Why Richa Chadha couldn’t visit Ram Janma Bhoomi…

Film shoots in Ayodhya are not so common. So, when Richa Chadha travelled to the city to shoot ‘

Daas Dev

’, the actress not only enjoyed great hospitality from the royals of Ayodhya but also made it a point to visit certain important holy places. However, she couldn’t visit the disputed Ram Janma Bhoomi site.

“The production team was worried about safety. I saw the place from a distance. It’s a barricaded spot, so we visited all the possible temples and shrines in the city but we had to skip this one for security reasons,” recalls Richa, adding with a chuckle, “What we couldn’t perhaps skip was seeing monkeys all over the city. There’s a famous Lord Hanuman temple in the city and that’s the reason there are so many cute and dabangg monkeys all over Ayodhya. You have to be watchful; they snatch mobile phones and scoot at the speed of light.”

Sudhir Mishra’s film, a spin on the classic ‘Devdas’, was shot at the Ayodhya Palace, close to the disputed site. Richa insists that the palace was not ostentatious but it still had a regal feel to it. She says, “We shot quite a bit of our film there. Sudhir chose a great location because the place exudes power. In the course of our stay there, I became friends with princess Manjari from the royal family of Ayodhya. As a part of the family’s hospitality, they arranged multi-course vegetarian meals for us.”