After staying away from television for five years, actress Urmila Kothare is making a return to the medium with a short series based on Rani Ahilyabai Holkar of the erstwhile Malwa kingdom. “After 'Asambhav' I didn’t get very good offers on TV and I didn’t want to do daily soaps. So, when this series, a part of the bigger project titled 'Awaaj', was offered to me, I agreed because it falls more into the biopic-category and is quite challenging,” says Urmila.
The actress rues the fact that not a lot of people know about the Malwa queen. She feels, “She was a gifted administrator and even today, people refer to her as Ahilya aai (mother). To command so much respect and that too at a time when women were not treated as equals to men, is a huge achievement. Sadly, not many people know about her and we want to bring forth her struggle and work.”
The crew wanted to shoot at the Holkars’ ancestral home in Maheshwar, but had to settle for a set in Mumbai because the Holkar wada is undergoing repair work.