December of 2012 is etched as the darkest month in the country’s collective memory.  News channels and dailies laid down the gruesome details of a gangrape of a 23-year-old that took place in Munirka, Delhi.  Indo-Canadian filmmaker Richie Mehta took up the daunting task of recreating a cinematic version of the events and the investigation that led to the death sentence of the culprits. The seven-part web series, Delhi Crime, can be viewed on Netflix and features actors such as Shefali Shah, Rasika Duggal, Adil Hussain, Rajesh Tailang among others.

Based on the aftermath and the subsequent manhunt of the perpetrators of the case, Shefali plays the role of the lead female police officer.

Talking about how difficult it was to play a real-life cop, Shefali says, “ I met Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Chayaa [Sharma] ma’am once for a coffee and I was in awe of her. She was so humble and always available on the phone or over messages if I had any queries about the case. Playing a real-life character is always difficult, especially in a story which is so sensitive. It comes with an immense sense of responsibility and has to be carried out with a lot of precision. My director had done a lot of research, so the series is loaded with facts, but the emotional intensity I brought to the character are all my own.”

Even though the series portrayed actual events and characters, their backstories and names were fictionalised. In fact, Delhi Police Station House Officer (SHO) Anil Sharma is reported to have sued the filmmaker for a “derogatory” portrayal of his character. When asked about any biases towards the police, the 46-year-old actor says, “Our series focuses on the investigation of the case and not on any other aspect. We haven’t dealt with the psyche of the criminals or other things because we wanted to focus on the facts and the events that occurred. It is a cinematic version, so there will be some fictional interpretation of things. A lot of things are open-ended. At the end of the day we all know what happened in the case. Our idea was to make something gripping despite the audience knowing the entire story.”  
Shefali, who rose to fame in the 90’s through television shows such as Banegi Apni Baat, Sea Hawks and Hasratein, has not been seen on the tube recently. 

“The content on Indian television does not excite me anymore. The roles being offered to me in the last decade were not interesting even though I started my career in it. The stories are so far from reality unlike the television content in the 90s. Television was booming at that point in time. So, it was a conscious decision for me to move away from working in the television industry. In fact, I don’t even watch TV anymore.

I only see content-streaming platforms and I am a big movie buff,” she shares.
Her character in Delhi Crime is a strong female police woman who balances work and family with equal deftness. She believes “women have been multi-taskers” since ages but more often than not they are shown to be one-dimensional when portrayed cinematically.  “We need more multi-layered characters. Women have been juggling their careers and personal lives but that is rarely ever shown on screen,” she says. I In her recent works such as 

Juice (short film), Dil Dhadakne Do (comedy film) and now Delhi Crime, Shefali has been shown to play roles closer to her age. So, has Bollywood opened up to roles for older women? “The film industry is definitely evolving.

I am being offered characters that are my age, so I connect with them more. These days there are stories of real heroines such as the movie, Tumhari Sulu which featured Vidya Balan. Bollywood has definitely evolved in terms of women’s characters,” she concludes.