ALL EYES ON RASHA THADANI

No one saw it coming, but it's happening. From being the star kid who the paps had zilch access to, to gearing up for her silver-screen debut, Rasha Thadani has adulted and how. In her debut cover interview (ever), the 19-year-old talks about the before, the after, and more...

- Simi Kuriakose

She’s just shy of 20!?—I think to myself prior to the interview. My brain automatically goes into the ‘Let’s break it down...what do we know about Gen Z?’ mode. But before I know it, Rasha confirms: there’s a reason why assumptions aren’t facts. As we chat for the next 50 minutes or so, I find myself improvising on the questions I have prepped for her. Why? Because behind that ‘I’m just a teenager’ vibe, Rasha’s an old-school at heart; it is almost as if she’s half-a-millennial trapped in a Gen Z mind. Midway through the interview, I think to myself, if we get the time to play a game of ‘How well do you know the lyrics to everything from the Backstreet Boys’ to Whitney Houston’s songs?’, Rasha will (probably) beat me to it. Even her maturity rivals most her age—or, at times, those older than her as well.

In all likelihood, it is because a lot has happened even before she graduated from high school. From being superstar Raveena Tandon’s daughter who the shutterbugs had zero access to, Rasha was suddenly in the public eye—the paparazzi seem to love her given she throws in a quip or two at them as they follow her everywhere from the salon to her dance studio. Then, there were talks about her debuting alongside south Indian superstar and producer, Ram Charan, a national sensation after the film, RRR (2022), which won the S2023 Academy Award for Best Original Song.