National Award Winner Keerthy Suresh’s Hindi Debut Marginal

National awards  don’t always impress the  entertainment industry. Keerthy Suresh who was  so impressive as the iconic actress Savitri of  the  1950s , is struggling to find  a  voice  in the fiercely patriarchal Telugu film industry  in spite of  the National award for her  performance in Mahanati.

Bollywood is  no better. Keerthy has finally signed a Hindi film.  But don’t pop that champagne bottle as  yet. It is  understood   from fairly reliable sources that that Keerthy  hardly has  any  breathing space in Amit Sharma’s Maidaan.

A   source  very closely associated with the  project told me, “It’s an out-and-out Ajay Devgan film. The heroine  has very little  to do  . Most  of   the  story is  about  Devgan’s character and  the other football players. So unlessKeerthy is playing football in the film she  has  nothing to do.”

And  that’s exactly  the way  her career has been going  after  the magnificent  impact she  made in Mahanati  even in Telugu films.She was recently seen doing a silly cameo with Nagarjuna in Manmadhudu 2.

Right after Mahanati she was seen  in  a blink-of-an-eye role in Thanaa Serndha Kootam  where she played  a  pretty prop to Suriya. Ditto  in other Tamil films Seema Raja, Saamy Square and Sandakozhi  2 . In all  of these she  was a mere prop for  the hero.

A  pity considering how pretty and pithy she  proved herself  in Mahanati.

 In  fact  Keerthy had her own misgivings  about  the  future  when in a conversation with me after the triumph  ofMahanati she  confided, “To be honest, the  films that I’ve  done after Mahanati  don’t have much for me to  do. But I promise  to  rectify the  imbalance(between the  male and female protagonist’s roles) in the  film that I sign now.”

Evidently she didn’t keep her word. Why else would she  run and  sign a big Hindi  film just because it stars a  big leading man?