Meet Ramanujan’s wife on screen - Devika Bhise

Hyderabad: Indo-American actress Devika Bhise attributes her successful career to the Indian side of her personality. She has recently bagged the role of Srinivasa Ramanujan’s wife, Janaki, in Matthew Brown’s upcoming biopic, The Man Who Knew Infinity. “It is a biopic of the mathematics wizard, Ramanujan. Dev Patel will be playing the role of Ramanujan and I am playing Janaki, his wife. While researching for my character, I found Janaki’s life quite fascinating,” says the actress.

Devika, a graduate from John Hopkins University, will be soon flying down to Chennai to shoot her part in the Hollywood project. Interestingly, she also played the role of goddess Namagiri in The Partition, a play based on Robert Kanigel’s book The Man Who Knew Infinity. “My meeting with Kanigel at Cambridge University gave me more insights into and a deeper understanding of Janaki’s personality post Ramanujan’s death. He met Janaki when she was a lot older. I got a sense of who she was through him.”

She adds, “Janaki was much ahead of her time. She was a lady with progressive thoughts. It would take a lot of courage to send your husband to Cambridge in those days, knowing that it would be hard on your personal life.” Devika, 23, is also a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and Hindustani classical and jazz vocalist. She speaks English, Hindi, Marathi, French and Italian and has portrayed a variety of interesting characters so far. “My extensive training in Bharatanatyam helped me understand the cultural intricacies of the Tamilian Brahmin Iyengar community to which Ramanujan and Janaki belonged.

I also learnt about the culture, the Sanskrit shlokas, the body language and the language of Iyenger Brahmins, to help me do justice to my character,” she shares. Excited to share the screen with Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons, who plays Ramanujan’s mentor, G.H. Hardy in the film, she adds, “It is a dream come true to share the screen with veteran actor Jeremy Irons. I have grown up watching and admiring his films.”

She also acted in 2008 film The Accidental Husband, co-starring Uma Thurman and Anamika: Her Glorious Past. “It was a small yet significant part in The Accidental Husband and helped me a lot in improving my acting skills,” she says. Devika is also looking forward to shooting with Dev Patel. “I met him at Cambridge and we spent time getting to know one another. It’s very important to understand your co-star before you start a project,” she adds.

Born and raised in New York, Devika has been singing, acting, and performing since the age of 5. “My love for dance was never limited to Bharata-natyam and gradually as a teenager I started pursuing jazz, hip-hop and salsa. I grew up listening to legends like as Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. Jazz also gave me the opportunity to perform solo jazz concerts across the world.”