Manasi Parekh, recipient of the Best Actress National Award, talks about her amazing 2024 that gave her both commercial success and critical acclaim.
To casual Hindi viewers, Manasi Parekh is the star of popular TV shows like Kasautii Zindagii Kay and Saath Nibhaana Saatiya, among others. But years after she was shot to fame with Hindi television, the actor made her name in her home state – Gujarat – with some critically acclaimed films there. The dividends were reaped in 2024, a remarkable year for the actor when she broke box office records and won a National Film Award. In conversation with HT, Manasi looks back at her annus mirabilis and the revival of Gujarati cinema.
On her amazing 2024
Manasi saw the box office success of her Gujarati horror comedy, Jhamkudi, which earned around ₹25 crore at the box office. Later in the year, she became the first person to win the Best Actress National Award for a Gujarati film as she won it for her 2023 release, Kutch Express. “It has been an amazing year,” Manasi says. First Jhamkudi broke all Gujarati box office records of the last two years. That was a good success, and then the win happened. It made us believe that we are on the right path.”
The National Award win was so unexpected, says Manasi, that she had even forgotten that she had applied for the award. “It was absolutely unexpected. One works with the hope that this film reaches the zenith of what it has to achieve. When we were making Kutch Express, we knew something special was happening. We had applied for the National Award as everyone else does, but we didn’t know the process after that,” she says.
“We were shooting two months ago when the announcement happened, and friends from the industry started messaging. I was so confused because I had forgotten that we had even applied. At that moment, when you are completely caught off guard, it’s so special. If you make a film with the intention of winning an award, you are constantly thinking about it. But when you don’t know all that, it’s very amazing,” the actor adds.
Kutch Express was produced by Manasi and her husband, singer-filmmaker Parthiv Gohil, with some help from their friends. “My husband and I produced the project, and our friends invested in it. It’s almost completely crowdfunded in that sense. We just believed that it had to be made in our own language. So, the win feels much sweeter,” she says.
On Gujarati cinema’s revival
Many were surprised that Manasi is the first to win a Best Actress National Award for Gujarati cinema and the actor sees this as an honour. She tells us, “Hindi cinema is the mainstay but then you have the National Awards where Nithya (Menen) and I win it for regional films, Rishab Shetty wins it for Kantara. You just realise that they are making the effort to recognise talent apart from Hindi cinema.”
But the actor argues that since Gujarati cinema had seen a lull earlier, it is only natural that none of the stalwarts from the industry won any award. “Gujarati cinema has come around in the last 10-12 years, honestly,” she explains. “Before that, it was dormant for a long time. Films were being made, but they were not being correctly distributed. It’s a very adolescent industry right now. Great directors and writers are stepping in, and now it has revived.”
Looking forward to 2025, Manasi hopes to continue doing good work, regardless of language and medium. “All I want to do is tell good, important stories,” she says, signing off.
