Despite having only one-third women actors, the show Porus, ensures that all of them stand out. SANGEETA YADAV speaks to them about what it takes to play such powerful roles in a serial helmed by a male lead

From being victims of a brutal world, facing sexual harassment and being stereotyped, to transforming into confident fighters, women on Sony Entertainment TV’s new flagship show Porus are bold and beautiful.

Incidentally, Porus is the most expensive show ever to be made for TV and it narrates the story of the greatest conqueror of the world, Alexander and the greatest defender Porus. Set in 350 BC, the story will trace its roots to India and bring alive ancient India’s and Greece’s great warriors. It’ll unfold the journey from birth till the epic battle of these two legendary warriors born on the same day but raised in completely different terrains. The two different worlds will showcase some strong-headed women too and how they brought up these warriors to rule the world.

A mother of God Zues’s son Alexander, Queen Olympias from Macedonia is the most important character in the show who will showcase the plight of women in Greek society during those times. “Playing Princess Olympias was tough. In the opening scene itself, she is shown being raped and treated as trophy wife that was quite prevalent in ancient Greek culture. But as the story unfolds, she transforms into a much stronger woman. She refuses to be treated like a trophy and considers herself as a superior race. She believes that the world should be ruled by only one king and there should be no war and no women should ever bear the brunt of it. She reflects how women can be perfect homemakers and also have the sensibilities to be great rulers,” Samika Singh says.

Talking about playing a mother to Alexander, Singh says: “Olympias will be more of a guide and teacher than a mother to Alexander in the show and will constantly make him realise the purpose of ruling the world and being immortal by conquering it. That the people should know him by his name and have god-like status.”

The queen of Dasyus Mahanandini is Olympias’ counterpart, an influential character that ruled Dasyus kingdom, a city on water inhabited by Pirates, where Porus and lachi grew up. Played by Shraddha Musale, Mahanandini’s character too has a background story. “Having gone through a tough time and being discriminated against by the rich, Mahanandani transforms into a tough ruler of the kingdom. In Dasyus, the power lies with the women and she is the ruler, decision-maker and fighter. They are brutal as well and attack the travellers and take away all the wealth,” Musale says.

To get into the skin of the character took months of training and all the actresses were put through dialect training to get the right accent and trained for horse riding, swimming, sword fighting, rowing and much more. But the most important thing was to feel like a princess.

“To play a queen, you have to think and be like a queen in your subconscious mind because the camera magnifies all the weaknesses and the strength of the actor. There are only one-third women in the show, every woman stands out as ambitious and powerful. After rigourous training, I have become much more confident. It made me realise that there is a fighter in me and I am passionately pursuing mixed martial arts as a hobby,” Musale tells you.

In the matriarchal world, Mahanandini brings up her younger daughter lachi like a warrior who later gets married to Porus. The third main woman in the show, played by Suhani Dhanki, has been envisioned by Siddharth Kumar Tewary. “lachi is a very beautiful sweet princess and a strong-headed warrior. Being the pirate kingdom’s princess, she is trained to do everything. I am hydrophobic and since there were many water sequences in the show, I had to undergo proper training to overcome my fear,” Dhanki shares.

The show will also have an occult influence for which a lot of VFX have been used. “Since Olympias believed in the occult and used to live with a lot of snakes, you will get to see snakes crawling around me on this show. To make out whether it a real snake or VFX, wait for the show,” Singh says.