Barkha Singh was only 10 when she was picked out of a crowd of 700-odd aspiring artistes to play a young Kareena Kapoor Khan in Mujhse Dosti Karoge!. It was expected to be her big break—it was a Yash Raj film after all, and she would be the next star in the making. Far from it. Singh continued with her studies and earned a Master’s in Sociology. But showbiz came calling a second time. She was offered a TV role in Yeh Hai Aashiqui. This time she decided to take the plunge. Her OTT resume today boasts of hits such as Please Find Attached, Engineering Girls and Murder Meri Jaan, which is getting rave reviews on Disney+Hotstar. She plays a con woman who ends up getting hitched to a cop, and begins solving murder cases together.
“I had to choose between a regular job and acting, I chose acting. After doing some TV serials, I discovered OTT. Their content is very relatable for someone my age. I started by doing videos for FilterCopy, and subsequently did long-format shows,” she recalls. She got to work with Manoj Bajpayee in Silence (Zee5). It is one of the most memorable experiences of her career. Singh plays a primary school teacher who ends up dead under mysterious circumstances. Bajpayee investigates the case.
“Playing dead is tough! During one shot while Bajpayee was looking around at the murder scene in character, he burst out laughing because my eyes kept shifting,” she rolls her eyes. He gave her an important tip—always look down instead of up, because rolling up your eyes causes a lot of strain. “It was a simple piece of advice, which came in extremely handy,” she says.
An avid travel vlogger, Singh has a whopping 2.4 million followers on Instagram and 3.06 lakh subscribers on YouTube. Her social media handles picked up during her MTV show Girls On Top (2016). While travelling to places such as Los Angeles, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Copenhagen and more, she started documenting and uploading her journey on her YouTube channel. As they started garnering traction, many tourism boards reached out to her, taking her profile to the next level. Life was one beautiful flight till the pandemic literally grounded her.
Social media showers her both with appreciation from followers and toxic trolling. Singh shrugs off the negativity, “On the net, people can hide behind a screen and there is lack of accountability. I’m open to criticism and try not to get bothered too much by negative views. You can’t troll a troll.”