A woman doesn’t need a man's surname to earn respect in society: Barkha Bisht

Star Plus’ ambitious project Naamkarann, helmed by Mahesh Bhatt has been receiving rave reviews from all quarters. The Guroudev Bhalla and Dhaval Gada productions daily is a takeoff from Mahesh Bhatt’s life and brings forward the tale of how ‘the name of a father’ is most important for a child to find identity in the society. Based on Bhatt camp’s national award winning project Zakhm, it stars Barkha Bisht, Viraf Patel and young Arsheen Namdar in lead roles. Naamkarann has been beautifully showcasing its story and the current track is focussing on how Ashish (Viraf) who has had a long affair with Aisha (Barkha, rechristened herself to Asha, to help her get access to her Hindu boyfriend family. The dramatic sequence is surely keeping audience hooked. With the storyline giving hints that a wife needs to also take up her husband’s surname to be not shunned upon, is quite a debatable subject. Barkha spoke about the same at the launch of the show. “I honestly believe that a woman should be identified on her own grounds. She doesn’t need a man’s name to make her respectable in the society. A woman is strong enough to have her own individuality and that I think everyone should understand,” she said. When we countered her saying that she recently added her husband’s (Indraneil Sengupta) surname to hers and is now usually named as Barkha Bisht Sengupta, the gorgeous actress smiled and said, “Yes, I did but I don’t believe in the custom. It wasn’t forceful but for a specific reason. And most importantly it hasn’t changed me as a person; I am still the same Barkha Bisht. Also I took it up quite recently although we have been married for eight years now.” Well that says quite a lot!