a long way, she says, ‘I am in a much better place now. I have rented a place. My mother and sister also live with me and life is far more peaceful now,” she concludes.