Chaithra Achar: My latest photo shoot is not meant to be provocative or to seek attention

If you’ve followed Kannada actress Chaithra Achar’s social media feed long enough, you will know that she isn’t the kind to post random selfies. Instead, much of it is a carefully curated set of pictures that have been shot based on themes, moods, etc., capturing her in ethnic or western attire, as the case maybe. Chaithra, no doubt, loves the camera, which reflects in the photos that she gets conceptualized, like, for instance, her Ponniyin Selvan inspired set, or her version of a shoot that Mollywood actress and model Saniya Iyappan did, among others.

There is one set of images, though, which Chaithra has been uploading in batches, as and when the photographer has been making them available to her, which have raised a few eyebrows. The images, featuring Chaitra and designer Diksha Krishnan, shot by Berlin-based photographer Anjan Kumar, have the duo playfully lounging around, gazing affectionately at each other, among others. The images do not have detailed description, and are open to interpretation, says Chaithra, who has been getting a lot of praise for the pictures and some body shaming and moral policing too.

Speaking about the shoot, Chaithra explains, “Anjan was visiting India and had reached out to me with a collaboration request. He also wanted to work with Diksha who is a stylist and fashion designer and it so turned out that I knew her too, as we’d met on the set of my film, Blink. The idea was to capture two friends in their house or some comfortable zone and then see how it goes. When we started shooting, we began to experiment – initially, it was a normal casual shoot with two friends, then Anjan said we ought to consider it as a photo film. The two women could be friends, they could be sisters, or whatever, and what we would show is intimacy, which can be interpreted in different ways. The idea was to leave it to the audience to interpret it the way they want. The shots were as simple as me teaching her how to drape a sari; she combing my hair; laughing; sharing and being in our element. In general, women are more comfortable with each other, which we wanted to capture. I also used a cigarette as a prop, to depict that the character I portrayed smokes.”

She elaborates, “There are both positive and negative comments from people and I am not surprised anymore; I’m getting used to it. My friends and well-wishers love it and then there are some commenting, ‘lesbians’, as if it is a swear word. The smoking has also not gone down well with some sections, who say that despite my disclaimer that I am not promoting it, I should not have used it as a prop. One thing that I want everyone to understand is that I am not looking to provocate or seek attention with these pictures; I’ve never done that before and will not in the future either. I have always been experimenting with pictures even before people knew me as an actress. Over time, I have learnt to ignore the bad comments, although the crassness of it sometimes gets to me.”