By Ila Sankrityayan

New Delhi, Mar 19 (IANS): After doing several projects like 'Soni' and 'Thappad', actress Geetika Vidya has recently taken up an audio show, which is quite different as well as challenging for her.

She gets candid about the idea behind the audio show, 'Psycho Saiyaan' and the challenges she faced while doing it.

Geetika says: "The idea behind 'Psycho Saiyaan' happens to be highlighting the story, journey, pain and strength of a victim. As opposed to other shows where we see glamorized or glorified criminals. Here very beautifully we see a protagonist who's portrayed as a seemingly ordinary woman."

"A woman who would have all the reasons to not unveil her wounds, or paths or injustice, injustice from the past. Here we see the show chooses to stand with the victim. It showcases her apprehensions, her pain, and then slowly and gradually and justifiably, her choice of speaking against the crime committed towards her. Speaking not just against but speaking loud for herself and for the next generation of women. So that's one part of the answer," she adds.

On briefing about her character, she says: "I play a character called Chaya who lives on the outskirts of a certain city. The character looks like an ordinary woman, but the story highlights her journey from being a victim to a champion. A woman, who has a lot at stake and if she gave in to her fears, a criminal would have gone scot-free and would then perpetrate more crimes.

"However, in the story, we discover how she musters up courage, how she defeats all her past traumas and her current fears to create a better future for more ordinary women who could have been prey to a psychopath."

This show highlights the refusal to talk about your past traumas publicly.

"Through this show, I hope Audible listeners will discover their own inner strength. They would muster up the courage to speak against the wrongs that have been done to them. The effort that the authors and the writer-director have put into convincing ordinary people to become their own champion, is what stood out to me and it's very special to me in that show," adds the actress.

While talking about the preparation she has done for this show and her role, Geetika asserts: "I had been reading stories to myself since childhood and a lot of stories were told to me somehow. The execution of emotions via voice was to a great degree ingrained in my system. And then because I've said that I've been an Audible listener for so long, I have a very sensitive ear that picks up on even the slightest deviation or change in the voice pattern."

She goes on: "Also, I have done substantial work for different brands, where the narrative would never be so long, but you would need to articulate in one line, you would need to execute it in four lines. So it did not need special preparation in terms of executing things via voice. I needed to do my best."

The actress further elaborates about the challenges while recording and getting into the character.

She reveals: "Some areas where one had to work were making the accent sound authentic. So I, who naturally has a polished accent, had to speak for a character whose accent is not polished. I had to be sensitive towards giving the character due respect and not making it sound uneducated because illiteracy and being not educated are two different things. So, to give due respect to an emotional grace to a character while you make the accent sound correct was something that we were very careful towards."

"Sometimes for an audio platform or an audio creation, you have that one person reading out all the other lines, You are alone in your studio, feeling how you would react to certain things. So being alone and reading out the entire character can be a challenge of sorts.

"Even though the character I played used to exhaust me emotionally, creative producer Ronnie Dcosta's therapeutic techniques always came in handy. And then the director Ganesh would be online with his zoom meetings from his fields. And then he would say 'look at the chickens, look at this, look at my babies or look at the happy sky, that five or 10-minute breaks looking at nature would allow us to gather strength for the next episode."

On the work front she will be doing two web shows that have been shot.

"My upcoming web show, which is slated to release on May 6 is called 'Escape Live' and another is my feature film that tickles a funny bone . It's called 'Tera Kya Hoga Lovely?' And another web show called 'Radical', which again is on a lighter side of life, is slated to release this year. We will get to see another show called 'Oldboy' is what we'll be starting to shoot for so that by that they will be editing on the sets. So that'll be out by the end of this year," she concludes.

'Psycho Saiyaan' is available on Audible.