Sheeba Chaddha
Image: Neha Mithbawkar for Forbes India
When Harshavardhan Kulkarni, Akshat Ghildial and Suman Adhikary were writing Badhaai Do, one of the most off-beat characters they’d written was that of the mother—Baby. They wanted her to not be a traditional Indian mother, which both the industry and the audience had seen a million times.“Baby was a reluctant and lazy mother, a role that was complicated. She was funny, yet not completely loony,” recalls Kulkarni. While writing, they were thinking that it was an extremely tough character to pull off, “Yeh kaun kar paayega [Who will manage to do this]?” Unanimously, they all said: Sheeba Chaddha.
The 49-year-old is one of the most versatile actors in the industry. Her work in six films in 2022 alone is testament to the same—Baby in Badhaai Do; Pam Hansraj in Maja Ma; Shobha Gupta in Doctor G; Sheela Thakurji in Khuda Haafiz: Chapter 2; Chikni Chudail in Phone Bhoot or Manju Gulati in Sharmaji Namkeen. “Sheeba can play any character,” says Rajesh Tailang, actor and Chaddha’s friend. “Be it an elite South Delhi or South Bombay woman or a village person. She can do anything!”