Maanvi Gagroo has stayed away from films for nearly seven years because she refused to compromise and be part of stories that don’t do justice to female characters. “Often, I got excited by the one-line idea of a story, but when I got the script and read the dialogues, I felt they were written by men because [they didn’t seem] to even understand how women talk. Women often get misrepresented in shows and movies,” she shares.

Maanvi Gagroo on the set of ‘Heer Sara Aur Pondicherry’

Naturally, when Heer Sara Aur Pondicherry came her way, Gagroo asked for the script after being sold on the idea of “two girls on a bike trip to Pondicherry”. “The minute I read the dialogues, I was [relieved]. Kartik [Chaudhry, director] told me to add if they’d missed out on anything because, being a woman, mine is a lived-in experience,” recalls Gagroo, adding that she shared a few suggestions during the scripting. “I told them that one of the issues women face [on a road trip] is the lack of hygienic and safe washrooms. You have to carry wet tissues, seat sanitiser. So, they added that. It felt like a collaborative process.”