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.”