‘Akka’ creator Dharmaraj Shetty: ‘A celebration of women’ and leadership lessons too
· Scroll
Dharmaraj Shetty struck gold in his first-ever project with Yash Raj Films – literally so. Shetty’s web series Akka, produced by the studio’s digital division, is big on heavily brocaded saris and gold accoutrements that include double nose rings.
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The five-episode Hindi series, which came out on Netflix on October 30, explores the battle for supremacy for the fictional coastal town Pernuru, which is governed by a matriarchal clan. Akka takes place between the 1940s and the 1980s.
The matriarch Muthakka (Tanvi Azmi) and her heiress Bhavani (Keerthy Suresh) control the liquor brewing trade that supports Pernuru. Rudra (Radhika Apte) sashays into Pernuru from Mumbai, keen on anointing herself as the new ‘Akka’, or queen, with the help of the Mumbai underworld.
“The central fight is between what is the right thing to do and what needs to be done, which is a difficult thing faced by leaders anywhere in the world,” Shetty told Scroll.
Rudra enters a world that has unconventional domestic arrangements. Instead of marrying, Pernuru’s women take on partners. Inheritance passes through the female line, leading to disgruntlement and tensions among the men of Pernuru.
“This is something I got from my research,” Shetty said. “It was also a way to make the show interesting and fun.”
Shetty grew up in Mangaluru,...