Romance on Her Mind

The actor speaks on her latest show, Four Years Later, and playing a romantic lead for the first time in her careera

- PUJA TALWAR

For Shahana Goswami, her latest show, Four Years Later, is more than just a return to the screen. It's a poignant mirror to her evolution as an actor. Coming off the heels of the internationally acclaimed Santosh, a searing narrative exploring caste and police brutality, the 39-year-old actor finds herself playing a romantic lead, perhaps for the first time in her two-decade-long career.

"I laugh because it's taken me this long," she says, referring to her character Sri Devi in Four Years Later, now streaming on Lionsgate Play. "But it's also refreshing and liberating to explore love on screen as a grown woman." Directed by Ayan Mukerji, the series tells the story of Sri Devi, a woman navigating the shifting sands of selfhood and companionship post-marriage.

Portraying her on-screen husband is Akshay Ajit Singh, but what sets the show apart, Shahana says, is its layered, non-clichéd portrayal of a relationship in flux.