Ugadi is a festival filled with memories: Sriimurali

"This Ugadi is very special to me. This festival holds many memories for me,” states Kannada star Sriimurali, who joins Bangalore Times in wishing readers a happy and prosperous Ugadi. On the auspicious occasion, the actor, who was last seen in the superhero film Bagheera speaks to us about his love for the festival, what it means to him, how he is celebrating it this year and also about the new films he is preparing for. Excerpts:
‘BEVU BELLA SERVED DURING UGADI IS A TRUE REPRESENTATION OF LIFE’
Ugadi brings back memories of celebration. While growing up, we lived with all our cousins, and celebrated the festival by gorging on bella, obbattu and obatsaaru. Our parents and elders helped us understand and imbibe the festival. Today, I will spend the day with my wife Vidya and children Agastya and Atheeva. And I love that. However, getting my children to taste bevu is a task. The concept of having bevu and bella on this auspicious day sort of represents life in its true sense. Bevu is bitter, and bella is sweet – one’s life is filled with both good and hard times, one is not without the other.
‘I HAVE PLANS TO WORK A LOT MORE THIS YEAR’
The new year is all about new challenges. I will be shooting for my next film Paraak, a period film. There is also another film that which will present me as a character that I am excited to be portraying. I have been focused on trying new things and these films are very much along those lines. After films like Ugramm, Rathavara, Bagheera, among others, there is a certain kind of expectation from my audience, I hope to be a part of and present good movies. I also plan to work on a lot more movies this year.
Pictures by Sridhar V G